Hello, and good morning. I want to welcome you to another podcast with yours truly, Patrick Ocheni– the Body By Patrick podcast. Today. I’m going to share with you the difference between weight loss versus fat loss.
How this came about was, recently, I was with a client of mine and we were doing progress measurement. We have this 3D scanner that we use with our clients to measure the before- and- after measurement.
After she stepped on the device to take her measurement and we got the result, she noticed that she’s only lost a few pounds and initially she was disappointed.
When we looked closely at the measurement we discovered that, though she lost only a few pounds, her actual lean tissue mass had gone up; her body fat had gone down; and, her overall inches had reduced in terms of her waist size, thighs, or hip s had gone down and then she got more excited.
Then, I explained to her the different between fatloss and weightloss.
After that experience, I said to myself, if she was having difficulty understanding the difference between fat loss or weight loss, there are probably more people out there who don’t know the difference.
If you don’t know the difference, it’s not your fault.
Two main key differences between both.
The first one is, the approach that is utilized to achieve weight loss versus fat loss. There is an overlap there, but there’s a key difference between the two.
Secondly, the effect on the body at the end of the day. In other words, the result that you achieve physically.
A lot of people when they start a fitness program, and then the first week they drop 10 pounds and they’re like, oh my gosh, I lost 10 pounds in the first week. Generally speaking, it’s a result of water loss.
The thing about weight loss is that, most often what happens is you are actually losing more muscle mass as opposed to losing fat, which is not good because it actually slows down your metabolism, specifically, your resting metabolic rate.
What is your resting metabolic rate?
Your resting metabolicrate is, the amount of energy required for your body to function normally, to do all the internal processes for you to stay alive. The higher that is, the better of you are.
So, if your focus is just to lose weight, you risk the potential of ruining your resting metabolic rate because more than likely you’ll be losing muscle mass as opposed to actually losing fat.
A typical thing that happens when people just focus on losing weight is that, they become what’s called, “skinny fat”, which means they have excess skin after losing weight.
The reason is because, the approach to losing weight often times is by either restricting calories in a huge way, doing excessive cardio or both.
Highly restricting your calories can only be done for so long before you lose your mind.
And then, when you do too much cardio, your body goes into what’s called a catabolic state; your body starts feeding on your own muscle mass.
That’s why long distance marathon runners are very skinny; they’re not known for having huge muscle mass.
The moment you stop doing cardio, start eating more, what happens? You gain back all the weight and some more.
That is very common with people that focus solely on trying to lose weight.
Now, let’s talk about fat loss and why your focus really should be about losing fat, not about losing weight.
With fat loss, your inches go down, you can still weigh the same, and you look dramatically better.
The cool thing about fat loss is that, you actually increase your muscle mass which is what you really want because muscle is active tissue. With every pound of muscle mass you gain you’re able to burn 110 calories at rest.
So, by increased muscle mass, what does that mean? It also means that on like weight loss, your metabolism actually goes up. Your resting metabolic rate, like I talked about before, that is responsible for 65% of your fat loss actually goes up.
The approach for fat loss is different than that approach for weight loss.
When it comes to fat loss, it’s usually a combination of resistance training and minimal cardio.
Unlike weight loss, there’s a certain amount of time you have to do cardio if you’re trying to lose fat without risking your body going into a catabolic state.
The other cool thing about fat loss is that, you actually have better skin elasticity. Your skin is actually tighter, so you don’t have to worry about loose skin.
Because of the approach in accomplishing fat loss, what happens is that you actually have improved performance.
What do I mean by that?
It means that you’ll feel stronger. You’ll be able to have higher energy. And, the result is sustainable over time.
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