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It’s fair to say that many people today share the goal of losing weight. The focus on shedding fat is prevalent in society, and it seems to be a topic at the top of everyone’s minds. If you are one of these people, you probably have a good reason, and I hope your health is at the top of that list.
The reason so many people are focused on weight loss is typically not because they have too much muscle, but because they have too much body fat. Excess body fat is associated with a variety of negative health conditions. Let’s be honest, another popular reason for weight loss is simply wanting to “look better.”
Your perception of your appearance can also significantly impact your health, provided that perception is realistic. Feeling healthy because you have less body fat can translate into real-world health benefits(Caramenti, M., & Castiglioni, I.)!
However, I often see people taking poor approaches to weight loss that ultimately worsen their health, despite any temporary weight loss. One of my major concerns is the loss of muscle along with fat.
Muscle is truly imperative for your health. As detrimental as excess body fat can be, having too little muscle is, in all likelihood, worse for your long-term well-being. Why?
- Muscle allows you to remain independent and self-sufficient as you age.
- Muscle helps you ward off conditions like type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s, cancer, and cardiovascular disease.
- Muscle increases your enjoyment of life and allows for greater freedom.
- Muscle improves your physical appearance.
Unfortunately, people make easily correctable mistakes when trying to lose weight. As a result, they lose just as much muscle as fat, fail to stick to their weight loss habits, regain the fat without gaining muscle, and then repeat this cycle. Each time they repeat the cycle, they slowly lose more and more muscle.
In this post, I’ll outline three ways to determine whether you’re losing fat or muscle and what to do to minimize muscle loss while losing weight.
#1 Your Strength-to-Bodyweight Ratio Improves
I agree that this sounds complex, especially if math isn’t your thing, but give me a second to explain because it’s not all that complicated.
The strength-to-bodyweight ratio simply compares how strong you are relative to your body weight. Here’s an example:
Say you weigh 160 lbs and can squat 80 lbs. That means your strength-to-bodyweight ratio for the squat is 80/160, or 0.5. If, after some training, you improve your squat to 100 lbs while maintaining your 160 lb body weight, your new strength-to-bodyweight ratio is 100/160, or 0.625. Your strength-to-bodyweight ratio went up, meaning you got stronger!
Most people judge their strength by their ability to lift more weight, as in the example above. But remember, there are two variables in your strength-to-bodyweight ratio: your body weight and the weight you lift. While increasing the weight you lift makes you stronger, you can also decrease your body weight. For example:
Say you can still squat 80 lbs, but you lose 32 lbs, bringing your body weight down to 128 lbs. Your strength-to-weight ratio is then 80/128, or 0.625! This is the same ratio as weighing 160 lbs and squatting 100 lbs…you’re just as strong either way!
So, why is this metric important when judging whether you’re losing body fat or muscle?
It’s important because it’s hard to lose muscle AND maintain your strength. If you’re losing weight, but some of that weight is muscle, you’re likely going to see your strength-to-bodyweight ratio drop as well. If you see your strength-to-bodyweight ratio stay the same or improve, it’s probably a good bet that you’re losing mostly body fat and not muscle.
#2 Your Waist Is Getting Smaller
I believe in taking daily body weight measurements and using the trend over weeks and months as ONE indicator of fat loss. However, as I’m pointing out in this blog post, it isn’t a good indicator on its own that the weight you’re losing is fat and not muscle. For this reason, I am also a fan of using other metrics in conjunction with the scale to give us a better sense of where the weight loss is coming from.
Your waist circumference is another good metric for determining whether you’re losing fat or muscle. In general, many people store a fair amount of fat around their waist, while it’s very hard to grow muscle around your waist. This means that as you lose fat, you’re more likely to see your waist circumference shrink rather than grow in size. Measuring your waist circumference is very easy; all you need is a flexible tape measure.
To measure your waist circumference, follow the instructions in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-BXpE0itSY
I suggest taking waist circumference measurements once a month under similar conditions (first thing in the morning, after using the bathroom but before eating or drinking anything). As you track this metric over several months, you should see a downward trend, indicating a loss of body fat. If you don’t see a downward trend in waist circumference but see a downward trend on the scale, then you’re likely losing more muscle than you should be.
#3 Your Arms and Legs Are More Toned
Just as we’re using your waist as a spot on your body that should be shrinking because it’s hard to grow muscle there, we can use your arms and legs—two places where you’re more likely to maintain or even grow in size—to judge if you’re maintaining or adding muscle.
When I have clients with weight loss goals, I always look to see if their waist is shrinking while their upper arms and legs are staying the same or getting bigger. The shrinking waist is a good indicator of fat loss, and the arm and leg measurements are a good indicator that they’re maintaining muscle.
Everyone stores fat in different places. Your arms and/or legs might have a decent amount of fat on them, in which case it wouldn’t be uncommon to see your arm and/or leg circumference decrease as well. That’s okay, but you should at least notice more definition in your arms or legs. This is where pictures can also be useful. Taking a picture of your flexed arm or leg and comparing it over time to look for definition can be a great way to ensure you’re losing fat in those places but also maintaining or building muscle.
What About Technology?
Being a big tech nerd, I’m very aware of all the various technologies for measuring body fat and muscle mass. I have used pretty much all of them in the past and still use all of them today. I’m not recommending them here because most have some cost associated with them, and I wanted to focus on cheap and/or free ways to confirm you’re losing body fat and minimizing muscle loss. In addition, knowing exact numbers when it comes to body fat and muscle mass isn’t really useful for most people.
Does it really matter that you know your exact body fat percentage?
For most people, it doesn’t. What matters is that their health is improving and they like how they look.
If your scale tells you your body fat percentage, or you’re using some kind of app on your phone that measures your body fat percentage, then I can say with near certainty that those numbers are not correct. However, the trend they show over the course of months can be accurate. So, if you don’t get caught up in the body fat percentage being accurate and want to use the trend as another piece of data to show you’re losing body fat and not muscle, that’s okay.
Using calipers can be a good way to measure your body fat percentage, but the person taking the measurements needs to be trained in how to do this. It’s also something you can’t do yourself, so there are some barriers to using this method.
DEXA scans are becoming more popular and accessible these days. While they are by far the most accurate method to determine your body fat percentage, they can also be flawed. The machine needs to be calibrated correctly, and you need to be precise about the conditions under which you get the test and subsequent tests. I personally had a DEXA scan done at two different locations within a month of each other and saw a 6% difference in what it measured in my body fat. They are also not something you’re going to do on a monthly basis; at most, you should get one every six months, and we want to be able to catch the loss of muscle mass way before that.
How Do I Ensure I’m Shedding Fat and Not Muscle?
Muscle loss is inherently part of most fat loss journeys. Unless you are brand new to exercise or have gone through an extended period of time where you haven’t been able to exercise, you are unlikely to build muscle and lose fat simultaneously. The goal of any fat loss journey is to minimize the amount of muscle loss. The best way to do this is to do the following three things:
- 2-3 days of strength training
- Eat 1g of protein per pound of ideal body weight
- Get 7-9 hours of sleep every night
Strength training will be your best bet for maintaining muscle. While putting yourself in a caloric deficit causes some breakdown of muscle, your body is unlikely to let too much of that muscle go if you’re sending the signal that you need that muscle mass. This is exactly what strength training does.
The protein in your diet is what your body will use to maintain that muscle mass. With the right amount of protein, your body has the nutrients it needs to keep the muscle around while you try to lose fat.
Finally, sleep is where your body recovers and can repair your muscles. With enough sleep, you give your body the time it needs to put the strength training and protein to good use.
The worst thing you can do regarding maintaining muscle while trying to lose fat is to do a ton of cardio with no strength training while under-eating protein and consistently getting poor sleep. Unfortunately, this is what I see all too often from people on a weight loss journey. They adopt some kind of extreme protocol that has them under-eating (for example, extreme fasting protocols) and doing crazy amounts of cardio, and the stress from all of this crushes their sleep. They see the scale going down, so they are excited and motivated to continue, but they are most likely losing just as much muscle as fat. Ultimately, the extreme protocol becomes too much, and they stop doing it and put all the weight back on without regaining the muscle they lost.
Once they feel motivated enough to try again, they hop back on the same protocol because they saw so much success the first time and repeat the same mistakes, losing even more muscle.
This cycle repeats and repeats, losing more and more muscle.
If, instead, you follow the three rules I mentioned above and use the three indicators I’ve outlined in this blog post, you can avoid muscle loss and focus primarily on losing body fat. This approach might take longer, but it is more sustainable and healthier in the long run. If you have been struggling with your own weight loss journey and need some help, I have a couple of spots open for my one-on-one coaching program. To explore how I might be able to help you reach your fat loss goals, fill out this form, and we can set up a time to chat more about how I can help.
References
Caramenti, M., & Castiglioni, I. (2022). Determinants of Self-Perceived Health: The Importance of Physical Well-Being but Also of Mental Health and Cognitive Functioning. Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland), 12(12), 498. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs12120498