The festive season is nearly finished and you might be tempted to step on the scale to see how many extra pounds you’ve gained and how many you’re hoping to lose.
Whatever you do, don’t start to panic. You ate what you ate, and you may or may not have kept up with your exercising. If there was any time of the year to sit back and enjoy life a little, it was now! If it’s any reassurance, you’re not alone!!!
Now the festive season has passed and the New Year is around the corner. But before you step on the scale and start to panic about the extra pudge around your belly – concocting an immediate “weight loss” diet of water and kale – let’s get a couple of facts straight.
Weight loss vs. Fat loss
We’re going to break down a hot topic term here which people seem to use interchangeably. “Weight-loss vs. fat-loss.”
Weight Loss – means lowering your body-weight, this includes the weight of your organs, bones, muscles, body fat, water, etc.
Fat Loss – means lowering the amount of body fat your body carries.
Misled by the Scale
There is a huge difference between losing fat and losing weight. For the average person, your goal should be to lose fat, not weight. Most people are misled by the scale and focus way too much on how much they weigh.
When you lose weight, you lose fat, muscle, fluids, etc. So, if your focus is seeing those lbs drop when stepping on the scale you may be losing important muscle – not fat.
Of course, in some cases, such as obesity, your goal is to also lose weight, but you want the majority of your weight loss to be fat, not weight.
Measuring your body fat according to the scale alone is an inefficient way to tell if you need to lose extra body fat. Another thing to consider is that muscle weighs more than fat, which means if you’re toning up and building muscle, chances are you may step on the scale and be surprised that you’re heavier than when you started. This is because you gained valuable muscle.
Replace Your Scale with Weights and Look Healthy
If you are seriously obese then you may want to keep the scales close by to monitor your general weight loss goal. But if you want to want to look and feel healthy put away those scales and pick up some weights!
Losing weight alone can leave you looking “skinny fat” because you have no muscle tone underneath for the skin to stick to. Start lifting weights and focus on losing fat and building muscle instead of losing weight!