What’s The Difference Between Losing Weight And Losing Fat?

Why Focusing On Losing Weight And Losing Fat Is A Mistake

When you’re on a weight loss mission, you naturally feel over the moon when the numbers on the weighing scale drop. But, what exactly is being lost? Is it muscle, fat, water weight or all three of them?

The truth is, a weighing scale simply can’t shed light as to what changes are happening within your body. And, this is why you should stop basing the success of your weight loss plan on how much you weigh.

What you should do instead is focus more on fat loss than weight loss.

So, what’s the difference between losing weight and losing fat? Let’s look at the difference between these two outcomes and why fat loss is better than weight loss.

What’s The Difference Between Losing Weight And Losing Fat?

The body is made of several components. These include muscle, fat, water, bones, organs, and other tissues. Exercise and diet tend to have a direct impact on the muscle, fat, and water parts of the body. Therefore, depending on what you eat and how often you exercise, you can lose, gain, or manage your current water, muscle, and body fat percentages.

The difference with losing weight and losing fat is that with weight loss, you’ll be losing fat along with muscle mass and water. Fat loss on the other hand, simply entails losing only the stored excess fat in the body.

Why You Should Focus More on Fat Loss and Not Weight Loss

Weight loss is possible. Anybody willing to put in the effort can do it. Simply follow a low calorie diet and start engaging in regular intense physical activity and you’ll find yourself losing weight. Unfortunately, losing weight in this way means that you will lose both muscle and fat as well as any extra water in the body.

Not only is this unhealthy but it also puts you at a greater risk of gaining back all lost weight and more. This is why fitness experts suggest that you should aim at losing fat and not just mere ‘weight’. What’s more, fat loss leaves you looking younger and more attractive. It also boosts your fitness level, increases your strength and improves your overall health.

Free Report: 15-Minute Fitness Workouts
 
The best part of focusing more on fat loss however is the fact that you get to prevent muscle loss. Muscles offer 2 key benefits that help with fat loss. These include:

• Higher fat burning potential: Muscles contain these tiny fat-burning powerhouses referred to as mitochondria. These perform the all-important task of metabolizing fat. Generally, the more mitochondria you have, the greater your body’s ability to burn fat. So, if you want to be successful at shedding excess fat, it’s vital that you preserve muscle or even gain some.
• Increased metabolism: Body muscle is active tissue that requires constant energy to maintain itself. So, the more the muscle percentage in your body, the greater the amount of energy your body will need just to function properly. This high demand on energy will see the body burn fat constantly at all times even when you are sleeping.

With the metabolism boosting and higher fat burning benefits of muscles, it’s obvious that muscles are essential if you want to get into proper shape. So, make it a point to focus more on reducing body fat rather than losing weight along with muscle mass when you decide to overcome being overweight.

The key to losing fat while maintaining muscle is to simply eat healthy as well as engage in both strength and cardio training. The scale might show no changes or even an increase in body weight while losing fat and building lean mass. However, as long as you are losing fat and gaining back the weight in muscle, you’re well on your way to being healthy and enjoying improved fitness and body physique.

Is Your Metabolism Dangerous For Your Health? 

In order to change how you look, you’ll need to change the way you live. The end goal shouldn’t just be fat loss. It should be living a healthier life. But what you did when you were 20 to stay fit and healthy isn’t appropriate when you’re over 35. Without knowing your metabolic type, your food and exercise choices may actually be dangerous for your health. Although they may seem like healthy choices on the surface, they could be damaging your metabolism and forcing you to gain weight. Take a moment to answer these 11 simple questions (each takes just 3 seconds to answer), and you’ll discover your specific metabolic type and the best exercises and foods to suit you.