In Part 1 of the How Not to Lose Weight series, I talked about fad diets and why you need to be careful if you plan to follow one. In this part, I will talk about the difference between losing weight and losing fat and why it's important. Part 1: Beware of fad diets. Part 2: Don't focus on losing weight. Focus on losing fat. Part 3: You can't exercise your way out of a bad diet. Part 4: Stop obsessing over calorie counts. Part 5: Don't diet in a straight line. Losing weight vs losing fat To the average Joe who’s not too knowledgeable about either fitness or nutrition, weight loss and fat loss might sound like the same thing. They're not. What 99% of the people who want to lose weight are really after is fat loss. The 1% who aren’t are people with extenuating circumstances (ex - athletes who need to go down a weight class). So if you’re going on a diet, you should aim to lose body fat, while keeping the loss of your lean body mass (everything else) to a minimum. Part of lean body mass is your muscle. The more of it you have (or manage to keep on), the faster your metabolism is, and the easier it will be for you to keep losing fat.[1] When you go into a caloric deficit, your body will seek energy from either your fat stores or your muscles. In fact, it’s possible to screw up your diet so much that you end up losing mostly muscle and hardly any fat. When this happens, you start looking flabbier and you lose your curves (both women and men). What might look like a victory on the weight scale will be a defeat in the mirror, and will actually make you unhealthier despite the weight loss. I wrote more about this in “What is skinny-fat?” In order to prevent this from happening, you need to signal to your body that you need the muscle. You do this through resistance training. This can include lifting weights, doing push-ups and pull-ups, or even sprinting. Think about it this way, if your boss cut your hours and now you only earn two-thirds of what you used to, you may have to cut some of your expenses. What are you going to cut first? Probably the things you need the least. For example, if you and your spouse each have a car and one of you stays home instead of working, then you might end up selling the second car. Why should you continue paying insurance for something that doesn't really get used? It's the same thing with your body. Muscle is metabolically expensive[1] and your body isn't going to keep it around over the long term if you're not eating enough to maintain it[2]. But what if both you and your spouse needed those cars to get to work? In this case you probably wouldn't sell the extra car then. It's the same thing with resistance training. Lifting weights signals to your body that you need the muscle in order to survive. Studies show that when you engage in resistance training, you end up losing much less in lean mass than if you don't.[3][4] One last thing here... make sure your meals have some protein in them so that your muscles have the building blocks to repair themselves after you work out. If you don't eat protein, you will lose muscle mass no matter how much you work out. Frequently asked questions: Q: I am a woman and I'm worried that lifting weights will make me big and muscular. A: You shouldn't be ... because it's impossible ... especially when you're in a caloric deficit. Weight training can't even make guys 'jacked', with all their testosterone and hormonal advantages when it comes to this stuff. The 'huge' guys you see in the gym are not big because of weight training. They're big because either God made them like that (look at their parents if you don't believe me) or because they took performance enhancing drugs. Weight training is only a small piece to the puzzle, actually. Don't believe all the hype from the fitness industry about people getting big. There is a lot of money to be made in selling gym memberships and useless supplements to unsuspecting beginners. However your results will never be as dramatic as they claim. If they were, 80% of people who join a gym wouldn't quit within five months.[5] Why would you quit if you can gain 30 lbs of muscle in three months like they say you can? You'll make some gains, just nowhere near what you'd think. Worrying about getting big and muscular because of weight training is like being a minimum wage fast food worker and turning down an extra shift because you don't think you can handle being a millionaire. So what about cardio? In the next part, I will talk about this and what's more important when it comes losing weight... diet or exercise? Part 1: Beware of fad diets. Part 2: Don't focus on losing weight. Focus on losing fat. Part 3: You can't exercise your way out of a bad diet. Part 4: Stop obsessing over calorie counts. Part 5: Don't diet in a straight line. Thank you and God bless. References
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