Don't Confuse Weight Loss With Fat Loss

In general, most people want to lose weight. I did. There is a fundamental difference between losing weight and losing fat. What people should really be focusing on is losing body fat, not body weight. Let me explain.

Lets say you are a male and weight 100lbs and are relatively lean at 18% body fat. That means you have 18lbs of fat on your body. If you lose 5lbs of weight and still have 18lbs of body fat, now you're at 18.9% body fat, you actually gained fat and lost muscle. This works for anybody, I just used easy round numbers for illustration purposes. So, how does one only lose muscle and not fat when they lose weight? Easy, they cut their calories too much and generally do too much exercise. This is a dangerous cycle that will cause you to plateau and get frustrated and hungry and tired. Once you plateau, you will either have to exercise more or cut your calories more to break the plateau, but once your body adapts to your new routine, you'll have to do the same thing again.

This was the loop I was stuck in until I was taught the proper way to exercise and how to feed my body correctly. Your body is amazing and will adapt to almost anything you throw at it, which can make things difficult sometimes. If you cut your calories and exercise constantly, it will adapt by cutting muscle and storing fat since muscle burns more calories. On the other hand, if you feed your body at least what it needs (hopefully a little more) and regularly lift weights, your body will realize and adapt to see it needs muscle and that it's ok to keep it since its getting enough food. It will speed up the metabolism and burn more calories and build more muscle.

In my case, (Male, 165lbs, 5'9") I was stuck at a plateau eating about 1500 calories per day and exercising, mainly cardio roughly 8 hours per week on top of my regular job. Once I was taught how and why to change, I started eating 3100 calories per day and only did strength training for about 4 hours per week and cut out all cardio. The real kicker is, I lost body fat and leaned out for 3 straight months all while eating double the calories and exercising less. My body fat went from about 19% to 15.8% in 3 months. Now, I said I lost body fat, I didn't lose weight though, the scale stayed the same because I was gaining muscle at the same time.

The Takeaway

You want to focus on reducing your body fat percentage, not your overall weight for a more healthy lifestyle. I can help you do that!