What are we really trying to lose here?

fatty_doll

fatty_doll

New member
I get confused sometimes with what people really want. Alot of people want to lose weight, right? But does anyone consider what the weight really is? Isn't it just body fat we want to lose? If we restrict our diet to lose "weight" only we could potentially also lose muscle.. and even when we get thin we may still be very "flabby"..

I'm just curious to think how realistic it is to say I want to lose "x" amount of weight.. because if we're relearning to eat healthier foods and exercising to build muscle aswell, we are decreasing our body fat percentage and not nec. losing weight (theoretically though we should still be decreasing in size).

...so does anyone else think this way? I'm not really looking to lose "x" amount of pounds.. I just want to get down to a healthy body fat percentage. ...because I see some before/after pictures of people who have done some amazing things already but they still want to lose weight.. and i was woundering more or less if they had a body fat % they were interested in or if they were soley focused on the numbers displayed on the scale. Not to discourage anyone.. but I've just been curious.
 
I think the thing about using the scale is that it's convenient and it's what most of the rest of the world goes by.

The truth is that most people want to look good. Many people want to look good and be healthy. There's nothing wrong with either goal, IMO.

I have a weight loss goal that is scale related, true. But the truth is, the number is not all that important. The scale is only a way for me to track my progress. I'm lucky in that it's never been an obsessive number for me and I've never tied my self worth to that number.

Unfortunately a lot of people can't separate their self-worth or their emotions from that number and for them, maybe the scale isn't the best judge of progress.

Also for those people who are already a healthy weight but want to build muscle, reshape their bodies, gain strength, whatever - definitely the scale isn't the best judge of progress.

And then on top of all of that, there's education. This is one of my big soapbox issues and there are a couple of elements to it. One is that there is no real form of nutritional and physical education provided to children when they need it most. PE and health class in schools are a joke. The other element which ties into that is that schools nowadays don't teach critical thinking, so people are conditioned to believe anything they read or see, which leads to the whole diet industry being able to foist whatever they feel like on the general public to rake in $$$ - because people don't have the basic understanding of nutrition and/or the ability to look at a claim and say out of simple common sense - "that's not right".

Even smart, educated, intelligent people have no idea what their correct calorie level should be, what a macro-nutrient is, how protein affects muscle growth, and very basic things like that. People come onto this and other boards and think that eating 2 bowls of cereal for breakfast and lunch and a hamburger for dinner is "healthy". Why? Because Kellogg tells them that a Special K diet is a healthy and reasonable way to lose weight and they don't have the knowledge to say otherwise.

Yeah ... sorry ... I said it was a soapbox issue ... let the ranting begin. :)

Anyway ... back to your original question of what are we trying to lose. I think if most people LEARNED about nutrition and weight loss, they'd agree that they want to lose body fat and maintain or gain muscle. But unfortunately to get to that point people have to break through the diet myths, the "bulk up" myths, the "women don't lift weights" myths, the "fat/carbs/meat is bad for you myths" .. etc.

And that's the hard part.
 
That's how I think as well. I don't care much what the scale says. My goals are cutting my body fat % down to a certain amount, regardless of what the scale says.
 
first off let me say that this is a good topic, I think alot of people are very confused about it, as was I, and i'll tell you a summarized version of a huge waste of time that I went through.

couple years ago I was deployed to iraq, I lost tons of weight just from being in the heat and drinking water all the time, I didnt work out a whole lot, but i still went from 230 to around 195 in about 3 months...now at this point I was what people call "skinny fat", meaning I was thin, but I didnt have much muscle mass to me, so me and a friend decide that we're going to "get buff" and start lifting, I knew nothing about thermodynamics or what it took to trigger hypertrophy, (mind you I still only know what this forum has taught me) so we went on a hard core diet, didn't drink soda, and lifted our asses off...and guess what, we got skinnier, held on the what little muscle we had, but didnt build anything, that went on for the rest of our tour (about 10 months).

What a huge waste of time :) Now I only concern myself with the scale once a week, and I don't really care what it says, mostly just to track the body fat to weight ratio, I have a little hand held body fat meter that works really well...I know I can't build muscle efficiently at the stage I'm at right now, but it helps me to track what muscle mass I'm not losing (if that makes sense)...in closing, I agree, we shouldn't concern ourselves with the number on the scale near as much as we do, the handheld body fat meter I bought cost less than my scale did and is worth (in my opinion) 5 times as much.
 
I didn't realize you could just buy those willynilly! I'll have to check into getting one.. The last body fat percentage test I did was with one of those pinchy thinggies that the gym people had (and you know the ones we used to dread in highschool).
 
if you're interested in getting one, go to amazon and search for Omron HBF-306C Fat Loss Monitor. there you can read reviews and stuff, they're new on there for 26.99, my scale cost 39.99 i believe.
 
I don't trust the scale anymore, especially because my weight shifts during the month- I retain water and my house is crooked. hah really

I do want to lose some weight, but it is not my main goal. I want to look and feel better, have a more fit body and see some of the dreadful celullite and varicose veins go away. if it means I don't lose a lot of weight who cares!
 
Well I am trying to LOSE/Ditch the old Behaviors, and Gain a certain measurement. Hehehee Can I say that? lol :jump:​
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top