Lose fat, not "weight!"

It's right there in the language that we're being inundated with day in and day out by the media, doctors, friends and relatives, telling overweight people that they need to "lose weight." What people really need to lose is body fat, and there's a distinct difference.

There is no problem with "weight" in and of itself. The simple act of analyzing your body mass by stepping on a scale is not the way to judge whether you're healthy or not. The real issue at hand is how much of your body mass is comprised of fatty tissue, since this is the real culprit in diabetes, heart disease, cancer and other illnesses. So the goal is to decrease body fat, not simply drop weight.

Lets look at an example.

Say you have two women who are both 5'3" and weigh 150 pounds. Now lets assume that one of them has 12% body fat, and the other has 33% body fat.

Since 12% is a very normal body fat percentage for a woman there is no problem. This woman has mostly lean tissue (muscle, tendons, bones, organs, etc.) and a very small percentage of fatty tissue and the fact that she's 150 pounds is not a detriment to her health at all. Should she lose weight? That is a matter of personal preference, but looked at purely in terms of her health -- no.

On the other hand, 33% body fat is very high. It means that 1/3rd of the body's mass, 50 pounds, is comprised of fatty tissue. This means that there's extra strain on the cardiovascular and respiratory systems, and there's increased risk of developing Type II diabetes and cancer, amongst other diseases. Should this woman lose weight to achieve better health? Yes, but that should be achieved by reducing the body fat percentage, and not just looking at the numbers on the scale.

Here's what I mean. Say this woman goes on a diet that makes her lose 20 pounds in 4 months and she's now down to 130 pounds. All's good now, correct? Well, not exactly. When most people try to lose weight they're not concerned with maintaining or increasing their muscle mass. They just want to see the pounds come off.

So lets say that of the 20 pounds lost 10 were fat and 10 were muscle, since there was no effort made to preserve muscle mass (and this is a very realistic split. In fact, she might've lost even more muscle). Now this lady has 40 pounds of fat and 90 pounds of lean tissue, compared to 50 and 100 before, respectively. Even though her weight decreased 20 pounds, her body fat percentage only dropped 2 points to 31%. She still has all of the health risks she had back when her body weight was 150 pounds.

Worse yet, the ratio of fat:muscle has worsened considerably, since the 90 pounds of remaining "lean tissue" are mostly comprised of bones, organs, bodily fluids and an ever dwindling amount of muscle.

I think that you're begining to see that it's important to make sure that you maintain, and often increase, your muscle mass as you try to lose "weight" to improve your health or aethetics. Muscles act as a "furnace" for calories within the body, increasing your metabolism and making you burn more calories at rest, when you're doing nothing.

On top of that, when you exercise you stimulate your muscles and this increases your muscular metabolism as well, causing the stimulated tissue to burn more calories for several more hours or days. Eating sufficient protein to maintain and increase your muscle mass is also important.

Basically, the more lean tissue, and specifically muscle, you have, the better your body is at burning calories and the easier it is to be lean and stay lean.

Going back to our example of the lady who lost 20 pounds, lets assume that instead of just trying to lose weight, she exercised and had sufficient protein consumption to maintain and increase muscle mass. During the same 4 month period she'd now probably lose 24 pounds of fat and gain 6 pounds of muscle, resulting in a bodyweight of 132 pounds, but the ratio would be 26 pounds of fat and 106 pounds of lean tissue, making her now 19.7% body fat (26/132*100), as opposed to 30.7% when just trying to lose weight.

So stop worrying about losing weight and concentrate on losing body fat. You'll be healthier, feel and look better, have more energy, be stronger and will be setting yourself up for long term success.