losing weight and losing fat are two different things
There are exciting things going off around here. The scale now shows OUT of the 150’s. Woot! And that’s a happy thing. That means I have lost over 1/2 a foot of weight. Think of a seven inch bed of concrete laid down and that’s how much fat is gone from my body. I say that because it’s not only seven pounds gone now but seven inches too!
It is SO fun, I mean, REALLY fun to pull on clothes that I didn’t- couldn’t wear this summer and actually be able to zip them up. The pants I took my before picture in (you haven’t seen it yet, but you will) They actually sit now right below my belly button where they are supposed to sit. Before, because of the fat, I had them pushed down and the waistband was still rolling over. And the fat, well the fat hung over like the big ole muffin top it was.
BEAUTY~ I am not skipping any meals. I’m eating like I normally would. I have more energy as the fat burns and I feel great, especially looking in the mirror. WOOT! My blood pressure this a.m. was 104/67 MUCH more in range for me. My pressure used to always run on the low side and what is normal for others is high for me.
Now for the lesson~ Losing Fat vs Losing Weight
Quick, the store is having a sale, it’s 5 lbs. for three dollars. Let’s go! Whaaaattt??? Five lbs. of WHAT?
Yep that’s what you should be asking when you begin your fat loss journey. Do you want to lose FAT or do you just want to lose pounds? Pounds could be losing critical muscle and water. Yep, you’ll see the numbers on the scale go down and eventually you will see inches go down too because starvation always equals inches lost eventually. But when you see the inches go down and sometimes even more than the weight, then you will know you are on the right track.
Let’s take a look at some popular weight loss programs that get pitched to us. (names changed slightly so there will be no copyright infringements) Use your imagination. :0
Waste Watchers: Yep, how many people do you know who have been this route? mmm-hmm I think everyone of us knows someone. Were they successful in taking the weight off? Most of them were. Were they successful in keeping it off. Most of them were NOT. Within a year every single person had gained all of their weight back and within the second year they have gotten much larger than before. Why is this? WW is based on starvation. You get calories proportioned out to you based on your goal and your starting weight. When you eat less than it takes for your Basic Metabolism Rate (BMR )to keep a couch potato alive, your body will begin to use muscle for fuel. Muscle is where the fat is utilized. If you decrease the size of the muscle you have LESS fat burning capability. The body says, “I’m starving” and it saves the fat. The muscle gets smaller. So when you decrease your calories and increase your activity your body actually stores fat. It wants to burn the fat but if the furnace (muscle) is smaller how can you get more wood (fat) in there? Does that make sense? What you want to do is have your furnace be more efficient. (kudos to WW…they now say cutting calories is not working and allow endless fruits and veggies to count as no points)
You do this by NEVER eating lower calories than your BMR. How to you calculate that? It’s simple. Take your current weight and take 10% of it. Add two zeros. If you currently weigh 160 lbs. It takes 1600 K (calories) just to keep you breathing and your heart functioning and all those other good organs inside.
If you go on a 1200K “diet” you will be starving your body of 400K per day and you will lose weight and you will lose the ability of your body to burn fat effectively. So when you stop going to the WW meetings because you have met your goal, and you’re all happy and you start eating again, the body can’t burn the non-diet extra calories up, your furnace has gotten smaller and your fat storage capacity has become larger and so you store more fat.
Same thing with Jinny Crage, they feed you processed food in small quantities. Where is the nutrition in that? Very little in there the body can use, it uses energy (calories) to try and process all the processed food and you lose weight. I had a friend who operated a system like this in Canada and they weren’t health experts. Anyone can buy a franchise. They couldn’t figure out, how come when the people were through their program their weight was down but their body fat percentage was up? Hmmm…they felt they were helping people and they wanted to help people, that’s why they bought the franchise but they were disappointed with the results. She told me they had lots of repeat customers because very few of them could keep the weight off once they left the structured meal program. They sold the franchise.
I hope this session has been helpful for you in understanding a bit about the internal workings of our body. Just for the record……when we get desperate to lose weight, most of us will try anything, regardless of the health consequences. I KNOW all this stuff and yet, about four years ago, I went ahead and joined WW on line and tried it for about six months. The problem….because I knew all that, I didn’t follow the program very well and , well I did gain a few more pounds.
Tomorrow….I will tell you all the weight loss systems I have tried since 1996 when my fat started showing up and I weighed only 120 lbs. then. Wouldn’t I love to see that weight again?! Yep, I had a poufy belly starting back then and that was the beginning of my weight watching. Of course, I didn’t know then what I know now. See you tomorrow.
Loved this post! Very informative Janeen!
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