You’re trying to lose weight, right?
No, you just think you are. You are actually trying to shed fat.
You’ve been working out, just like I advise, using weight training and cardio.
But each week, the scale is only going down 1 pound. Or maybe less.
What do you do?
Simple: stop watching the scale!
Scales measure one thing: your total body weight.
Do you really care what your weight is, or do you care about your body composition and appearance?
Quick quiz – which of these people do you want to be (if you are a man):
a) a 190-lb muscular guy who gets offers to appear on the cover of Men’s Health
b) a 190-lb flabby guy who is afraid to take his shirt off at the beach
See what I mean? Your weight is only one measure of fitness (and a poor one). Why is it poor?
Well, if you are lifting heavy weights like I’m telling you to do, you are probably adding muscle. That added muscle increases your total bodyweight, right? So, you might be losing 1 lb of fat but gaining 0.5 lb of muscle. Yet the scale only tells you “you lost 0.5 lb”. So you get depressed, whine, give up, and go off to listen to Joni Mitchel records.
“Ok, Darrin, then what am I supposed to use?”
Glad you asked!
There are really only three “weight” metrics worth caring about:
1) how you look in your favorite clothes
2) how you look naked
3) what your bodyfat % is
I don’t want to get side-tracked on this, but it is possible to excel at one of the above and not the other two. For example, some people without low bodyfat actually look fine naked. And some people look great in their clothes but not so good at the beach. And of course, there are other things that matter when it comes to fitness, like what you can do and how you feel. But I’m not talking about “fitness”. I’m talking to all you scale-watchers out there.
My point is, these are the things that matter to most people who watch the scale.
So, if you are a scale watcher, do these three steps:
a) today take your picture in your underwear
Looking to burn fat with weight training? Tired of typical routines?
Get my metabolic routine here: Fat Burn Furnace!
Image credit: wok
I did my first article of shame in late November of last year. Well, I’ve been back to the magazine rack, and I’ve got another wonderfully educational article to share with you.
Today’s article of shame comes from page 80 of the March 2008 edition of Maximum Fitness For Men. The tag line on the cover of this magazine reads, “No B.S. Just Results”.
Honestly, this is the best quote ever:
Continue reading about Article of Shame- Cut 5,000 Calories in A Single Day!
Image Credit: itsnickssister
WFN reader Richard asked the following question in the comments to a previous article:
Usually when I do situps/crunches, I would do like 3 sets and with each set I would do a different variation, like either crunches or legs in the air crunches etc etc. But which ab exercises do help burn that unwanted stomach fat?
This is a great question, because men tend to accumulate fat in the stomach area, whereas women get it more in the hips and thighs. Doing situps and crunches to work your abs seems like the logical choice to get rid of that gut.
Trying to take fat off of one part of your body only is called spot reduction of fat, and unfortunately, it doesn’t really work. You can decrease your overall body fat percentage, but there is no exercise that can help you take the fat just off your stomach.
But you know you want it
I understand the desire. The abdomen is the visual center of the body. Since the eye naturally draws first to the middle of the body, a big gut is like a bull’s-eye right on the center of you, while a tight stomach or six pack immediately shows an outstanding physique.
I get the feeling that if all of our fat cells were hanging out around our toes, we wouldn’t be too concerned… or maybe I’m just not realizing how nasty it would look…
But I know what the real question is: how do I really get that six pack?
Here’s the deal:
The rectus abdominus is a layer of muscle that is draped over your mid-section between the pelvis and the rib cage. Getting a six pack requires you to build up those muscles and strengthen them (I know you already know this part, but just in case). Your abs are worked especially in the stomach crunching movements and when they act as stabilizers for exercises like deadlifts.
The next step is to remove the fat that’s covering your six pack. Can you do this with ab-exercises? Well, kinda.
I won’t say that abdominal exercises don’t do anything to lower your body fat percentages. Each crunch you do does (more…)
I’ve been preparing an e-book over the last 5-6 weeks to help the readers of World Fitness Network achieve their goals. The e-book is entitled “3 Months to New You”. It’s a 90 day program to help you change your body type. It will help you do the following:
- Change the way you look and feel
- Become stronger/ build muscle
- Lose fat
- Strengthen your bones and joints
- Get you eating back on track
- Find new energy in your life through lifting weights and eating right
In addition, 3 Months to a New You provides you with a workout plan and schedule that you can fit into your normal life without having to spend your whole life (more…)
Continue reading about Free E-book About Changing Your Body Type: 3 Months to a New You
Just when you thought we couldn’t climb any higher…
Let’s be honest with ourselves, we’re getting fatter year after year. With every sugar drink and super-sized soda consumed, we hobble yet another step higher up the fat chain. Staying lean and toned from our workouts becomes more and more of a distant dream.
But climbing up the fat chain represents more than the expanding state we are in. The fat chain not only shows us that we occupy the very top of this top-heavy hierarchy, but it also tells us how we arrived there. The fat chain is also a chain of events that leads us to arrive at the state we are in. It’s a repeating cycle, or a chain reaction that only becomes harder to stop with time.
This is because getting fat isn’t something that “happens” to anybody. Nobody rolls out of bed in the morning to suddenly find themselves overweight. Instead, we slowly climb the chain link by link. Whenever it seems that the top of the chain is reached, we add another link and climb a bit higher.
These tiny links accumulate slowly, day by day, over time. We can add these links in so many ways, but we are hardly conscious of the links we add through what we drink. And most people aren’t aware of the triple hit that our system takes when we drink soft drinks. (more…)
Continue reading about Drinking Your Way to the Top of the Fat Chain
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