The Most Important Number You Don't Know
You know your age, height, and probably even your bodyweight, but chances are, you don’t know your bodyfat percentage. Of course, this happens to be one of the most important numbers in your life! Not only does your bodyfat percentage determine whether you look lean or flabby, but high levels of bodyfat percentage have been linked to nearly every chronic disease plaguing America today!
Many people want to lose fat, but find that doing so is a constant struggle and no matter what they do, they never seem to get leaner, firmer, or more energized. Even if they manage to lose some weight, they often find that they still look and feel flabby. The reality is that most diet approaches today completely ignore bodyfat percentage, focusing instead on bodyweight and using calorie reduction as a means to lose weight as fast as possible. People following these approaches can lose drastic amounts of weight rapidly and yet are often left fatter than before! How is this possible?
For our purposes, let’s break your body into two parts: bodyfat and lean tissue (muscle, organs, etc.). Your lean tissue is burning calories 24 hours a day, converting food into energy and utilizing it for all of its daily needs. Fat on the other hand requires very little energy to maintain because it doesn’t do anything except sit there looking ugly and waiting around just in case you need it for energy sometime. When your body gets into a situation where it feels like it is starving (i.e. go on a diet), it will do two things 1) store away as much fat as possible to provide energy reserves for later, and 2) burn off as much lean tissue as possible in order to reduce the amount of energy it needs to maintain itself. This is the equivalent of throwing overboard all of the unessential heavy stuff in a sinking ship. Your body is simply thinking about survival. It doesn’t care if it looks good, feels good, or functions optimally... it just wants to stay alive.
So, at this point, your body is burning off all of its healthy, attractive, lean, calorie burning muscle tissue and holding onto as much fat as possible! Muscle weighs much more than fat, so when someone following this approach looks at the scale, they see the pounds dropping like crazy and think that they are making progress. Eventually their body loses enough muscle to be able to maintain itself on the low calorie diet that the person is following. When this happens, the weight loss comes to a screeching halt. Of course, this does not meet the approval of the dieter, who looks in the mirror only to see a thinner chubby person who still looks as flabby as ever.
Unfortunately, now in order to lose more weight, they will have to eat even less than the reduced calorie diet that they are already following...Or to simply stay the same weight, they can just stay on the current reduced calorie diet forever...But, of course, they don’t want to do that either.
So, they struggle between low and lower calorie diets, periodically falling off the wagon and going back to normal eating (who wouldn’t?...starving yourself is hard work). Every time they go back to eating a normal amount, their body jumps on the opportunity to store away as much fat as possible, since it stills believes it is starving.
This scenario is one that has been experienced by millions of Americans who want to get lean and look great. The problem goes back to the beginning, starting with their measure of progress. If fat loss is your goal, then wouldn’t it be best to measure fat loss? Muscleloss is not progress if your goal is fat loss.
The other problem is the idea that in order to lose fat, you need to eat less. This is absolute baloney! The reality is that many people need to eat more in order to lose fat and get lean. Not only does this approach actually work, it is much more enjoyable. Take a poll and I imagine that 10 out of 10 people would say that they do enjoy eating and they don’tenjoy starving themselves.
In order to lose fat, get lean, and feel more energy than you have in years, you have to follow a quality plan rather than the “low calorie” hogwash. You also must track your progress using the right measurement tool rather than getting distracted by an irrelevant measurement, such as total bodyweight.
If you lose fat the right way and keep your lean, healthy muscle tissue, then when you get down to the bodyweight that you consider ideal, you will look fantastic! You won’t be that chubby, flabby person who keeps eating less and less and looking and feeling worse and worse. You will be lean, toned, and full of more energy than you ever thought possible,and you will get to enjoy eating...much to the envy of everyone around you, who is still engaged in the same old struggle with “weight loss”.
Many people want to lose fat, but find that doing so is a constant struggle and no matter what they do, they never seem to get leaner, firmer, or more energized. Even if they manage to lose some weight, they often find that they still look and feel flabby. The reality is that most diet approaches today completely ignore bodyfat percentage, focusing instead on bodyweight and using calorie reduction as a means to lose weight as fast as possible. People following these approaches can lose drastic amounts of weight rapidly and yet are often left fatter than before! How is this possible?
For our purposes, let’s break your body into two parts: bodyfat and lean tissue (muscle, organs, etc.). Your lean tissue is burning calories 24 hours a day, converting food into energy and utilizing it for all of its daily needs. Fat on the other hand requires very little energy to maintain because it doesn’t do anything except sit there looking ugly and waiting around just in case you need it for energy sometime. When your body gets into a situation where it feels like it is starving (i.e. go on a diet), it will do two things 1) store away as much fat as possible to provide energy reserves for later, and 2) burn off as much lean tissue as possible in order to reduce the amount of energy it needs to maintain itself. This is the equivalent of throwing overboard all of the unessential heavy stuff in a sinking ship. Your body is simply thinking about survival. It doesn’t care if it looks good, feels good, or functions optimally... it just wants to stay alive.
So, at this point, your body is burning off all of its healthy, attractive, lean, calorie burning muscle tissue and holding onto as much fat as possible! Muscle weighs much more than fat, so when someone following this approach looks at the scale, they see the pounds dropping like crazy and think that they are making progress. Eventually their body loses enough muscle to be able to maintain itself on the low calorie diet that the person is following. When this happens, the weight loss comes to a screeching halt. Of course, this does not meet the approval of the dieter, who looks in the mirror only to see a thinner chubby person who still looks as flabby as ever.
Unfortunately, now in order to lose more weight, they will have to eat even less than the reduced calorie diet that they are already following...Or to simply stay the same weight, they can just stay on the current reduced calorie diet forever...But, of course, they don’t want to do that either.
So, they struggle between low and lower calorie diets, periodically falling off the wagon and going back to normal eating (who wouldn’t?...starving yourself is hard work). Every time they go back to eating a normal amount, their body jumps on the opportunity to store away as much fat as possible, since it stills believes it is starving.
This scenario is one that has been experienced by millions of Americans who want to get lean and look great. The problem goes back to the beginning, starting with their measure of progress. If fat loss is your goal, then wouldn’t it be best to measure fat loss? Muscleloss is not progress if your goal is fat loss.
The other problem is the idea that in order to lose fat, you need to eat less. This is absolute baloney! The reality is that many people need to eat more in order to lose fat and get lean. Not only does this approach actually work, it is much more enjoyable. Take a poll and I imagine that 10 out of 10 people would say that they do enjoy eating and they don’tenjoy starving themselves.
In order to lose fat, get lean, and feel more energy than you have in years, you have to follow a quality plan rather than the “low calorie” hogwash. You also must track your progress using the right measurement tool rather than getting distracted by an irrelevant measurement, such as total bodyweight.
If you lose fat the right way and keep your lean, healthy muscle tissue, then when you get down to the bodyweight that you consider ideal, you will look fantastic! You won’t be that chubby, flabby person who keeps eating less and less and looking and feeling worse and worse. You will be lean, toned, and full of more energy than you ever thought possible,and you will get to enjoy eating...much to the envy of everyone around you, who is still engaged in the same old struggle with “weight loss”.