Fat vs. Weight
My friends Ed and Colleen Reardon at Results 22 taught me a lot about fat: where it comes from and how to get rid of it. They also taught me a new way to think about fat and weight.
Not all body weight is equal. Lean tissue (the stuff you need) and fat (the “extra” stuff) are different. The typical bathroom scale does not differentiate. A pound is a pound is a pound.
The Reardons have a very cool new tool called the InBody 570. This machine very accurately measures body composition, and can even provide a breakdown so you know how much fat is where (visceral, trunk, each arm/leg).
For “the rest of us,” there are very affordable scales or handheld units that can be very useful. They are not nearly so accurate as the InBody, but if you use the same unit in a consistent manner, you can effectively monitor your progress.
How to use it
Use the body fat percentage generated by these devices to calculate the pounds of fat in your body.
For example:
A 200 lb. man with 25% body fat has (.25 x 200) 50 lbs of fat.
Simple enough.
Same man goes on a diet and exercise program and gets in great shape. He loses a lot of inches around the waist and hips and looks and feels great. On the scale, he’s dropped only 7 lbs. But now he’s 18% body fat. Doing the math (.18 x 193=34.74), he’s lost just over 15 lbs of fat! The scale alone does not account for the lean muscle he’s gained from the workouts.
Similarly, some people may find that they lose a lot of weight, but don’t lose any meaningful amount of fat. Much of what they lose is water and lean tissue, with very little fat loss. That’s why you need to mind the fat.
If weight loss were easy, everyone would do it. But understanding how it works is a big help. As they say, what gets measured gets managed. Make sure you’re measuring the right things.
For what it’s worth, I worked with Results 22 earlier this year and made a bit of a case study of myself. I lost 34 lbs total, 27 of which was fat. Biometric improvements: waist 6.25 in.; chest 4.25 in.; hips 4.0 in.; total cholesterol 43 pts.; glucose 18 pts. Reduced blood pressure too. All of this in 8 weeks.
Check out the Results 22 Panel.