Lose Fat, Not Weight, for More Effective Sports Workouts
Lose Fat, Not Weight, for More Effective Sports Workouts
You probably found this site looking for information about your sports workouts. What you may not realize is that you might need to lose weight to start feeling more energetic and athletic. Now that you are here, let me take this opportunity to tell you the truth about losing weight. In reality, you should not concentrate on losing weight, but on losing fat. Your goal should be to develop an ideal body composition.
Any person that is overweight may have a low self-esteem, and this is especially true with athletes. However, it's not the numbers on the scale that bother them the most. It is the amount of body fat they are carrying around.
You don't need any special tool to see that someone is fat. Fat has a way of showing itself, no matter how we may try to disguise it with our clothing. No one wants to look fat. Fat is a lot more worrisome than a person's actual weight.
Let's look at an example of fat by comparing two men who weigh 225 pounds each and are six feet tall.
Doctors generally use body-mass index, or BMI, to evaluate a person's general health. BMI uses only weight and height to determine if someone is overweight. In the above example of these two men, their BMI would be identical. But let's look a little closer.
Let's examine our first athlete, Mike. His sports workouts are concentrated and regular, and he is strong with a high muscle mass. His body fat level is around 10%. This means he has less than 25 pounds of actual fat on his frame. No one would look at Mike and call him fat. His weight may sound high, but remember that it is mostly lean body mass. Overall, he looks very good.
The only exercise our man Johnny ever performs is pushing the button on the remote control. He has every multimedia device known to man and a couch that is contoured to his bottom. He occasionally walks to the fridge to get some pop and chips. This is the extent of any workout he may do. His body fat level is at 30%. This means he has 70 pounds of body fat that he is carrying around. So even though he and Mike weigh the same, Johnny is definitely fat. He would benefit greatly from losing some fat and adding some muscle. His overall weight probably wouldn't change, but he would look and feel better.
As you can see, BMI is only a generality in most cases. It is better for you to know the percent of body fat you are carrying around. The metabolic index, or MIDx, takes into consideration weight, height, and body fat and can provide you with a good picture of your overall body composition.
As you can see, if you only use BMI as an indicator, Mike and Johnny are going to show the same numbers. But if you would look at them standing beside each other, you would be able to tell in an instant that Mike is lean and muscled, and Johnny is fat.
Take a look at this picture. This young man weighs the same in each of these pictures. But which is the better body composition? Now maybe you understand why numbers on a scale don't mean a whole lot.
The real key to losing weight is reducing your body fat. You can easily starve yourself to shed a few pounds, but what will that gain you in the long run? You will feel weak and lethargic and will most likely gain the weight back quickly. To lose body fat and increase muscle mass, you need to take a comprehensive approach to weight loss.
Combine a nutritious, structured diet with a good training program and you will feel stronger and more athletic while changing your overall body composition. This leads to more effective sports workouts, and an overall increase in your athletic performance.
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