People often use the terms weight loss and fat loss interchangeably. Weight and fat are two different things. Weight refers to the sum total of what the human body is made of. Fat is only one part of the whole. To make your fitness programs more specific and effective, you need to know the difference between the two. Specific goals are necessary to come up with the right formula on how to achieve it. To hit your target, fitness plans should focus on what you're trying to aim for. For most people, that is fat loss.
Beauty is a matter of preference. Most people however would prefer the chiseled, lean look of muscles over spongy fat. Even if one has a healthy set of muscles within, fat can cover it and make you look soft. You can be within your ideal weight range and still look fat. That's what makes weight loss different from fat loss. You can lose weight and still have a thick layer of fat in your body. If you lose fat, the beauty of your muscles become evident to the casual observer. A lean muscled body not only looks good. It also makes you feel good.
Developing muscles help you fight fat. Pound for pound, muscles are heavier than fat. Muscles are tightly weaved tissue that carry its weight. Fat just lie there and depend on the muscles to carry them. This is one of the reasons why fat people get tired easily. They have so much fat that their muscles and bones work harder to carry it. Muscles burn calories even when you're at rest. The more muscle fibers you have, the more efficient your body burns calories. The weighing scale is not an accurate measurement of fitness. Fitness requires men to have 10 to 14% of body fat percentage. Women, because they are genetically predisposed to it, should strive for 16 to 20% body fat percentage.
A weighing scale cannot tell the difference between muscles, water and fat. It simply tells you how heavy you are. Boxers and wrestlers can achieve weight loss easily by dehydrating themselves days prior to the weigh in. Then again, we are not boxers or wrestlers or even professional mixed martial arts fighters, we just can't dehydrate ourselves and risk being rushed to the nearest hospital. Fitness is not measured by the weighing scale. Evaluation tools for body fat percentage are more precise in determining if you are truly fit or not.
The difference between fat and weight loss is visible to the naked eye. Working towards fat loss can be harder but infinitely more rewarding. Admit it, hard muscles are really more preferable than spongy fat.
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