In simple terms, losing weight refers to a decrease in your overall body weight from muscle, fat, and water losses. Losing fat refers to weight loss from fat only.
We can think of it as: losing fat is getting rid of the unnecessary, or excess, fat on our bodies while losing weight can include losing necessary muscle mass and water weight. Losing fat is definitely the more healthy approach here – and the more desired one as well.
That’s why our program, the 21-day fat loss challenge, is geared towards losing fat instead of losing weight.
Simply put, losing fat should be your goal in your journey to getting healthier.
Losing weight, which refers to the loss of muscle and water instead of just fat, can cause negative health effects. Some of the adverse health effects of losing weight (as opposed to losing just fat) can include:
- Lowered metabolism
- Fatigue
- Increased risk of injury
- Declines in neuromuscular function (muscles), and
- Potential effects on psychological and emotional health
We don’t want to lose muscle mass or just water weight when we’re working towards losing fat.
Muscle Weighs More Than Fat
I’m sure you’ve heard that muscle weighs more than fat. This is true, and you shouldn’t lose muscle mass if your primary goal is to get healthier.
Kelsey Wells posted the following images on Instagram. She is about the same weight in both images, but she is thinner and more fit in the image on the right.
1 pound of muscle takes up far less space than 1 pound of fat.