Weight Loss vs. Fat Loss

In order to lose weight, your body must burn more calories than
it takes in, but keep in mind that your body needs calories for
energy and when you exercise; your body needs even more calories.
Before I talk about energy, the first thing you must understand
is that losing weight and losing fat is not the same thing.
Just because you lose weight, does not mean you lose fat, and
just because you lose fat, does not mean you lose weight. When
people talk about losing weight, what the really want to do is
lose the excess fat on their body and obtain an attractive
figure. When you eat, the body uses most of the calories for
energy. If you eat more calories than the body uses, it will
get stored as fat. If you do not consume enough calories per
day you will lose weight, but you will also lose energy. When
you do not consume enough energy (calories) for your body, it
will start using up your energy stores to make up for the energy
deficiency. Unfortunately, the energy stores used is not your
stored fat, but instead it’s protein and carbohydrates (carbs)
that will supply most of the energy (stored fat makes up a very
small percentage). Your body will take the protein and
carbohydrates from your muscle cells; causing your muscle mass
to reduce (say good by to that toned attractive look) which
forces your metabolism to decrease (a low metabolism = slow or
no fat burning). When this happens your body requires less
energy to maintain its new lower body weight (remember the body
weight is lower because you loss muscle), which is why your
body conserves energy by slowing down the metabolism. In other
words, the body has adapted to the new lower energy (calorie)
intake which means that you will no longer continue to lose
weight.

Keep in mind that the weight you had lost in the first place
was mostly water weight and you will eventually gain it back
in the form of fat, not muscle (in order to get your muscle
mass back to the way it was before, you have to work on
rebuilding it). When carbohydrates and protein that are already
in your body are used as the energy source, your body will lose
water weight because both carbohydrates and protein hold water
in the cells. In essence, you are dehydrating yourself to lose
weight. So yes the scale will go down, but approximately 75%
(if not more) of it is water instead of fat. And just so you
know, exercising while consuming a small calorie intake just
makes the situation worse. This is because when you exercise,
you start burning off more energy and the more you workout, the
more energy your body needs. I already told you above where
the energy comes from, and if you do not give your body the
energy it needs, it will just feed on your muscles even quicker
now that you are exercising. So eat more food! In addition
to this, when you cut down too much on your calorie intake,
your body will start storing calories because it doesn’t know
when you will eat again. The calories that are stored will be
stored as fat. So in other words, when your body is storing
energy, it’s basically storing more fat.

To summarize my point: Not eating enough calories results in
muscle loss, dehydration, slower fat burning, and your body
will always adapt to a lower calorie intake.

Bottom Line: if you can’t maintain that lower calorie intake
for the rest of your life, you will gain your weight back
when you get tired of starving yourself!

To lose weight properly (burning fat) you must increase your
metabolism (weight training) and your need for oxygen (aerobics)
while eating enough calories each day (nutritious diet) to
give you energy and maintain the protein in your muscles because
protein helps build muscles, which indirectly burns fat. This
brings up another good point: When you build muscle your weight
will increase because your muscles are made up of mostly water,
but your body fat percentage will decrease because building
muscles increase your metabolism (in other words, muscles way
more than fat, but take up less space than fat). So keep in mind
that losing body fat can’t be measured by a scale; use a
measuring tape and also look at yourself in the mirror, and then
you will see the true results. One of the best ways to know if
you are losing more body fat than water is by using a body fat
analyzer.

Make sure that you focus on fat loss not weight loss. Your goal
should be to lose weight by burning fat, not losing water from
your muscles. Remember this when you choose your weight loss
program.

About the Author

This article was written by Vernita Sherman
of QVM Weight Loss. QVM Weight Loss is a complete
online resource for all of your weight loss needs.
Vernita focuses on teaching you the truth about how
to permanently lose weight the healthy
way at http://www.qvm-weight-loss.com