Losing Fat Doesn't Always Mean Losing Weight

You've been good. You've eaten right, avoided that cherished Friday night pizza, thrown out all the ice cream and smashed up your potato chips to feed to the birds. You've even walked right past huge sale displays of Oreos and Nutter Butters and not put a single pack in your grocery basket.

You've exercised. Every day, you've forced yourself to strap on your workout shoes, put on your shorts and T-shirt and hit the weights and the treadmill for all you're worth. You've walked so much your pedometer throws off sparks. You're even, wonder of wonders, starting to see the beginnings of muscles in your biceps and calves.

Physically, you feel better than you have in years. You move more easily, you're sleeping better, and you've got an energy level the likes of which you haven't seen since you were a teenager.

So why isn't your scale reflecting your progress?

Don't let this next bit of news spur you to burn your workout clothes, but muscle weighs more than fats do. It's true! Muscle is much more dense than fats, thus a pound of muscle is much smaller than a pound of fat. What this means is that you can put on muscle weight and not have it be terribly apparent. You'll be losing fat and inches, but packing on muscle, thus making it appear like you're on a weight loss plateau.

This is where persistence comes in. Over time, as your amount of lean muscle increases, fat your resting metabolism will increase. You'll burn more calories when sitting still or even sleeping than you did when you got started! In fact, a pound of muscle burns 50 more calories per day than a pound of fat. Eventually, you'll get to a point where your muscle mass has increased to the point that your metabolism will be burning off calories almost as fast as you ingest them.

This explains why football players and other athletes can eat tremendous amounts of food and not turn into dirigibles.

Don't think you have to bulk up to linebacker size to reap the benefits, though. You're better off finding a strength and toning level that is comfortable for you and maintaining it. Between the exercise required to stay fit and the extra muscle you're carrying, results will start to show up on the scale.

In the meantime, keep track of your body measurements to keep up your motivation. Who cares if the scale doesn't show a loss when you've taken six inches off your waist? How you feel about your appearance is the important thing. The numbers will take care of themselves.

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