The alarming rise in numbers of people who are overweight or obese, it’s no surprise that the fitness industry is in great demand, the fitness goal for most is to lose weight. Most of us have weighing scale at home and are addicted to weighing ourselves. Did you know there is lot more going on than just the numbers on the scale , and the most intelligent way to track it is by measuring your body composition.
Body Composition is simply as name suggest composition of your body weight, specifically how much fat mass versus how much lean mass (muscle, bones, organs) is there in your body. This makes the difference as two people who are 5 feet 10’ weighing 70kgs can have totally different body composition and the way they look will be completely different ,as 1 kg of Muscle mass is more compact then 1 kg of fat in volume. In terms of fitness we are looking at having less fat mass and more lean mass, which will give a much slimmer and more toned and athletic appearance (as well as do wonders for our health). Because of this, our actual bodyweight should take a backseat to body composition in terms of priority.
In my practise I have seen many clients improving drastically in their body composition with no or little change in weight, in fact some even gain weight while losing inches and fat! If these people were only focusing on that scale how discourage they would be, that’s why shun that Weighing scale and focus on testing your Body Composition to reassesses and track your progress in real terms.
Being focused on weight can lead to unnecessary discouragement and anxiety. Throughout the day a person’s weight can fluctuate between1-2 kgs based on food and hydration, so don’t be hard on yourself over gaining a couple here and there : you haven’t gotten fat!
Rather than carrying a bathroom scale in your back pocket and weighing yourself after every trip to the bathroom (yes, I have known clients who did this!), try getting your body composition checked a couple times per month to see if your fat mass is going down and your lean mass is going up. This is the most wiser way of tracking your progress.
