The Word on Weightloss

Okay, what weighs more: one pound of feathers or one pound of bricks? If you think this is a trick question, you’re right! A pound of feathers weighs the same as a pound of bricks one just has more volume than the other. If you think of muscle and fat in the same way you’ll bust those potential weight gain myths, lose fat and travel faster towards your weight loss goal.

Keeping on track with your weight loss program and fitness goal is not a simple task. It’s especially important to remember that it’s not really pounds you want to lose, but fat. What your weight loss plan actually means is that you want to lose fat and gain (or replace) lean muscle tissue.

You may have heard people say that muscle weighs more than fat. That statement is misguided and incorrect. Think of the features vs the bricks to help bust this myth. A pound of anything next to a pound of another thing will always be the same weight: one pound. The important difference here is that muscle is actually more dense than fat, so a pound of muscle takes up less space than a pound of fat, even though they still weigh the same amount.

Using weight alone to determine the proximity to our weight loss goal or the health of our bodies is not really accurate. If you're dieting and exercising like crazy, but think that you might be gaining weight and your not sure if it’s muscle or fat, review a few key questions:

How are your clothes fitting?
If your clothes are getting tight this is an indicator that you're gaining muscle and fat instead of just muscle. Focus less on the number on your scale and more on your cloths, a true indicator that you’re achieving healthy weight loss and are moving toward your weight loss goal. Something as simple as your jeans feeling tight can be the signal you need to fine-tune your weight loss efforts.

What are you eating?
If you’ve seriously changed your eating habits, replacing excess carbohydrates with protein you’re probably building muscle. Remember 80 percent of your healthy beautiful body equation is what you eat, so adjusting your diet can be a key to figuring out if you're losing pounds and/or how much muscle you could be gaining.

How are you exercising?
If you’re incorporating a strength training routine into your fitness regimen you might be gaining more muscle, but if you’re only spending time in the cardio room and not losing weight – something isn’t quite right. Although it sounds like you’re exercising a lot, you should make sure to add interval training, plyometrics or speed work into your routine to increase the amount of calories you burn.

Muscle makes the body a more well-oiled machine that keeps burning for hours after a work out. Studies have shown people who lift weights and do regular stength training have an even lower fat mass percentage than those who do aerobic exercise alone. What a great reason to combine the two for healthy weight loss in reaching your weight loss goal!