The other day Alli told that she had a question and that I should write a blog about it. Now like all good husbands I listen to my wife about 30% of the time. So here's the blog she asked for.
Alli said she'd been talking to people and they always mention how muscle weighs more than fat and they were wondering if they were working out more how come they weren't losing weight.
Let's take these one by one.
Does muscle weigh more than fat? The answer is no. Though this reminds me of the riddle: which weighs more a 100lbs of pennies or 100lbs of feathers? The people who read my stuff are super duper smart so you know they weigh the same.
The problem is they look different. I'm talking about muscle and fat (but the same goes for the pennies and feathers).
Muscle is leaner and doesn't cover as much surface area. This is why someone with a lower body fat percentage (meaning they're more muscular) may weigh more than someone with a similar build (height, body structure) and higher body fat percentage. They literally just have more muscle than the other person has fat.
They are working out more but they're not losing weight? Ok weight loss is simple (not easy): burn more calories than you take in. Read that again. This is how every diet and workout program works. Ok now that we got that out of way, why aren't they losing weight?
Here's what may be happening. You're working out more and probably more intensely. In turn you're probably eating more. You don't mean to be but you probably are without realizing it. The workouts make you hungrier so maybe you're a little lax about your serving sizes and so on. This is why tracking everything you eat is so important if weight loss is your goal.
Another thing that may be happening is that you're actually moving less. Working out more but moving less? Weird, right? Check this out.
You've gone to the gym, got a great workout. Now you're at your office building, you usually take the stairs to your 3rd floor office. Not today. You just came from the gym, you don't need to take the stairs today. *Presses up button on elevator*
Sound familiar? Play this scenario out over all of your "activity decisions" through out the day and you've eliminated a lot of calories you would've normally been burning.
Now without getting super technical here, you're not doing this (eating more, moving less) on purpose. The problem is your brain likes homeostasis (shout out to 8th grade science class) or balance. When you're trying to lose weight you're purposely going out of balance. Believe it or not, your brain is smarter than you are and will do whatever it takes to restore balance.
All this means for you is that if you are trying lose weight is that you have to be super mindful. Mindful of everything you eat, you need to be tracking; the more detailed the better. You also have to be aware of how much you're moving outside of workouts.
Told you it's simple.
