WEIGHT LOSS VS FAT LOSS

josephplatt1979
Jun 10, 2021
14 min read

Updated: Nov 4, 2022

WEIGHT LOSS VS FAT LOSS

If you have ever thought of getting in shape, am are sure you have pondered the terms weight loss vs fat loss. Most of the time, when we talk about wanting to lose weight, we’re really talking about wanting to lose fat.

Weight loss refers to a decrease in your overall body weight from muscle, water, and fat.

Fat loss refers to weight loss from fat, and it’s a more specific and healthful goal than weight loss.

One of the prime reasons why fat loss and weight loss are used together is that most people trying to lose weight aim to lose body fat in the process. However, losing body fat isn't the same as weight loss in itself. Unlike weight loss, or a kilo-wise reduction, fat loss cannot be mapped using a weighing scale. It is for the same reason that many fitness gurus point out that seeing the number on the scale is not a true marker or whether you are losing fat, muscle and in what exact way.

FOCUS ON FAT LOSS OVER WEIGHT LOSS

Many weight loss programs claim to help you lose weight quickly and easily. But it’s important to know that a significant amount of this weight may include water and muscle losses. Losing muscle can be detrimental to your health, as muscle is a crucial component of our body.

Keeping a healthy percentage of muscle has several benefits, such as, staying fit, strong, regulating healthy blood sugar levels, maintaining healthy fat levels and controlling inflammation. Its also worth knowing that the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn at rest. This is the main reason why men generally have higher calorie needs than women. Consequently, losing weight in the form of muscle can decrease the number of calories you burn at rest, making it easier to regain any weight you lost in the form of fat.

If you want to know how to lose fat and get into shape, the answer is simple; Eat right, add some fat burning exercises into your daily routine and have dedication to stick to a routine is what burns fat the most and keeps it off.

You should never feel pressured to losing fat, but if you are overweight or feel as though you need to do something, then it’s a worthy goal to lose fat. Losing fat not only makes you look better and feel better but it has other benefits to including:

Lower blood pressure
Less risk of heart disease
Improved mobility and reduced pain
Improved mood
Better sleep
Higher self-esteem
Improved insulin resistance
Lower risk for multiple cancers

SETTING A GOAL

Before you even get started on a weight loss vs fat loss plan the first thing you want to do is to set a goal for yourself. This goal could be to lose 20 lbs or it could be to see your abs.

Weight-loss goals can mean the difference between success and failure. Realistic, well-planned weight-loss goals keep you focused and motivated. They provide a plan for change as you transition to a healthier lifestyle.

A good way to set a goal is to use the S.M.A.R.T. goal strategy which stands for

Specific – In order for a goal to be effective, it needs to be specific. A specific goal answers questions like, what needs to be accomplished? Who’s responsible for it? What steps need to be taken to achieve it?
Measurable - In order to track your progress during the weight loss journey, the goal you set needs to be measurable. Define how you will measure your success as you move through your journey. Could be bodyfat measurements as well as weight scales.
Achievable - Goals should be realistic and not something you are setting up to fail. Ask yourself is the goal something you’re I reasonably accomplish? All goals should be challenging but they shouldn't be so difficult that they are overwhelming.
Relevant - A relevant goal supports what you really want for your life. If a goal lines up with your why—your reason for wanting to lose weight—then it’s much more likely to keep you inspired and on track throughout your journey.
Time-bound - Each goal should have a time limit and you should decide on a reasonable amount of time that you'll take to reach your goal. You could have a goal of 1-2-pound weight loss per week, which is considered healthy weight loss.

DO WEIGHT TRAINING

Most fitness gurus or personal trainers will agree that if you want to lose weight and build lean muscle, you need to weight train and aim for at least three weight session workouts a week. What’s important for everyone to know is that weight training is not just about bodybuilders, Its for everyone or anyone wanting to improve their health or body.

A well-designed weight-training program can keep you burning calories and fat for up to 48 hours after your workout. Adding muscle mass will help your body burn more calories at rest. When combined with a proper diet, this will increase your metabolism and help you burn off excess body fat at a much faster rate.

The best moves for losing body fat are the ones that recruit large muscles and work multiple muscles at one time, known as compound exercises. These exercises burn more calories because more muscles are working. Compound movements burn more calories per rep, which burns more fat, and more muscle is stimulated per rep, which translates to more muscle gained. Compound moves are more time efficient, so you don't have to spend hours in the gym.

The best compound exercises to add to your routine would be:

SQUATS- The Squat is a lower body compound exercise and you can do the bodyweight version, without added resistance or with weights such as a barbell or dumbbell. The Squat exercise mainly targets the thighs, hamstring, glutes and core. It can also help with stability, ankle mobility, back muscles, calves, and other factors which play an important role when you are doing this exercise.

CHIN UP / PULL UP - Using all the big pulling muscles of the body including the back muscles, the shoulders and the arms. This a great exercise for firming, toning, building and strengthening all these muscle groups. As chins also use a lot of muscle then they are a great exercise for burning calories and assisting weight loss. And like the previous exercises the chin or pull up can be modified to suit most clients’ abilities.

DEADLIFT - The deadlift is a serious muscle builder as well as an all-round quality exercise. When appropriately loaded the deadlift uses more muscles than any other resistance exercise including all the lower body muscles, and the majority of the upper body muscles. As such it is great for burning calories, firming, toning and developing muscles, building strength and size and losing weight – all depending on how it is performed.

BENCH PRESS - The bench press is one of the most popular and widely used exercise to increase strength in the upper body and build chest muscle. The Bench Press is essentially an open chain version of the push up. It works all the same pushing muscles – the chest, shoulders and triceps. It’s the most effective exercise to gain upper-body strength and muscle mass because it’s the upper-body exercise you’ll lift most weight on.

LUNGES - Using mostly the same muscles as the squat, lunges can help you develop lower-body strength and endurance. They’re also a great beginner move. When done correctly, lunges can effectively target your lower-body muscles without placing added strain on your joints. In a lunge, many muscles work to both mobilize and stabilize the body. The main muscle used in a lunge are the quadriceps, glutes, hamstrings, calves, erector spinae and the core.

SHOULDER PRESS - The shoulder press is one of the best exercises for strengthening your shoulders and upper back. The biggest benefactor of the shoulder press is the front portion of your shoulder muscle (anterior deltoid) but you'll also be working out your deltoids, triceps, trapezius and pecs. Because being upright requires balance, you also recruit the muscles in your core, including your abdominals and lower back.

BENT OVER ROW - The bent-over row is one of the most effective upper back exercises for stimulating muscle growth. Although the standard bent-over row mainly targets your forearms and upper back, variations can be used to include your biceps and lats as well. This exercise can be performed with a barbell or dumbbells.

HIIT WORKOUTS

If you want to quickly shed weight, HIIT cardio workouts can help you. HIIT stands for High-Intensity Interval Training and it is a type of high energy fat burning workout, which combines high-intensity bursts of exercise with short periods of rest.

HIIT keeps your heart rate up and burns more calories in a short period of time, compared to other forms of cardio. Training at high intensity is based on a simple principle: push your body hard enough – even if only for 10 seconds – and it will keep burning calories long after your workout has finished. The key to making HIIT work is the intensity as you can’t coast through your work periods when doing HIIT. HIIT requires you to be explosive and intense during your work period.

Studies have shown that HIIT workouts can burn up to 30 per cent more calories than other types of cardio when done for the same amount of time.

If you decide to do HIIT, aim for no more than 3-4 HIIT workouts per week to give your body time to recover.

It's possible to perform HIIT training using a variety of methods, like with a bike, or treadmill, but you can also do this outside on a field or at home, choice is yours.

HIIT Treadmill HIIT Workout

If you love working out on the treadmill, then up the ante by turning your regular run into a HIIT session.

Start with a 5-min warm-up at a brisk walk pace
Run 1 minute at 7mph followed by 2 minutes at 5.5mph – repeat 5 times (15 minutes)
Walk 1 minute at an easy pace to recover a bit
Run 30 seconds at 10-12mph followed by 1 minute at 4mph – repeat 5 times (7.5 minutes)
4 minute cool down walk

Regular sessions of treadmill sprints are great for fat loss and cardiovascular fitness. However, remember to increase the difficulty every two to three weeks, so you’re continually challenging yourself, and you don’t end up on a plateau.

HIIT workouts don’t just have to be on a treadmill as they can also be performed on a Stairmaster, with a Jumping rope or Cycle sprints. Find what best suits your needs and find something that you will enjoy.

TABATA HIIT

Just 4 minutes is all you need to blast your body into action and melt fat, fast.

Traditional TABATA workouts consist of just two exercises, perform the first continuously at maximum intensity for 20 seconds, take a 10-second break, then go all-out on the second exercise for 20 seconds. Keep going until the 4 minutes are up.

You could use a combination of Jump Squats & Burpees or use Mountain climbers & squats. The choice of exercise is yours. Not only do you burn more calories during your workout, but you also increase your afterburn—the calories you burn after you exercise as your body resets back to normal.

GET THE RIGHT DIET

Apart from the exercise than burns fat the most, you will always want to put nutrition top of your agenda. Fad diets and quick-fix solutions offer an easy alternative to changing your diet and keeping to healthy eating. But these diets are usually unsustainable and eventually put you right back to square one.

In order to lose weight, you need to create a calorie deficit and this deficit can come from eating less or training more to create a deficit. A combination of good training and healthy nutrition is the best and simplest way to create a deficit.

When it comes to the nutrition side yo want to focus on eating sufficient amounts of the main three nutrients, carbohydrate, protein, and fat as these contain calories that your body uses for energy.

Proteins are the building blocks of your body. Pretty much all lean (non-fat) tissue in your body is comprised of protein, therefore it is the most important macronutrient. When you exercise, you are damaging the muscles and connective tissues in your body, so to repair those damaged tissues you need to consume adequate protein.

When it comes to weight loss, a high-protein diet can have powerful and beneficial effects. These include lower levels of hunger hormones and cravings, increased satiety and even a greater number of calories burned

High-protein diets lead to weight loss and may also help prevent weight regain. They do so by reducing hunger hormones, increasing satiety, burning more calories and decreasing cravings.

Each person should have a protein intake between 0.5–1 gram per pound of body weight daily, or 30-40% of total daily calories. Protein sources include eggs, dairy, fish and Lean meats like chicken or turkey. You can also have protein supplements as not a lot of people can consume enough protein from food alone.

Carbohydrates are our bodys fuel source and help provide energy for our workouts. The healthiest sources of carbohydrates we should have in out diets ar unprocessed or minimally processed starches such as potatoes or yams, vegetables, fruits and beans. They promote good health by delivering vitamins, minerals, fibre, and a host of important nutrients. Unhealthier sources of carbohydrates include bread, pasta, pastries, sodas, and other processed or refined foods. These items contain quickly digested carbohydrates that have a high glycemic index; which contributes to weight gain, hormone imbalance, diabetes and heart disease. Your goal should be to eat whole food sources of carbohydrates such as vegetables, legumes and some fruit.

Fats have been given a bad name, but they too are an important part of our diet. They’re used by the body as energy, storage for vitamins, for production of hormones and as protection for our organs. Healthy fats help regulate hunger, protect against heart disease, transport nutrients through your body, and improve your fat-soluble vitamin uptake. Not to mention, most unprocessed, high-fat foods also come packaged with many of those important nutrients, from vitamins and minerals to free-radical fighting antioxidants

Eating the right foods is the major part of us burning fat and along with exercise, we give our body the best chance of burning fat and staying healthy. In simple terms, it means that you need to burn more calories than you put in, i.e. eat well, in balanced and right amounts and burn more, than the calories you put in.

If you eat more than you burn, you will gain weight. It’s like simple mathematics.

Healthy foods in moderate amounts contain fewer calories than junk food. Healthy food helps to build the body and muscles which will have a positive effect on your health. Exercise makes you not only feel great in so many ways, but it also helps to burn more calories and fat.

EAT PLENTY OF FIBRE

Dietary fibre describes plant-based carbohydrates that it is not possible to digest in the small intestine, unlike sugar and starch. Not only does it promote a happy and healthy gut, but it also can help you meet your weight loss goals.

Including plenty of fibre in the diet can increase the feeling of fullness, potentially leading to weight loss.

Fibre-rich foods include: whole-grain breakfast cereals, whole-wheat pasta, whole-grain bread, oats, barley, fruit, vegetables, peas, beans, pulses, nuts and seeds

The more fiber a food has, the better. Fiber-packed products tend to be low-cal, so you can eat a lot. Fiber makes you full, because it swells in your stomach when it absorbs liquid.

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STAY HYDRATED

Water is the medium in which most cellular activities take place, including the transporting and burning of fat. Water can be really helpful for weight loss as it is 100% calorie-free, helps you burn more calories and may even suppress your appetite if consumed before meals. When the stomach senses that it is full, it sends signals to the brain to stop eating. Water can help to take up space in the stomach, leading to a feeling of fullness and reducing hunger.

When the body is dehydrated, it cannot correctly remove waste as urine or feces.

Water helps the kidneys to filter toxins and waste while the organ retains essential nutrients and electrolytes. When the body is dehydrated, the kidneys retain fluid.

Drinking little and often is the best way to stay hydrated. You should aim for 6-8 glasses of water and other liquids each day to replace normal water loss – around 1.2 to 1.5 litres. This amount will be more if you are exercising on that day.

EAT LESS SUGAR

Sugar is a major culprit in weight gain since it contains calories, but not much else in the way of vitamins, minerals, or anything else that’s good for you. Overall, if you eat more than what you need, you will store the extra energy as fat.

Some weight loss programs suggest that eating fat is the path to gaining fat, but in reality, it does not matter what nutrient you over consume; the more you eat, the more you gain. Not only can a low sugar diet help you lose weight, but this lifestyle can also help you manage and/or prevent diabetes, heart disease and stroke, reduce inflammation, and even improve your mood and the health of your skin.

Cutting added sugars can mean better nutrition, especially if you make it a point to replace those calories with whole foods like fruits, vegetables, nuts, fish, and whole grains. These foods have more of the nutrients your body needs to repair and protect itself. And because they have fiber that helps your body absorb sugars more slowly, your blood glucose levels will be more stable.

SLEEP

Sleep has endless benefits, and let's face it no one likes getting up early in the morning, so make sure you get enough of it each day. Studies show that those who had 4 hours of sleep were less able to process carbs because of increased insulin and stress hormone cortisol. This metabolic malfunctioning is then accompanied by a decreased level of willpower to make good choices and avoid unhealthy snacks. Instead, aim for around 8 hours per night to keep your metabolism ticking. when you're well-rested, you're less hungry. Being sleep-deprived messes with the hormones in your brain -- leptin and ghrelin -- that control appetite.

DRINK LESS ALCOHOL

Alcoholic drinks are often referred to as “empty” calories. This means that they provide your body with calories but contain very few nutrients. Foods high in simple sugars, such as those found in candy, soda, and even beer, are also high in calories. Extra calories end up stored as fat in the body. alcohol can change the way your body burns fat. When you drink, your body is more focused on breaking down alcohol rather than burning fat. Also, instead of burning fat, your body is burning the calories from the alcohol, so it can take you longer to lose weight. If you want to enjoy a social drink and stick to your weight goals, then it’s about finding a healthy balance, so you can ensure your body will still burn fat for fuel.

EAT FOODS THAT BURN FAT

Limiting your caloric intake means that now you have to carefully choose what to eat. You will need foods that satisfy your appetite and provide nutrients. Empty calories such as sugars and processed foods are not going to give you sustained energy or nutrients. You will notice that even though you ate, let’s say 1500 calories, you are still going to be hungry and probably tired. Instead, you want to choose foods that not only keep you full, but also actually help you burn fat quickly. Best Fat Burning Foods: Oats, Grapefruit, Green Tea, Red Peppers, Berries, Vinegar, Proteins, Avocados and cinnamon.

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REDUCE STRESS LEVELS

Stress can make you gain belly fat by triggering the adrenal glands to produce cortisol, which is also known as the stress hormone. Research shows that high cortisol levels increase appetite and drive abdominal fat storage What’s more, people who already have a large waist tend to produce more cortisol in response to stress. Increased cortisol further adds to fat gain around the middle. To help reduce belly fat, engage in pleasurable activities that relieve stress. Yoga or meditation can be effective methods.

MANAGE FOOD CRAVINGS

weight loss vs fat loss will only work if your nutrition is good, weight loss and fat loss can be very difficult if your nutrition is not right. Working out and cutting calories is going to initially amplify your thoughts of food, and this is where most people fall off the wagon. During the day, you’ll see others eating unhealthy food, or you will crave your favourite foods such as sugar-packed foods and pastries, or maybe it’s chips and fizzy drinks. The key is to anticipate these cues and cravings and find quick and easy substitutes that can give you a boost. Green tea and a small piece of dark chocolate could get you through the worse cravings. Nuts and a small amount of fruit is also a good choice. Best Tips to Fight Cues and Craving are don’t hover around the desert table, use small plates and limit desert size, pack healthy snacks, don’t skip meals, get support from others who are eating healthy and best of all keep junk food out of sight.