 By David Otto
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Confusing Language: Weight Loss Always Equals Fat Loss Right?
It's not easy being a Personal Trainer. It's as if we're from another country and speak a foreign language sometimes. The funny thing is that the words coming out of our mouths don't sound like some crazy gibberish to people. It sounds the same as the language they speak only that certain things are interpreted in a very different manner.
People believe they want "weight loss". I know they need "fat loss" but to them it means the same thing. I say fat loss you say weight loss; it's all the same right?
A woman wakes up each morning and performs the same ritual. After she gets out of the shower she proceeds to that almighty progress tool next to the toilet and with one foot and then the other she steps onto the…scale. She's lost 5 pounds in her first week of dieting which for her is elation. This woman wants to lose weight which in her mind equates to fat loss.
Now for the next story. I was doing some very serious thinking and eventually got depressed the other night with the whole physical decline of our nation. I decided something drastic needs to be done and I've decided to leave the Personal Training business and start up my own weight loss clinic. I've actually discovered a way to help people drop 5, 10, 15, are you ready…100 pounds in a single visit!
Amputation! If a person wants to lose 10 pounds I'll just have em down a fifth of Jack Daniels like in the old days and lop off part of a limb. They get on the scale and voila they weigh less. I'll just keep cuttin' until they've reached their desired weight. It's really that simple.
Absolutely absurd right? There's no way in the world you would ever see this happen and I'm quite sure it's not in most people's list of fitness goals they'd like to accomplish but they would weigh less wouldn't they? So why are people so wrapped up in what the scale says? Simple. The diet and weight loss industry has led people to believe that scale weight is what matters, that is what charts progress, the scale doesn't lie and weight loss equals exclusively fat loss.
Who knows what the scale is really telling us when you step on it at your latest visit to the diet center? If you said "all it tells you is how many pounds/ kilograms you weigh under gravity at any given moment" then you deserve a 9 pound box of oatmeal from Sam's Club. Yes, that's correct and a great gift by the way. The scale cannot distinguish between muscle, fat, water, bone, or organ mass so when you lose 5-7 pounds in your first week of dieting you probably know by now it's mostly water but in addition to some fat loss you've lost some muscle. At best the body will only lose 1-2 pounds of "fat" per week on an ongoing basis.
For this article to really mean anything then it's vital that you understand the importance of maintaining muscle tissue if "weight loss" is the goal. Muscle is metabolically active tissue meaning that it burns calories. Fat; well it's not quite dead tissue as some would have you believe but it's pretty darn close to being in the grave in that it burns very, very, very little calories. Muscle on the other hand comprises the bulk of your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) or the amount of calories you burn doing nothing. Muscle is the physical location where fat is burned and if you lose muscle then you gradually put your body in a state to where it's capable of burning fewer calories at any given time i.e. metabolism slows. And not only that, the breakdown of muscle due to cortisol sends a signal to your fat cells to store more fat once you "blow the diet" and go on a binge so i.e. you get fatter.
You might have heard stuff like "one pound of muscle burns 50 to 100 calories per day" from literally every trainer out there and honestly I'm not convinced. However, it does sound great to someone looking for "weight loss" who's hesitant to adding lean muscle to their body if they think it means "bulking up."
If you take an average 165 pound man with 15% body fat he would have approximately 140 lbs of lean mass which we usually associate with the amount of muscle someone has. Multiply 140 pounds times 50 calories/ day and you get 7000 calories burned per day from muscle alone. That's not even counting what your brain, heart, lungs, kidneys and liver burn and they do a fair amount. Digesting food is a big contributor as well. So does burning 7000 calories per day doing nothing sound logical? Nope but a more accurate "sounding" figure I've heard of is that muscle burns approximately 6 calories per day per pound.
Anyway, my point is that if long term "weight loss" is to be ongoing then muscle loss is a sure fire way to slow metabolism and stop "weight loss" in its tracks. The scale does in fact lie but far too many people give it way too much power over the way it makes them look and feel. If you lose 3 pounds and half of it is muscle are you moving in a positive direction? I'm sorry but the answer is no but when Judy steps on the scale and loses 4.25 pounds at the diet center you'll hear a round of applause.
So now you understand that a drop in scale weight doesn't always translate to "fat loss;" the terminology Personal Trainers use. Yes you might lose "some" fat but if the approach is flawed then you may be unknowingly slowing metabolism, "blow the diet" and then blame yourself for failing. I'm hoping the language barrier is being broken somewhat and we're coming to a mutual understanding.
I hear diet centers and T.V. shows like Celebrity Fit Club hold up the statement "The scale never lies" as if it is etched in platinum. You know, I guess they're right. If you lose a pound the scale won't lie to you and say you didn't. "Hey guys (the scale talking to its internal components). This guy gained 2 pounds this week. I mean what do we do? He was crushed 2 weeks ago when we said he didn't lose any weight. Imagine how he'll feel if we tell him he's gained weight. Hell, we'll just lie to him and say he didn't lose any. I guess it's better than telling him he gained weight right?"
Anyway, like I said before, the scale does in fact lie unless you know exactly what it is telling you. What I'm trying to convey here with this whole "language thing" is much like the issue with diets. People honestly and truly believe they want and need diets. I know it's a futile approach that will be met with failure about 97% of the time but I can't tell people that. That would make me just like everyone else out there just saying "diets are bad and you can't stick to them." There has to be a different approach. Not to get off track but diets are extremely profitable for the industry and keep people coming back because of the "it worked for me in the past or someone I know" phenomenon but in reality they find themselves going right back to the same flawed approach time and time again.
Getting back to the scale; the only time I find the scale has real value is when I'm conducting a body composition analysis because that is when the scale will tell me what's really going on. "Weight loss" does not always translate to long term fat loss. Oh and by the way, I remember the first season of Celebrity Fit Club and the final weigh in for the contestants. They did in fact provide the pre and post body fat percentages of the contestants along with the scale weight and guess what? They all lost muscle! The scale lies folks!
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