Fat vs weight loss

rcaccavale

what is the difference between fat loss and weight loss? Which should I lose?

livingleanlivingclean

You should lose fat.... You should focus on body composition more than weight. Get leaner, so lose fat, but retain or gain muscle.

"weight loss" can include fat, water and muscle...

blankiefinder

Well, I'm pretty sure you'd rather lose fat than muscle. I'm not sure I understand your question, since it seems so obvious...

Do you want to look 'lean' and 'toned' when you're done? (Sorry, not words I ever use!) Do you want to reduce your cellulite? In both cases, you want to reduce fat while retaining muscle.

brianpperkins

Lose fat ... which results in an overall and more lasting weight loss. Weight alone is lost when going to the bathroom.

Sued0nim

Any scale weight lost is a combination of fat, water and LBM (and waste product in body)

Of course it's only fat that matters really

So the task is to preserve as much LBM as possible as you drop fat and not get freaked out by the water fluctuations

How? Eat at a decent defecit but not too high a one; follow a progressive weight lifting programme

professionalHobbyist

A body composition scale is cheaper now.

It does a fair job of telling you total weight, fat percentage, muscle weight, bone weight, water percentage. It Gary's a bit but I do mine every morning and see the trends

Losing fat wad the goal at first. Replacing some with muscle came secondly.

This is what I heard is bad about crash diets, and it seems to make sense

If you cut dramatic amounts of calories to try to live on 500 a day you lose fat and muscle, get weak, and maybe binge at the crash at the end.

You have less muscle than when you started and may be worse off!

The calorie goals MFP sets are workable and sane. Follow those and a nutritious diet that suits you, and it works.

Lose fat, work your muscles, good change happens.

I like the tools for fitness available now. Body comp scale, food scale, fitness band, food diary App. So many good web sites to skim a few things from that work for me.

It is a great time to get fit.

Sued0nim

professionalHobbyist wrote: »

A body composition scale is cheaper now.

It does a fair job of telling you total weight, fat percentage, muscle weight, bone weight, water percentage. It Gary's a bit but I do mine every morning and see the trends

Losing fat wad the goal at first. Replacing some with muscle came secondly.

This is what I heard is bad about crash diets, and it seems to make sense

If you cut dramatic amounts of calories to try to live on 500 a day you lose fat and muscle, get weak, and maybe binge at the crash at the end.

You have less muscle than when you started and may be worse off!

The calorie goals MFP sets are workable and sane. Follow those and a nutritious diet that suits you, and it works.

Lose fat, work your muscles, good change happens.

I like the tools for fitness available now. Body comp scale, food scale, fitness band, food diary App. So many good web sites to skim a few things from that work for me.

It is a great time to get fit.

those scales that give a BF reading are less than useful in giving an absolute number

but can be used for tracking movement over time

do not rely on their readouts as an actual BF estimate

PAV8888

I don't often disagree with the wise Rabbit, but body fat scales are about as useful as throwing darts drunk and blindfolded.

Over a 2 month period the scale was implying at best a 2:1 fat to muscle loss; follow up DXA scan confirmed a better than 8:1 result.

@ 203.3lbs: DXA fat: 66.9 ; Scale fat 25.4% => implied fat as per scale 51.64
@ 191.3lbs (-12lbs) DXA fat: 56.2 (-10.7lbs)
Loss ratio estimate by DXA 8.23:1
Scale fat 23.7% => implied fat as per scale: 45.3381 (-6.3lbs)
Implied loss ratio by scale 1.11:1

So, let's help the scale out by incrementing the 45.34 proportionately to the original error. We now get a "corrected" implied fat as per scale of: 58.74lbs (-8.16lbs).
And, a more "accurate" implied loss ratio of 2.13:1

I don't know about you; but, losing fat to muscle at an 8:1 ratio as opposed to a 2:1 ratio like the scale insists is fairly important to me!

And, frankly, if all the scale can do is tell me that I am losing fat at some random rate; well the weight change by itself gives me the same information!