Isn't it interesting how obsessed we get with losing weight?
Seriously, a LOT of people will start their day happy or sad based entirely on the 3-digit number they see flashing back at them each morning.
But what's even more interesting than our obsession with losing weight is the fact that "weight loss" isn't always the most useful marker of progress. You see, there are a buttload of things that influence your daily & weekly body weight....
🍕 A higher/lower salt intake than normal
😷 Food intolerance's
🙋 Where you are at on your cycle
💦 Hydration levels
💩 You need to good to the bathroom
🍔 Food still in your body
💉 Hormones
💊 Supplements
💪 DOMS from your heavy workout
You know what you don't see on that list? FAT LOSS
Reason being, fat loss doesn't happen over the course of a day or even a week (well, it does "technically", but not in a very noticeable or meaningful way.) Instead, fat loss happens over the course of multiple weeks and months.
So really, it is just a matter of understanding that weight loss and fat loss are not synonymous. Once you realize that, you can start taking steps that will put the power of the scale back in YOUR hands.
✅One way is by taking measurements:
Soooo many things influence your scale weight, which makes it difficult to know if you are making progress. But if you are losing inches, even at the same weight, it is a good sign you are losing fat!
✅ Another tip is to start analyzing your AVERAGE weight over the course of weeks and months.
The bottom line: Don't let your daily and weekly fluctuations in body weight discourage you. Instead focus on fat loss by tracking your measurements, weight averages and progress pictures
Losing weight is hard. We focus solely on the number on our scale (mostly because it is fast an easy to do). That number goes up, it goes down and so does our sanity.
Losing weight it involves spending time at the gym, stopping yourself from eating your favorite foods, and saying “no” to things that make you happy in general and “yes” to things that don’t.
If you’re like most people, you want to see results that justify your hard work. And that result, more often than not, has to do with seeing that number on the scale go steadily down. So you weigh yourself. Even though you know you shouldn’t, you weigh yourself every day because you need a reason to keep going.
Everything is fine, until the unthinkable happens: the scale stops going down. Or, after one “cheat day” you find yourself 8 pounds heavier and you think, “Oh no! Everything I’ve done for the past 2 weeks is for nothing!” Repeat this a few times and before you know it, you’ve given up on working out and you’ve dumped your diet and are back to squat one.
The truth is you were probable doing a great job. You were just overly focused on the wrong indicators. Wanting to lose weight is a great goal, but the scale is just a number. It tells us how much you weigh (water, fat, muscle, bones etc.) not how much fat you have in your body.
Here are some reasons why you should not depend on the scale.
First and foremost…
It’s a safe bet to assume that when people want to lose weight, what they really mean is that they want to lose fat. The problem is, many people use the words “weight loss” and “fat loss” interchangeably, which are two separate concepts.
Losing Weight is not hard– you’ll drop a few pounds if you sit in a sauna for a while. Fat loss is harder to achieve, depends on several factors, and it takes more time than you think to truly lose it. Here are a couple key points about fat loss to consider:
Muscle and water are two other components that make up your weight, and when you lose weight, you can lose some of each. How much of each you lose depends in part on how much fat you have to lose when you start. Overweight people have more to lose than thin people, and will be able to lose weight faster as well.
Many people set fat loss goals for themselves that are unreasonable (see any challenge/product that will get you to lose 30 lbs in 6 weeks). The truth is, without going on an unhealthy near-starvation diet, you can only expect to lose 1-2 pounds of fat per week at best. If you are unsure about whether you are losing weight or fat, contact us for a FREE INBODY ASSESSMENT SCAN
Don’t expect to lose 10 pounds in a week, because even if you do, that weight is not going to be all fat. Losing muscle is not good for your health, and you will want to preserve it as much as you can.
2. You’re retaining water due to your salt intake
Salt (or more accurately, sodium) is everywhere and extremely hard to avoid. It might not surprise you that a single patty cheeseburger contains over 500 mg of sodium (nearly a quarter of the daily recommended levels).
Sodium is linked with water retention, and it is the job of your kidneys to expel unneeded sodium out of your body. Until your kidneys are able to do that, you will temporarily be holding onto extra water.
So, if you were on a diet but flooded your body with more salt than you normally have, you can expect to see a temporary increase in weight. It doesn’t mean that all your hard work is for nothing; it just means that you’re experiencing additional water weight because of the extra sodium in your body.
However, there are other factors other than diet that can lead to fluctuating weight on the scale, including…
3. Your muscle gains are outweighing your fat loss
If you’re lifting weights as part of your strategy to burn fat and lose weight, you’re doing something right! Adding resistance training to your fat/weight loss plan is a great way to protect and preserve muscle loss as you subtract fat from your frame. This is why we focus on changing the body fat % of clients, so we focus on not only losing fat, but also focus on getting our clients stronger.
However, if you’re new to weightlifting and you’re pushing yourself hard, you’re going to see some things on the scale that may surprise you. Your weight might actually not go down; it might go up! Why?
This is because as you are losing fat, you are replacing that weight with muscle. Your weight may not go down, but your body fat percentage will.
There are so many things that can affect your weight, so you should never get into the habit of weighing yourself every day. So if not that, what should you be doing?
As difficult as it sounds, if you are using just a scale to determine your progress, you have to take the averages from your measurements. This will help us determine trends in your weight and will help you go against going all out for some quick fix or to get to a certain number fast in order to win a competition.
Because your weight is made up of many different elements and can fluctuate for so many different reasons, assessing your weight by tracking your body composition is a much better way to determine how you’re meeting your goals.
Don't let your daily and weekly fluctuations in body weight discourage you. It is completely normal and it does NOT reflect fat loss programs. If you diet and exercise properly with enough patience and determination, you will reach your goals.
If you need help reaching your goals, contact us here at Strive Fitness and Performance and we can set up a consultation to figure out the right path for you.
Committed to your success,
Derek Ledwidge
High Intensity Training (HIIT) is top notch for fat loss, there's no doubt about that.
First off, The Afterburn Effect is real (it's part of your daily recovery), but if you’ve ever heard any these myths about The Afterburn Effect, you may have been lied to.
Is it as effective as some claim? Lets talk about it.
It’s not uncommon to hear people blaring on about “burning fat on autopilot for 36 hours” as a result of doing a 20 minute session at home with no equipment.
Pick up any fitness DVD and you’ll see claims of how this crucial training ingredient is the missing link between a regular body and a ripped, lean body.
But the reality of The Afterburn Effect is far different then some sales people will lead to believe.
In fact, it may not even be close.
I’ve seen tons of people greatly exaggerate the EPOC phenomenon and use it as a marketing tool, without any research to back up their claims.
Heck, these are just a few statements I’ve seen over the years:
“You will become a fat incinerating machine for 36 hours following every workout!”
“Our fitness class will boost your after burn effect x5 over any other class!”
“For every 1000 calories you burn with this workout, you’ll go on to burn an additional 500 calories after the session!”
Let’s take a moment to slam our heads on the desk before moving on.
There is a possibility that they are lying to you (if they know it or not).
--> “You will become a fat incinerating machine for 36 hours following every workout!”
Really?
36 hours?
So if I do three workouts in three days, I’ve already added three 36 hour bouts of pure fat burning, right?
So can I take the week off?
That would have unlocked the miracle fat burning system that genuinely allows people to lose weight by doing barely any exercise and not even talking diet.
No.
After a very hard High Intensity Training Session, The Afterburn Effect can last for up to 14 hours maybe (it's pretty much the time after your workout where your body is recovering).
Not 24. Not 36. Not 48.
And sure, you can find research to support anything you want to (search McDonalds is healthier than) but this comes back to common sense.
--> “Our fitness class will boost your afterburn effect x5 over any other class!”
This one could be more pure marketing hype?
They are merely trying to say our class is better than their class. And there’s nothing wrong with more people offering a service to help people accomplish their goals (since as a whole, us fitness professionals are failing, we need all the help we can get), but it shouldn’t be done by confusing the market with more fancy marketing terms.....
It doesn’t matter where you do it.
It doesn’t matter what equipment you use to do it.
It doesn’t matter whose name is on the door of the building.
Providing you are Training to you Maximum effort , you will see results.
--> “For every 1000 calories you burn with this workout, you’ll go on to burn an additional 500 calories after the session (you are going to burn calories no matter what by being alive)!”
This is not so much marketing hype.
Maybe just a totally incorrect statement?
That would give you a 50% rate of EPOC – a figure unheard of in any study on high intensity interval training. Ever.
In fact, review studies covering the full body of research on High Intensity Training report The Afterburn Effect to typically fall between a 6% – 15% increase in EPOC.
Not 50%.
Quite frankly, if you burned as many calories as some of these people were suggesting, you’d prob be dead.
The afterburn effect is 100% real.
And it sure is useful.
But it is not, and never will be, the missing link between doing 20 minutes of exercise per day and getting ripped.
It’s not the “secret fat loss formula” that many make it out to be.
If you are Training Hard – whether it is outside, in a gym, or at home – you still need to Train Hard and you still need to Keep Your Food Tight in order to Lose Fat.
That said, those 6% – 15% boosts in fat burning activity following each session might not sound like much after they were previously hyped as 50% spikes, but they sure do add up over the course of a couple of solid months of consistent training!
Instead of the quick fix it’s often billed as, The Afterburn Effect should be a long-term concept.
And the stronger you become over time, the faster your metabolism will be in general and the more fat you will burn as a result
What can we take away from this?--> The harder you train (to your Max, not what the treadmill says, but what your body tells you), the better your fat loss will be in the long term.
Committed to your success,
Derek Ledwidge
Fad diets do work, at first. And then the results slowly taper off until they rebound and you gain the weight back.
Does this sound all too familiar?
So what really is the deal with this crap??
Simple. Fad diets do the same thing, in many different ways.
This thing is tricking you into eating less and usually, not enough to sustain results.
People generally cut carbs, but what really happens is they cut overall calories. Because they are cutting carbs they end up eating less, plain and simple. More of a deficit in calories equals more weight loss.
This is all well and good for the short term.....That is until your metabolism adapts to the decrease in food..
This is when it becomes harder and harder to sustain the results....Congrats......You have hit a plateau.
So what is the general response??
I am going to eat less (because clearly I am eating more than I was when I started to lose weight)....And I am going to increase my cardio...
Repeat after me....This is a mistake....
So what is the answer?
BALANCE.
You shouldn’t have a diet dominant in any specific nutrient and by that I do not mean that something shouldn’t have a larger percentage of your calories, because I do believe protein should have the biggest percentage.
My usually recommendation for starting is a 40/30/30 or 40/25/35 split (protein/carbs/fat). This gives you a good balance.
But back to the fad diet subject…
These low-calorie diets aren’t healthy for many reasons. But the main ones are that our body needs calories to function. Calories are the human body’s fuel source, for every single activity and function we make.
So yeah, these fad diets do work… at first. They give you a caloric deficit which allows you to lose weight, but this usually only lasts 4-6 weeks.....Insert a typical lose 20 lbs in 6 weeks challenge
Look at the diet titles that have timelines… Its usually a 30 day slim down, 28 day rapid fat loss, 2 months to shredded, and so on. They all stop, at most, by the 6 week marker.
Don't get me wrong, here at STRIVE FITNESS AND PERFORMANCE, we have our fair share of 6 week, 8 week and 30 day challenges....but we tell you right from the start, this is the beginning.
Will you make a HUGE change?! Absolutely! But it only carries you into the lifestyle habits and changes you must keep making to incorporate a fit lifestyle.
You see, fad diets have one main goal… MONEY. They know they can sell a one time package of their diet plan and you’ll probably BUY IT AGAIN a couple of months later when you gain some weight back because… well… it worked, didn’t it??!
So my point in this article, more like this rant, is to show you that the fads are a waste of time, money, energy and your emotions.
Don’t fall into the trap,
CREATE HABITS
EMBRACE the healthy lifestyle you actually want to achieve.
The goal of a diet, a healthy one, is to lose body fat or weight while maintaining as many calories as possible. So yeah, it’s not going to happen quick and you may not get absolutely rapid fat loss in less than a month.
But what’s more important to you?
Lose 25lbs in a month and then gain half or more back in the next month?
Lose 25lbs in 4 months and never, ever, see those 25lbs of fat again?
We all know it is the second answer, as it should be.
So here’s my advice before closing off…
Eat enough calories to FUEL your body, this means enough food to truly CRUSH workouts. This is a perfect indicator we tell our clients here at Strive. If you are dying during your workouts....You probably need to eat a little bit more.
Eat ALL types of nutrients. Proteins, carbs, and fats that are coming from natural whole sources like animal products and fresh produce.
Don’t rely on supplements, cleanses, TV ads, or any “Get Fit Quick” schemes you find for a bargain. Instead, invest some actual money in yourself and in your health, find a trustworthy gym and coach, and create excellent habits that lead to a “Lifestyle” rather than a “Result”.
Find your LIFESTYLE by thinking long term investment.
Committed to your success,
Derek
