Today, I want to talk about fat loss vs weight loss. You might be rolling your eyes, or, you might be wondering what the difference is between the two.
For me, for the longest time, I did not realise there was a difference!
I only wanted to lose weight.
I wanted that damn number on the scale to go down.
And when it didn’t….
But, then I had an epiphany. A ‘ha-ha!’ moment, if you will. And what I realised was this…
I wanted to lose fat, not weight, specifically. Someone asked me these questions (and this is now what I ask all my clients);
Would you rather A) lose 5% body fat but the scale number doesn’t change, or B) would you rather just lose ‘weight’ but maybe some of that is muscle?
And then if the answer to the above is A (which it absolutely should be btw), then why do you give a crap what the scales are saying?
Good question….
So, this changed everrrrything for me. Up until that point, I had been weighing myself every damn day and getting frustrated and thinking that things ‘weren’t working for me’ when I didn’t see any movement.
You see, that's the problem with 'weight loss'. When we just lose weight and only focus on the number on the scale it generally means we don't care where the weight comes from. And if we don't care where the weight comes from that means we end up not doing things strategically and run the risk of losing lots of muscle in the process, and we don't want that...
By having a strategy, having the right macro balance and timing our nutrients correctly, this means we can minimise the amount of muscle we lose during our fat loss phase, and even gain muscle in some cases! Woo-hoo!
My advice to you if you’re following any kind of structured fat loss diet right now would be to not tie any emotions to the scale, and to look for other ways to keep a track of your progress, such as taking weekly body measurements, weekly photos, having 1 item of clothing that maybe was tight on you (that pair of jeans??) and trying them on every few weeks, and basically, just be patient my friend. If you’re doing everything right then the results will come, I promise.
I will leave you to ponder on that, and I’d love to hear back from you if this resonates with you at all!
Have a lovely day and I’ll catch you soon.
Vicki x
Vegan Macros 101
