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ARTICLE
OF THE MONTH: The WEIGHT Loss vs FAT Loss DECEPTION
January 2002
"YOU NEED
TO LOSE WEIGHT!" is the fallacy that keeps you FAT! Along with
millions of other people in the modern world. Almost every woman
and most men over age 40 when asked to name their primary fitness
goal, list weight loss as number one. The media tells you to lose
weight to retain sex appeal, your doctor tells you to lose weight
for your health. Everybody of any size seems to approach us for
help in losing at least 10 pounds of weight. But that always leads
us to ask the question "When you say that you need to lose
weight, what particular weight do you need to lose?"
We know that
our body weight is made up of four basic components; Bone, Muscle
and Organs, Water, and Fat.
#1 BONE
Our hard, bony skeletal structure is our body's storage depot for
essential minerals such as calcium, and potassium. and the marrow
is the manufacturing site for cells of our immune system.
We need a heavy-weight
skeletal system.
Weight loss
in skeletal bone risks mineral deficiencies, osteoporosis, fractures
and micro fractures, as well as weakening our immune system.
# 2 MUSCLES\ORGANS
Our soft protein tissue makes up our muscles and vital organs/ eg.
heart. Carbohydrate (Glycogen) is stored in the muscles.
Large heavy-weight
Protein muscles with lots of stored Glycogen energy are desirable
because they are strong and work efficiently. Muscle tissue burns
calories even when resting, promoting efficient metabolism.
Loss of muscle
weight lowers our metabolism, which in turn lowers our calorie burning
potential, and in turn our eating potential.
Weight loss
in our vital organs, like our heart can kill us (anorexics, like
Karen Carpenter, often die of heart attacks because of cannabalized
heart muscle.)
#3 WATER
Our water soluble body fluids, blood and interstitial fluids.
Water is heavy:
Approximately 2 cups per pound. A well-hydrated body is a sign of
fitness and health. Drinking several glasses of water per day helps
your body flush toxins and digest its food more efficiently, which
can promote a healthy weight and sometimes reduce water retention.
Weight loss
in fluids from water pills, sweat from extreme exercise or sauna,
we risk dehydration which leads to visible premature aging and serious
health problems. Plus the weight loss is gained back fast by merely
drinking water.
That leaves
us with:
#4 FAT!
Oil soluble body fat is essential for energy, insulation, skin,
nerves, brain, and protection of all our vital organs. Without fat,
our bodies would literally fall apart, and it is essential for our
survival to keep a minimum amount of fat on our body.
Fat is fluffy
and weighs less than all the others, approximately 1/3 as much as
muscle. If we want to measure our body fat, the scale is an archaic
vestige of the 20 century. It is best measured by extremely high
tech body composition tests which are available to the average
consumer now.
Too much body
fat is linked with many chronic quality of life and some life threatening
afflictions including heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, and depression.
HOW MUCH BODY FAT
IS TOO MUCH?
Body composition
tests measure the percentage of our lean tissue (Bone, muscle, water)
versus the percentage we have in fat.
For example:
If we compare two people both weighing 150 pounds; the one with
10% fat would have 15 pounds of fat and 135 pounds of lean tissue.
The other weighing the same but with 30% fat would have 45 pounds
of fat and only 105 pounds of lean.
Normal body
fat for young, fit people is less than 18% of total body weight
for men and 23% for women. Fat percentage increases with age and
most "normal" people over age 50 have higher amounts of
fat. Less than 23% of total body weight for men and 30% for women
is acceptable, healthwise. Too much body fat is over 35% and is
linked with many chronic afflictions including heart disease and
diabetes.
If too much
body fat is the culprit, not our general weight, why don't we just
face the truth? Maybe as new millennial citizens of an educated
civilized world, we should realize that we don't simply need
WEIGHT loss. But we'll bet that to improve their quality of life
most people in the "modern" world definately have to lose
body FAT!
Only, using
the word "Fat" is politically incorrect. "Fat"
implies lots of negatives; grossness, laziness, sloth, gluttony,
slovenliness, lack of control, a sin, a character flaw and worse.
Even young school children when shown pictures of other children
with various body types, races, disabilities choose obese children
last as potential friends.
FAT PEOPLE
CAN STILL BE FIT!
There are some
very interesting fat and size acceptance groups and websites
and we support and empathize with most of them. A National Institute
of Health NIH 1992 panel concluded that physiologic, biochemical,
genetic, environmental, cultural and subcultural evidence suggests
that being fat is not a simple problem of will power. And there
is evidence that the weight loss and gain of yo-yo dieting can shorten
your life more so than remaining fat would! We hope they know that
so called "fat" people can still be fit! We urge everyone
to see the PBS Frontline videos one called "Fat" and its
evil twin "Dying to be Thin". Both are eye openers about
our culture's obsession with body size and weight loss.
According to
Stash, "Although thin is in style now, 50 years ago we men
loved women who were fat. Beautiful, gorgeous, sung about and love
to be in bed with. Who changed it? We have to do something about
that!"
Still, very
few of us want to be called fat or be told that we have too much
fat. Even our doctors who should know better prefer to tell us that
we are too "heavy" and need to lose weight
rather than risk offending and losing business by talking about
fat loss.
Our gripe is
that as long as you are programmed to think of weight loss instead
of fat loss, you will not be open to the fitness and health industry's
best kept secret. The secret that there are scientifically approved,
double blind tested methods which can enable you to lose weight
in the form of FAT primarily and at the same time produce positive
growth in your other body components: bone, muscle, cardio respiratory
organs and fluids (blood and enzymes) which in turn increases your
overall health, immune system, and fitness.
The catch is
that because Fat is the slowest component to burn (muscle, vital
organs, bone, and water burn much faster than fat) it requires patience
and some self discipline and necessitates making some positive lifestyle
changes to burn fat, which sounds like hard work. And the doctors
don't think you have the inner strength and self control to stick
it out. Instead they just recommend weight loss. And fast weight
loss is easy. You can go on extreme diets which don't give you enough
calories to live on. You body then has to use the fastest source
of energy to burn to make it through the day. And that is every
thing besides fat. Yes, when you diet, your body uses muscle and
organ protein to burn as fuel instead of precious body fat. You
conserve body fat and save it as the last resource to burn; this
is a natural part of your body's survival mechanism. Why? Researchers
believe that the body does not want to let go of its precious supply
of fat because it is more important to survival than muscle, bone,
etc.
Be aware that
Fat is essential for nerves, skin, day to day energy, and protection.
You can live without muscles (you could lie in bed all day) and
with thin bones (osteoporosis) but without some body fat we would
literally fall apart.
A perfect illustration
of this can be seen in the concentration camp survivors. When they
were liberated, they had hollow stomachs and were just "skin
and bones." It was found that they had surprisingly high percentages
of body fat, even though they'd lost a majority of their muscle
tissue, body fluids, and bone density.
The body's preference
for burning muscle and vital organ tissues instead of fat carries
with it some sad implications. First, muscle is more metabolically
active than fat. This means that the more muscle we have, the higher
our metabolism is, the higher our minimum daily requirement, and
thus the more food we need to eat (this is why professional athletes
and weight lifters who have so much muscle can eat so much). If
we have lost muscle mass through dieting, and we gain the weight
back in the form of fat, we have decreased our metabolism and thereby
made future weight loss more difficult. This is called Yo-Yo dieting
According to the Berkeley Wellness Letter: "Yo-yo dieting affords
the body repeated opportunities to build up its efficiency at storing
energy - a function of fat cells. Muscle cells, on the other hand,
burn calories, so that along with lost muscle mass, some of your
body's calorie-burning potential disappears".
Our next Article
of the Month will reveal the latest most effective fat loss secrets
of fitness professionals, trainers and coaches from the US, Canada,
Australia, the UK.
By Stash &
Norma Furman
LINKS
Fat
Person's Home Page
The
Zig Zag Diet
What
to Do About Midlife Weight Gain
Fad
Diets
Fat
Loss Lies
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