Healthy Weight Loss Program Considerations Nutrition Health Article
Healthy Weight Loss Program Considerations
The one healthy weight loss program guideline you should abide by for better, safer results. How much weight should you lose each week, and why you might not want to trust your bathroom scale...
The difference between losing weight and losing fat...
You step on the scale and look down to see a number. In everyday terms, this number represents your total body weight.
However, your body weight includes not just the fat that so many of us seemingly want to get rid of, but also the weight of skeletal bone, muscles, organs, brain, skin, nails, hair... and all bodily tissues.
The term Lean Body Mass (LBM) represents all of this except body fat.
If you didn't know this already, you must realize that whenever you lose weight, you don’t just lose fat. Some of that body weight loss stems from your lean body mass.
Generally, the faster and the greater the weight loss each week, the more muscle you risk losing.
In fact, some sources suggest a weekly weight loss greater than 3 pounds will unfortunately ensure that 40 to 50 percent of that weight loss will come from your precious lean body mass.
Imagine that! Losing more than 3 pounds per week could mean almost forty percent or more of the weight lost is your muscles being used for nourishment by your starving body!
We already tend to lose muscle mass as we age. The last thing you want to do is lose more muscle needlessly. Your skeleton consists of about 206 bones but you have over 600 muscles that make up almost half your body weight.
These muscles are responsible for a major portion of the total body heat your body produces. In short, muscles are metabolically active tissues that require energy. Bigger, stronger muscles help you burn a few more calories every day, even at rest.
So the first lesson is that healthy weight loss should come slowly in order to minimize any muscle loss. This means no more than 1 to 2 pounds per week for better, safer results.
Even though many folks have heard this before, they're reluctant to wave bye-bye to the notion of quick weight loss. When my private clients are interested in a healthy weight loss program, they often start off by asking about a rapid healthy weight loss program.
Almost everyone wants fast weight loss, and they want it now!
When you consider the factor of muscle tissue loss along with the physiological stress to the body that some of these draconian weight loss methods entail, it's practically an oxymoron to include the words 'rapid' and 'healthy' together in the same sentence.
Get the most from your weight loss efforts by shedding body fat and sparing muscle mass. Opt for slower, steady weight loss.
Guidelines for a healthy weight loss program generally promote a weight loss rate of 1 to 2 pounds per week.
In actuality, this 'rule of thumb' is often expressed in relative percentages to account for individual body weight fluctuations. Many sources suggest the optimal rate of weight loss should range between 0.5 and 1 percent of total body weight. Some say 1 to 2 percent.
So at the more aggressive 2 percent rate, a 150 pound person should lose no more than 3 pounds per week while a 300 pound person should lose no more than 6 pounds per week. Theoretically then, the more fat you have on your body, the more you can afford to lose on a weekly basis without detrimentally affecting lean body mass.
My weight loss advice and my own preference, is for the more conservative 1 percent of body weight. For most of us weighing between 100 and 200 pounds, this means losing no more than 1 to 2 pounds per week.
Your bathroom scale- A trustworthy companion?
The second lesson is that you want to lose fat, not weight. Unfortunately, your bathroom scale does not discriminate between the two.
The next time you step on a scale, bear in mind that the number you see does not indicate how much body fat you have nor how much fat you've lost. It merely reveals your total body weight.
It may sound like a moot point. But if your program introduces appropriate intensity resistance training, adequate rest and recovery, and proper hydration, it's quite possible that you might find you weigh a little more initially-- not less.
Stepping onto a scale at that moment might lead you to erroneously conclude that your fat loss efforts are failing when in truth, the body composition changes you seek are underway.
So don't place too much stock on the number you see when you step on a scale. A bathroom scale hardly presents the complete picture.
Slow and steady wins the race. Stick to healthy weight loss program guidelines. Aim for a 1 percent body weight reduction per week.
Remember, your real goal is not simply to drop body weight but to lose as much body fat as possible without losing too much of your precious lean body mass in the process.
