It’s time to throw away your scales
WEIGHT loss and fat loss can be misinterpreted as the same thing; however, they are two completely different aspects. If they weren’t, they would be called the same thing!
Your weight is just how much mass you have on your body; and yes, whilst your body fat contributes towards weight, the scale reading doesn’t just show your body fat reading.
It’s time to end this notion they’re the same thing by breaking them down into what they actually are, kicking off with ‘weight loss’.
This is the loss of any bodily tissue (muscle and fat) as well as water, that results in a decrease in your weight. Our weight is just our connection to the ground with gravity, that is it!
Most of us have the goal of fat loss and when the fat decreases, so will the weight.
It is the reflection in the mirror and how we look that matters to most of us, and not a number on the scale; no one knows that but you.
It’s not like we walk around each day and everyone has a number floating above their head showing how much they weigh! However, what you can see is a person’s appearance.
A whole number of factors can have an effect on your weight fluctuating, which can include:
Dehydration – two thirds of our body is made up from water so when you don’t give your body enough of it, of course you are going to weigh less. This decrease is not fat loss though; the truth is, you’re more than likely just dehydrated, so keep taking in that all essential H2O!
Hydration – just the opposite of the above; when you drink water, it will increase your weight, not your body fat that your mind thinks is the cause! It is worth noting here that when you consume carbohydrates, each gram is accompanied by around three grams of water.
Consumption of meals – when having consumed all of your meals at the end of the day, of course you are going to weigh more as you are storing more carbohydrates than you were when you woke up.
When weighing more, it can give you the impression that you may have gained ‘fat’, when actually in reality, it is just your weight fluctuating! So, stop jumping on those scales each day, all you’re really doing is seeing your body’s mass jump around throughout the day and not how much fat you’ve lost or gained.
So, what is fat loss? It is simply the decrease of fat tissue from the body, which is only lost through the process we now know from my past articles, a calorie deficit.
Luckily, there are a couple of basic ways to measure fat loss now that your ‘trusted’ scales have been taken out of the picture:
Photos – taking photos is probably the most effective method because if you take a photo from day one, and compare it to the one you took on day 30, you are clearly going to be able to see if you have lost fat.
Clothes fitting differently; after losing fat, your clothes are bound to fit differently. For a bit of added motivation, why not put a photo as your phone background of maybe an item of clothing you’re aspiring to fit into? This means every time you use your phone; you will see this and remember your goal.