Weight vs fat
Posted
by Stacey Hancock
at 8:04am, Monday 7th March, 2011
Just a little follow on from Do you weigh yourself daily?. This blog is about weight vs fat...and the "treat meal".
Fat. It sits where we can see, poke and jiggle it. This is the stuff most of us wants to lose because we don't like how it looks. We also have fat you can't see sitting around our organs.
Bones, skin, hair, muscles, brain, heart, lungs etc. This is part of "lean mass". But did you know that in a basic body composition test any undigested food and digested food waiting for elimination is also "lean mass". It is mass that isn't fat mass.
Glycogen isn't lean mass, but for the purposes of your body fat reduction and muscle gains it is. In very very simple terms Glycogen in your muscle is glucose and water. This glucose comes from dietary carbohydrate and is also the product of fat and amino acid metabolism. But for our purposes we are looking at glucose from carbohydrate. Glycogen will weigh something on the scale, so you still have to consider it as part of your body weight. But this is good weight - we need this.
Water isn't lean mass either, but on an electronic body fat scale it will read water as either fat or lean mass. Typically (and there are sometimes exceptions) if your weight goes up but the body fat goes down it means that you have shifted your water balance inside the muscle cell (this is good), if the body fat reading goes up and weight goes up then this can indicate that you are retaining water outside the cells and this may be caused by hormone fluctuations, high sodium meal, humidity, medications, illness/diseases of water metabolism or just not drinking enough water. If your weight goes down and body fat goes down, yes you may have lost body fat...but you may have also just shifted some water out of your body also.
When we follow a calorie controlled, low sodium plan, we are likely to lose glycogen, have less bulk in our intestines and also lose some excess water. This accounts for much of your weight loss in the first week of a program. From there, it becomes very important to follow your plan because just one meal can load that glycogen, bulk and water back up again. What happens then, is a weight loss chart that shows a 1-3kg fluctuation up and down over time and a frustrated you.
We need to see it for what it is - fluctuations in WEIGHT...not fat.
To lose body fat the body needs to be in a state where it can and wants to burn it as fuel. We burn a mixture of fuels through the day, but if we keep pumping in high carbohydrate meals then we are forcing our bodies to work with this fuel source and work out what to do with it...burn it, or store the excess as glycogen (weight gain) or in the case of over-excess store it as body fat (fat gain).
I believe everyone on a fat loss program should have a treat meal once a week (some can get away with more), this treat meal has the ability to put 0-3kg back on you overnight. But remember, it is not fat - this is why the weight gain from a treat meal is ok. Just don't have your treat meal the day before a weigh in, or if you do, make it a lower carb, lower sodium treat - like a homemade butter chicken with a small amount of rice. The one category of treats that is likely to increase your weight overnight are high carb, high sodium takeaways (burgers, fries, pizza, chinese etc)
Similarly a night out boozing can dehydrate us, so you may lose 1 kg on the scale in water losses, to only find it bounced back up 1kg the following day as you slowly rehydrate. Again...its weight, not fat.
Now, these fluctuations also apply to those trying to put on lean mass. Like I said earlier, a decrease in body fat but an increase in weight does not mean you have put on muscle.
We need to understand the fluctuations in weight vs fat to keep our heads in the right place while trying to lose weight. The more we stress ourselves out about what we think is fat gain, the more likely we are to drop our program or think negative thoughts. Both of these things aren't going to get you to your goal.
Weigh yourself weekly, but assess your weight chart monthly along with your tape measure - then you can get a true picture of your results, and from there assess what needs changing.
Fat. It sits where we can see, poke and jiggle it. This is the stuff most of us wants to lose because we don't like how it looks. We also have fat you can't see sitting around our organs.Bones, skin, hair, muscles, brain, heart, lungs etc. This is part of "lean mass". But did you know that in a basic body composition test any undigested food and digested food waiting for elimination is also "lean mass". It is mass that isn't fat mass.
Glycogen isn't lean mass, but for the purposes of your body fat reduction and muscle gains it is. In very very simple terms Glycogen in your muscle is glucose and water. This glucose comes from dietary carbohydrate and is also the product of fat and amino acid metabolism. But for our purposes we are looking at glucose from carbohydrate. Glycogen will weigh something on the scale, so you still have to consider it as part of your body weight. But this is good weight - we need this.
Water isn't lean mass either, but on an electronic body fat scale it will read water as either fat or lean mass. Typically (and there are sometimes exceptions) if your weight goes up but the body fat goes down it means that you have shifted your water balance inside the muscle cell (this is good), if the body fat reading goes up and weight goes up then this can indicate that you are retaining water outside the cells and this may be caused by hormone fluctuations, high sodium meal, humidity, medications, illness/diseases of water metabolism or just not drinking enough water. If your weight goes down and body fat goes down, yes you may have lost body fat...but you may have also just shifted some water out of your body also.
When we follow a calorie controlled, low sodium plan, we are likely to lose glycogen, have less bulk in our intestines and also lose some excess water. This accounts for much of your weight loss in the first week of a program. From there, it becomes very important to follow your plan because just one meal can load that glycogen, bulk and water back up again. What happens then, is a weight loss chart that shows a 1-3kg fluctuation up and down over time and a frustrated you.
We need to see it for what it is - fluctuations in WEIGHT...not fat.
To lose body fat the body needs to be in a state where it can and wants to burn it as fuel. We burn a mixture of fuels through the day, but if we keep pumping in high carbohydrate meals then we are forcing our bodies to work with this fuel source and work out what to do with it...burn it, or store the excess as glycogen (weight gain) or in the case of over-excess store it as body fat (fat gain).
I believe everyone on a fat loss program should have a treat meal once a week (some can get away with more), this treat meal has the ability to put 0-3kg back on you overnight. But remember, it is not fat - this is why the weight gain from a treat meal is ok. Just don't have your treat meal the day before a weigh in, or if you do, make it a lower carb, lower sodium treat - like a homemade butter chicken with a small amount of rice. The one category of treats that is likely to increase your weight overnight are high carb, high sodium takeaways (burgers, fries, pizza, chinese etc)
Similarly a night out boozing can dehydrate us, so you may lose 1 kg on the scale in water losses, to only find it bounced back up 1kg the following day as you slowly rehydrate. Again...its weight, not fat.
Now, these fluctuations also apply to those trying to put on lean mass. Like I said earlier, a decrease in body fat but an increase in weight does not mean you have put on muscle.
We need to understand the fluctuations in weight vs fat to keep our heads in the right place while trying to lose weight. The more we stress ourselves out about what we think is fat gain, the more likely we are to drop our program or think negative thoughts. Both of these things aren't going to get you to your goal.
Weigh yourself weekly, but assess your weight chart monthly along with your tape measure - then you can get a true picture of your results, and from there assess what needs changing.
