Lose Weight Vs Lose Fat - Is There a Difference? You Bet!

Some people call it losing weight while others call it losing fat and many use the terms weight loss and fat loss interchangeably. Do they mean the same thing? To many people, they do mean the same thing. But they are entirely different. You must know the difference if you want to lose weight or lose fat effectively. When you step onto your bathroom scale every morning, what you will be reading from the scale is weight loss and not fat loss. Bath room scales are never accurate in determining fat loss.

Why? Because it measures your weight and not your fat. If you weigh yourself in the morning before breakfast after your bowel movement, you will probably get your lowest reading of the day because your body is dehydrated through hours of non fluid replenishment and after emptying your bowels when more water and wastes are flushed away you are lighter. After a night of sleep and thus not eating, your carbohydrate store is running low and therefore you are even lighter. What happened? You just loss weight not loss fat! Your fats are still there while the weight of other substances is depleted.

After dinner, go weigh yourself again when you are fully replenished through meals and consumption of water you, will probably weigh 2kg or more heavier and that is at least 4.4 pounds! You just gained weight and may even gained fats!

Why must you know the difference? Because for most of us, especially those who are on the fat side wants to lose fat and not necessarily want to lose weight. Getting the drift?

Now for the more important part (see my other article: Burn the Fats and Keep Them off Permanently!), weight loss may cause you to lose muscles and in turn, make you gain fat later. Yes, it is ironical. That is because the more muscles you have, the more you burn fat effectively because muscles is a live and active tissue and it requires calories to function. Fats just sit there doing nothing. So the less muscles you have, the less calories your body will burn. The fewer calories your body burns, more calories ended up being stored as fats! Therefore it is important to lose fat but not lose weight which may include the loss of muscular tissues.

How is it that a person may lose muscles on a weight loss program? Well for starters, we commonly hear about people going on this diet and that diet. Most diets demand a severe restriction of food or calorie intake. Your body will then signal to your mind that you are in a starvation mode and the body is designed to store fat for the impending famine and uses up your muscles as its energy for your activities.

Some diets advocate a severe cut in carbohydrate. Carbohydrate is your body's first source of energy. When your body is depleted of carbohydrate, it turns to your protein (muscles) and fats indiscriminately for energy. Now to make matters worse, because of less carbohydrate you have eaten, that will also mean fewer calories and that again will signal the onset of starvation mode and what happens? The vicious cycle of your body cannibalizing its own muscles starts again. The same applies to people on slimming pills or salon fat loss programs.

So some people say ok, Chris, I see your point, so I will just do plenty of cardio exercises to lose weight. Another grave mistake. Have you ever wondered why marathon runners, those who run many kilometers often and are doing cardio exercises almost everyday are so skinny with no muscle tone? Because your body is a wonderful machine. It is designed to adapt. When you run or skip or swim long enough, it will say, look, I better get lighter so that I can take the stress better and improve the endurance. Guess what? Your muscles are heavier than fats and what will your body shed more when it gets lighter? Muscles or fats? Your body will shed both but more muscles than fats.

Anyway, why would you want to lose weight only to become a smaller you with the same body shape without muscle tone? Why would you want to be on a lose weight program that eats your muscles and lower your fat burning rate so much so that when you are off the program, the fats come piling back on again?

Therefore, while you are on a lose weight program, you must also be on a building muscle program (see my other article : Build Muscles and Smash Plateau For Beginners ). That will mean a combination of correct dietary habit, cardio exercises and weight lifting exercises to maintain muscle preservation and fat loss result.

From now on tell people you are on a fat loss program and not a weight loss program. That you are choosing correct eating habits instead of just simply dieting.

With the distinction clearly in mind, you will then know how to lose fat effectively, preserve and grow your muscles and at the same time losing weight on your bathroom scale. That would be an ideal way to achieve your weight loss objective because you will lose fats instead of muscles. SFO

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