When I weighed in yesterday, I had only lost 1 pound from the previous week. Some would be discouraged by only losing one pound after eating so healthy and working out so much. I’m totally ok with that and not upset in the least bit – here’s why…
You may have heard that muscle weights more than fat. Technically 5 pounds of muscle weighs the same as 5 pounds of fat. 5=5 the last time I checked. The only thing that defies such a simple mathematical equation is when 2+2=5:
Great t-shirt from Thinkgeek…ok, back on topic. What is really intended to be said when people say that muscle weighs more than fat is that given the same size mass of fat and muscle, the muscle would weigh more. It really has everything to do with density. To put it plain and simple – muscle is more dense than fat. To demonstrate, here is a picture of 5 pounds of fat and 5 pounds of muscle that I got from an excellent article on the topic at http://www.onemorebite-weightloss.com/muscle-to-fat.html.
As you can see, 5 pounds of muscle is much more lean than 5 pounds of fat. Think about how you would look if you replaced all of the fat in your body with muscle. Here is a perfect example of why you shouldn’t have the scale be the judge of your success. Here is a picture of a girl who looks way better at 9 pounds heavier!
Now, I know I previously mentioned that my target weight is 155. That may not really be my target weight. Depending on how much muscle I gain and fat I lose, I could end up weighing more. The most important thing when determining success is how you look and how your clothes fit. I can see progress in my Week 3 pictures, and that’s all that matters to me. Don’t let the scale be the final judge as to how successful you are in your weight loss program. And hit the gym more frequently while you’re at it. I think we’d all rather have more muscle in our body and less fat.
