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Weight Loss is Not the Same as Fat Loss

 

The real problem with losing weight in general, is that the focus is on totally the wrong thing. You don’t actually want to lose weight, what you want to lose is fat. When you lose fat the weight takes care of itself. It truly doesn’t matter what you weigh, as long as your mirror reflects back to you a body that pleases you.

When you focus on losing fat rather than weight, the waistline takes care of itself. If you build muscle at the same time, then body-shape moves towards what looks attractive all by itself. Your body knows how to look good. It just can’t manage it when you cover it in fat.

Does that mean throw away the scales?

No, the scales can be a useful tool as long as you remember what they are measuring – total body weight. Pound for pound, muscle takes up one-fifth less space than fat. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but it makes a huge difference. Muscle tissue is also smoother and less ‘lumpy’ than fat so replacing fat with muscle gives the body a smoother look.

Businesses like Weight Watchers focus on reducing body weight by doing a weekly weigh-in. The start of a diet often produces a dramatic weight loss in the first week or two – this is hugely encouraging – and the likes of Weight Watchers use this to convince you that what they do works. In fact it is mostly water loss and that happens when you drastically reduce calorie intake, or change the kinds of food you eat. Of course once the water is gone, you suffer dehydration, drink more, and in subsequent weeks struggle to lose weight. But that early success has you hooked on that Weight Loss System and you are subtly encouraged to feel that your failure is actually all down to you – not the flawed Weight Loss System you are using.

Even if you are aware of the body fat problem and use a scale that measures body fat, you are likely to be misled. These scales work by measuring the electrical resistance of your body and using that information to carry out a body fat percentage calculation. The trouble is that electrical resistance is affected by the amount of water in your body and so as you lose a lot of water at the beginning of a diet you can be fooled into thinking that you have lost body fat.

We tend to believe numbers and electronic gizmos without question – especially when we have spent a lot of money on a hi-tec body fat measuring scale like the Tanita BC-587 that costs around £300. The truth is that these devices are wildly inaccurate and not worth spending your money on.

A much cheaper option to gauge body fat is the mirror you probably already have in your bedroom.

 

Normal body fat percentages for women

Body Builder 8-9%

Female Athlete 18-20%

Normal 25% – 30%

Obese 30%+


Normal body fat percentages for men

Body Builder 3-4%

Male Athlete 10%

Normal 18% – 25%

Obese 25%+

 

How you look is a pretty good guide and once you are over the 30% it’s going to be hard, but worthwhile, work to get that number down.

Still it’s nice to have some numbers and to keep a record so that when you feel the urge to eat there is something to look at to keep you motivated.

One the cheapest solutions for measuring body fat is a set of body fat callipers like the Accu Measure which is only around a fiver (plus postage). With these you grab a lump of skin around your hips and use this simple piece of equipment to measure the thickness of the skin fold. This then allows you to calculate your body fat percentage. Or if that is too complicated just use it to keep track of the skin thickness measurement and watch it shrink as you lose fat.

Measuring skin fat, and focusing on building muscle, as you lose weight guarantees that the weight lost is fat and not muscle. So you get a much greater reward for your efforts at changing your eating habits.

And if you want an easy way to change those eating habits for good then check out my book How to Lose Weight Easily and Free Yourself from Diets Forever which sets out 10 easy steps to set you on the right track to permanent weight loss without any food restrictions. If you are curious about how you can eat what you want and still lose weight then check it out.

For an in-depth look at this subject:

http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2012/07/02/body-fat-percentage/

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Weigh Loss and the Real World

I read a lot of studies and reports about weight loss. A quick browse through this blog will find my comments on some of them. What happens when a new weight loss study is announced is that the media jump on it and you get headlines like:

How to lose weight while chowing down at work

Team sports help teens stay fit

The secret to weight loss? Pen and Paper

Weight-loss keys: Food journals, eating in, not skipping meals

Artificial sweeteners no silver bullet for losing weight

And the whole thing, whether or not it’s valuable information, is hyped up and made into something much more than it really is. I’ve also noticed that much of the research merely provides evidence for what I’ve known and been teaching for many years now, so I’m not often surprised by the findings.

But let me tell you why this study information sometimes needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.

There are four main areas that we need to be concerned with for weight loss:

  1. Non-pharmaceutical weight loss products
  2. Pharmaceutical weight loss products
  3. Behaviour i.e. eating patterns & activity
  4. Fat clubs e.g. Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig…

Non-pharmaceutical Weight loss products

This is the likes of Acai, Hoodia, teas, slimming drinks, patches, and all of the incredibly expensive products provided for people who think the solution to eating too much and not exercising enough is a tablet or a magic drink. This is the territory of the Health-Food shop/web site. Now I have to say I have absolutely no experience with any of these products, so if you’ve had good results using them, and you’ve kept the weight off, then let me know below. My gut feeling is that they are a waste of money and sales owe more to the skill of the advertisers than to any efficacy they possess.

Pharmaceutical weight loss products

There are not a lot of pharmaceutical weight loss products around but two are about to receive FDA approval: Belviq and Qnexa. They are both, in my opinion, attempts by the manufacturers to make $ billions rather than any serious attempt at providing a safe weight loss product. The stock of both the manufacturing companies went up through the roof as soon as they passed the first stage of FDA approval. Qnexa was originally rejected by the FDA two years ago, but I understand that the manufacturer spent a lot of money to convince the FDA panel that they should reconsider.

Both drugs contain components from an earlier weight loss drug that was withdrawn for safety reasons, and so they should be causing serious concern about the side-effects. But it seems the FDA is happy for the long-term safety trials to take place after approval. The benefit of using the drugs (in terms of weight lost) is so small when compared with known safe methods that they are just not worth the risk. Nevertheless as soon as they pass the final FDA hurdle (which they undoubtedly will) they will be prescribed in their billions by overworked doctors who will be grateful that they can spend two minutes printing a prescription, rather than providing counselling, education, and advice; alongside real help, support and encouragement.

Behaviour

Behaviour is the area of interest of most of the studies. Psychological studies (and that’s what they are) require volunteers. Volunteers need to be informed about the subject area of the study. So you know you are signing up for a weight loss study. In order to do that you have probably given up trying to lose weight without help, and you are probably quite motivated because they are going to ask you to do stuff and you are going to have to comply – because that’s what you agree with when you sign up. You are also in it with quite a few other people. You get the attention of the researchers. You get to feel that you are doing something worthwhile and helping others.

All of these things are motivational.

They are also not normal and not found in the real world of people struggling desperately to lose weight.

So, in part, studies are always studying themselves.

They create some circumstances and then test them out.

When you are given a diet plan and told to stick to it for 16 weeks as part of a study – most people will succeed. But give 100 people that same diet plan and never plan to contact them again and you’ll find almost no one stuck to the diet for the full 16 weeks, because that’s human nature. We behave differently when we know no one is watching and no one is checking up on us.

It doesn’t matter what is being studied, we behave differently when we know we are being watched. The most interesting studies are when the participants are lied to. For instance one study pretended to be about testing the flavour of different cookies and that’s what the participants thought they were doing, but they were actually being tested on how much they ate based on a drink they’d been given earlier to fill them up. Participants on a diet ate more cookies than those who were eating normally.

The real question that needs to be asked is ‘does this work in the real world’.

What seems to work in the real world is eating a little less, exercising a little more, and re-learning to listen to your body.

Fat Clubs

Fat clubs are the socially acceptable places where you go when you want company in your attempts to lose weight. They provide a social environment. Everyone has the same problem. They give you solutions. If you follow their guidelines you lose weight. But I get a lot of clients who’ve tried these places and they still come to me for help. Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Slimming World and the like do help you lose weight, but they use a dieting model, and dieting just doesn’t work long-term. You don’t sign up to these places for life. You sign up and stay until you either get fed-up with the classes, or reach your goal weight. Then you revert to your old-style eating patterns and before very long you are overweight again – only this time it’s much harder to shift the weight.

If you really want to know why it’s so much harder to shift the weight regained after a diet, and how you can lose it then read my book How to Lose Weight Easily and Free Yourself from Diets Forever to find out.

Michael