Fat loss refers to weight loss from fat, and it’s a more specific and healthful objective than weight loss. However, it can be troublesome to know whether you’re losing weight from fat or muscle. Let’s see why fat loss is more vital than weight loss, how you can tell the difference between the two, and provide tips for losing fat and maintaining muscle.
Ways To Know You’re Losing Fat
It’s common practice to track your weight loss progress employing a scale. Whereas this could be supportive, most scales don’t separate between fat loss and muscle loss. For that reason, following as it were your weight isn’t a solid way to decide whether you’re losing fat or muscle and in what amount.
A body fat scale can provide a more precise picture of your body composition by measuring the percentage of fat and muscle you've got. You can also use skinfold calipers to estimate your body fat percentage, but this takes practice to ensure accuracy.
How To Lose Fat?
There are some simple ways to guarantee you’ll lose weight in the form of fat and either maintain or gain muscle mass. These include eating plenty of protein, working out routinely, and taking after nutrient-dense count calories that put you in a slight calorie deficit.
Eat Lots of Protein
Protein is an important nutrient for various bodily functions. It’s necessary to create enzymes that help with digestion and energy production, regulate fluid balance, and back safe health, among other capacities. Protein is additionally critical for keeping up the muscle you've got and supporting new muscle growth, particularly when losing weight.
Importantly, different studies have found that high-intensity resistance exercise followed by a high-protein recovery snack made the most difference. Also, it limited the men’s fat intake to create a calorie deficit and maintained their carb intake for adequate exercise fuel. And while eating plenty of protein with a reduced-calorie diet without weight training may not help you gain muscle, it may help you maintain muscle while increasing fat loss.
While protein needs differ depending on your age, health, sex, and physical activity level, consuming protein in the range of 1–1.6 grams per kg of body weight per day can support muscle mass retention and fat loss with dieting.
Follow a Low-Calorie Diet
To lose weight, you must create a calorie deficit. You can create a calorie deficit by eating lesser calories or exercising, but preferably both. However, it’s advised not to cut more calories as too much can lead to a greater loss of muscle rather than fat.
Instead, aim to moderately reduce the number of calories you consume by 500–600 per day to minimize muscle loss while still facilitating fat loss. You can reduce the number of calories you consume by eating more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean protein foods, low-fat dairy, and fewer sugar-sweetened products and beverages, processed meats, and fried foods (19
Exercises
Exercise is the most effective way to encourage fat loss rather than muscle loss. Certainly, exercise alone is an effective strategy to maintain muscle mass with dieting, but combining exercise with a higher protein intake may help optimize your results. Adults should get at least 150–300 minutes per week of cardio and muscle-strengthening activities that involve all major muscle groups.
Weight loss mainly refers to a decrease in your overall body weight, whereas fat loss refers to weight loss that occurs specifically from losses in fat mass. A body fat scale or skinfold caliper is more useful for monitoring fat loss than tracking your body weight.
About The Author
Shreyasi Maiti is a Content Specialist working with Body & strength. She is a rare multi-tasker you’ll come across. Along with a dancer by passion, she enjoys writing ..
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