One of the key things to address when dealing with weight loss is the difference between ‘weight’ and ‘fat’. As personal trainers, it’s a key lesson we teach all of our fat loss clients, because an obsession with weight leads many people down the wrong roads, focussing on the wrong things.
How much your body weighs has relatively little to do with how fat you are. Standing on a scale and being upset because you’ve gained a pound or two doesn’t really make any sense, because there’s so many factors that can affect your body weight. We’ll discuss these in further detail in the post and hopefully, it’ll help put your mind at ease about unexpected weight gain.
When you appreciate just how complex a machine your body is, you’ll begin to understand just why weight can fluctuate by a few pounds, even when you’ve done everything right. Our focus is on changing your body composition - how much of your body is made of fat tissue, muscle tissue and bone. Weight is a secondary concern.
The Difference Between Weight and Fat
When we eat excess energy (calories), they are stored as fat tissue. If we overeat by a lot, or for a long time, we store more fat so our weight goes up.
Fat isn’t the only element of weight gain though. We can be heavy because of additional muscle mass, because of food we’ve eaten, water we’ve drunk or fluid we’re retaining. In fact, there’s a very simple experiment you can do to prove this…
Stand on the scales and take a note of your weight.
Drink 1 litre of water as quick as you can (you don’t want to go to the toilet during this time otherwise it ruins the experiment!)
Stand back on the scales - you’ll likely be around 2lbs heavier.
There’s a clear difference between weight and fat. You’re not any fatter - you haven’t eaten! You’re just heavier, because of the additional water weight you’re carrying inside your body.
Factors that Affect Scale Weight
Here’s an overview of the factors that can affect your scale weight, so if you stand on the scales and find yourself downhearted because you’ve seen a number you don’t like, take a moment to see if any of these apply to you…
Time of day: You’re almost always lighter first thing in the morning. You haven’t eaten overnight and your body has digested and used all of the food you’ve been consuming. You’ll typically lose between 1 and 4lb overnight.
Stress levels/Inflammation: Stress hormones and inflammation can cause water retention, which increases weight. If you’re injured, unwell or suffering from high stress, don’t be surprised if you’re a little heavier. When inflammation drops, weight is likely to drop too.
Medication: There are certain medications and medical conditions that cause water retention - in some cases this can add well over 10lbs to your weight. There are re-distributions of fat that are possible, there are appetite changes that can happen and also changes in mineral balance that can impact water weight. Common medications that can impact weight gain include corticosteroids, antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs.
The Menstrual Cycle: This can have a dramatic impact on weight gain for some women, although the effects are temporary and vary widely. The subject has been studied widely and the conclusion is that the weight gain is down to fluid retention in the build up to the menstrual flow, which then eases afterwards. If you’re gaining weight without obvious reason (you’re eating well, training well etc), this could well be the reason.
Hydration: As we mentioned with our example earlier, water levels can dramatically impact weight. For clinical examples of how fluid loss can impact weight, in this study professional footballers were shown to lose up to 5lbs in 90 minutes of football in hot countries.
Been to the toilet?!: This sounds crazy, but it’s a huge point to consider. When studied, people with irregular bowel movements can carry over 10lbs of faecal matter in their gut. By addressing this problem with high fibre diet, plenty of liquid and movement, you can clear this out and lose a lot of weight you didn’t know you had!
Fat Loss, Not Weight Loss
Our goal at AdMac Fitness is to educate you about your body, as well as train you. When you understand that fat and weight are different, you start to view weight with less importance and start to consider the additional points around what might be happening.
We also use additional data points to assess your progress, far beyond just weight. We take body far assessments, tape measurements, physical capability measurements and talk to you about how you are feeling. The number on the scales are just one of the factors we’re interested in, and it’s certainly not the most important one!
You can be fit, lean, strong and heavy. Always remember that.
At AdMac Fitness we’re not about fads, fashions and short term fixes. We want you to succeed properly over the long term, so with our help and advice you can get your fitness back on track! If you’d like us to help you, contact us on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!