ahintzma’s BodyBlog

As a personal trainer, I give many starting assessments to people who are looking to improve their physique. When I ask them the question, "What is your primary fitness goal?" 99% of the time I get the answer, "To lose weight!" That’s all well and good, but people need to understand that there are two ways to lose weight: the healthy way and the unhealthy way. The unhealthy way may involve burning fat (that’s good) but also includes the burning of lean muscle tissue (that’s not good). The good way to lose weight is to just burn fat. The process of losing weight the good way takes a while (1-2 pounds a week). People expect to start shedding the pounds right away when they start working out when, in fact, they may gain a little weight before losing weight. The reason for this can be simply explained by saying what everyone already knows… MUSCLE WEIGHS MORE THAN FAT! If you haven’t been active for a while and then all of a sudden start being active, your muslces are going to respond right away and they’ll become more toned and even grow some (assuming you’re going to the gym to actually work out and not loiter like so many people I have seen in the gym). Expect to gain a little at first before losing weight. THIS IS NOT A BAD THING! The scale may not tell you what you need to hear, but the mirror never lies.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007 at 1:26 pm and is filed under Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.