We Focus on Fat Loss and not Weight Loss at Body Blast Boot Camp and here’s why…

Let’s face it, when we are trying to get into shape the main indicator we use for our success is our weight. Everybody is fixated on the number on the scales and even if you feel ten times better, are fitter and stronger, are more comfortable in your clothes and look better in the mirror, if the scales haven’t budged then you feel as though you have not gained any results whatsoever.

This is stupid, but unfortunately that’s how our brains work!

Scales are useless in determining short term success. Sure, you should expect your weight to come down over the long term, but in the short term i.e. a few weeks or months then there is a huge number of factors that can affect your weight, not just the amount of fat you have.

When you step on the scales, the number that appears is not how fat you are, it is the total weight of everything that makes up you. This includes: water, muscle, fat, organs, bones, hair, blood and everything else!

Here are a few things other than fat that can affect the scales…

Muscle

Everybody knows that muscle is denser than fat. This means 1lb of muscle looks WAY less than 1lb of fat. If you are doing a lot of resistance training, with weight or without, then you can expect to put on a significant amount of muscle. The thing is when you put on muscle and lose fat, your body shape completely changes making you look slimmer and more toned! If you feel like your reflection is slimmer but the scales remain the same then your mirror is probably right.

Water

65% of our bodies are made up of water, which obviously has a huge effect on what we weigh.

In the short term, any weight gain (or loss for that matter) is probably a result of how much water we are holding. There are a huge number of things that can affect our water retention.

Hormones play a key role in our bodies, and can influence our water retention massively. One obvious way this affects women is they will naturally be carrying more water than usual when it is the ‘time of the month’. But there are less obvious ways that hormones affect your weight. For example the hormone cortisol causes water retention, meaning that elevated levels can mask fat loss.

It just so happens that dieting and exercise both increase cortisol. (Affecting some people way more than others)

Typically, a big change in diet and more total exercise (usually cardio) will increase cortisol to the point where weight loss becomes erratic and unpredictable.

But things like lack of sleep, big lifestyle stresses, and injuries can also raise cortisol.

Content of the stomach

Another obvious but overlooked factor in what you weigh. If you measure yourself in the morning and evening there can be as much as a 10lb difference in your weight!

Simply having more food in your gut can have a dramatic effect of your weight, this includes food making its way through your digestive system as well. Depending on how fast your digestive system is working (and the speed changes from day to day), you can be carrying vastly different amounts of food inside.

This goes for water as well, if you are chugging down the water all day long then you will weigh 2-3 lbs heavier just from the sheer fact of liquid sitting in your stomach.

Carbs

Carbs are exceptionally good at messing with weight. Carbs either get stored in the muscles or as fat. When they get stored in the muscles not only do they cause you to weigh more, they also bring in 3 times the amount in water, adding even more to your weight.

Sodium

Salt intake can also have a significant effect on weight. Sodium  (from salt) again increases water rentention, so if you have had something really salty, or just consuming more salt than usual, be sure that this will be having an effect on the scales.

So as you can see, there a number of things that can affect your weight other than just fat. So keep that in mind if the scales don’t budge and instead focus on how you feel, how you look in the mirror and how your clothes fit you.