Thursday 17 March 2011

Conscious Fitness - Lose Fat and Quit Chasing the Scale


 

Are you a scale chaser? Do you wake up every morning and weigh yourself, concerned about what happened in a short 24 hours? If this is you then please read on because this could save your sanity.

First of all I want to point out that you're not going to lose or gain a significant amount of fat or muscle in 24 hours. The change you see of anything more than ounces on the scale has most likely come from your digestive tract or water weight. You'll make yourself crazy by weighing every day and then trying to adjust accordingly every day. Not to mention your body is never able to get into any kind of a rhythm so fat loss becomes virtually impossible.

I have a better solution for you. Every 3-4 weeks get your body composition checked along with your weight. You will then be able to see what weight gain or loss actually translates into, whether it be from fat or muscle. If you lose fat and gain muscle yet stay the same weight then you've made great progress and your body fat percentage has gone down. If your body fat percentage goes up then tweak something, but not everything. Your body is adapting so if you change more than one thing you'll never know what it is that you changed. What if your favorite bread doesn't make you fatter but you cut that out the same time you add in 20 more minutes of cardio. You may never feel like you can enjoy your favorite bread again.

Basically what I am saying is to get the facts about what is really going on with your body. Record the numbers and they will guide you much more effectively than how you feel from one day to the next. If you're not quite sure how to go about this then enlist the help of a fitness professional with the experience to teach you what you need to know. There are even great online training programs from reputable fitness experts that can help you individualize your program. Good luck and let me know if there are any questions.

I am a Corrective Exercise Specialist and a Specialist in Fitness Nutrition in Seattle WA. My purpose is to educate and teach others about how to incorporate health and fitness into their daily lives in a safe and effective way. I show that their is fitness everywhere we look, not just in a "gym" and it is about the conscious and, more importantly, the unconscious choices we make everyday. As a lifelong sufferer of back pain I live what I teach others. For more info and online personal training go to: http://www.cfmcorrectivefitness.com

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