NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION: LOSE WEIGHT OR LOSE FAT? WHY IT'S NOT THE SAME

by Andrew Sherwood
Certified SuperSlow Instructor, CWSS

As each new year roars in, most of us try to start anew.  Usually those goals are pretty simple, make more money, have more time for yourself, or the number one goal: lose weight and get fit.  One month in and by and large most resolutions have been abandoned due to a) over doing it or b) unrealistic expectations.  What most people don't understand is that losing weight and being healthy are not exactly the same thing.  In order to look better and feel healthier, you want to lose fat, not weight.

Muscle weighs a lot more than fat.  Fat is the ultimate storage medium in the body; it weighs very little and requires very low calories to maintain.  Muscle on the other hand weighs a lot and takes a lot more calories to maintain, about 10-15 calories per pound of muscle.  The point is, you can get stronger, be fitter and have a better looking body, but you don't necessarily  lose weight because muscle weighs more than fat.

Should you lose fat?  Generally yes if your body percentage is too high, but your goal should be health.  So throw away the scale, it will only make you crazy.  Various experts in the exercise field such as Doug McGuff, MD and Ryan Hall, SuperSlow Master Trainer, believe that usually beginning between the ages of twenty and thirty, without sufficient stimulus to keep it, we start to lose muscle and the process accelerates as you get older.  This begins the process of why people start to put on weight, (or at least look like it), because muscle is the key to our metabolism.  Why?  Well ultimately weight and fat gains happen because the capacity to burn calories dwindles if you lose muscle mass and the body's metabolism starts to slow down.  So if you continue to eat the same, but your muscle composition continues to wear down, you will ultimately get less lean and put on weight as your body starts to burn less energy.  So the only way to maintain body shape is through proper stimulus which is with weights to push your body into muscle growth.  According to Ken Hutchins, founder of SuperSlow,  "Fat loss is 90% exercise and 10% diet.  Weight loss is 90% diet and 10% exercise."  The danger is overdoing the exercise part which will cause your body to break down.

If you enjoy doing something and it helps with stress and makes you feel good then I say go for it, but listen to your body.  Your body is smart, and if you go hell for leather without thought, you will never be able to keep up with your regime, and worse you could make yourself sick or injured, or just too tired for anything.  That is why most people who start the year exercising like a maniac every day usually quit after a week or two, because they are just too sore or tired to do anything at all.  Jim Karas puts it very succinctly in his excellent book, "The Cardio Free Diet," that weight training will make you strong, resistant to injuries and raise your metabolism.  Cardio, especially too much of it, will cause problems by taking weight from organs, fat AND muscle tissue thus leaving people flabby, susceptible to injury and possibly sick.  According to Karas, you will also not look as lean and healthy with reduced skeletal muscle and that could be the difference in your quality of life as your get older.  As my mother used to say, everything in moderation, because too much of anything is not a good thing.