However, it doesn’t work the other way: an increase of Lean Body Mass is not always an increase in muscle.  That’s because body water makes up a significant portion of your Lean Body Mass. To illustrate this point, here’s a body composition analysis of a 78.9 Kg male.

Body Composition Analysis taken using InBody

44.4 (Total Body Water) + 16.1 (Dry Lean Mass) = 60.5 Lean Body Mass

Water made up more than 55% of total body weight, which is normal for healthy adult males.

Notice how from a body composition standpoint, Lean Body Mass is made up of three components, two of which are water.  

Everything else is grouped together in what’s called your “Dry Lean Mass,”

which includes your bone minerals, protein content, etc.

Muscle gains definitely contribute to LBM gains, but so does water, which can fluctuate throughout the day depending on hydration status, diet, and physical activity.

It’s also important to note that muscle itself contains water – a lot of it.  According to the USGS, muscle can contain up to 79% water content.  Research has also shown that resistance training promotes the increase of intracellular water in both men and women.

All of this points to two main problems when talking about “lean gains”:

1.  Big Lean Mass gains, when it occurs quickly, are largely increases in body water

2.  It’s difficult to say with any certainty how much any gain in Lean Body Mass is due to Skeletal Muscle Mass without using the right tools. 

How to Measure Your Lean Body Mass and Muscle Mass

Body Composition Analysis taken using InBody technology

Since there’s a significant difference between Lean Body Mass and Skeletal Muscle Mass, how is it possible to know how much of each you have?

Let’s start with what not to do: do not try to use a scale to calculate changes in Skeletal Muscle Mass.

It’s a popular method to estimate muscle gain using a combination of the number on the scale and advice from fitness magazines.

The problem with using a scale to estimate progress is there are so many factors that can influence an increase in body weight, a few of which include:

·  An undigested meal or drink

·  Water retention due to glycogen

·  Water retention due to sodium

·  Body Fat gain due to being in a caloric surplus

There is only one way to calculate what is happening to your Lean Body Mass: h. Without testing your body composition, there will be no way to know what any gain or loss in your body weight is due to.

Most methods of body composition analysis will at the minimum divide your body into Lean Body Mass (this may be referred to as Fat-Free Mass) and Fat Mass.  These methods include:

·  Skinfold calipers

·  Hydrostatic Weighing

·  Air displacement plethysmography

Each of these has their pros and cons, and accuracy may vary depending on a number of factors unique to each testing method.

For more in-depth body composition analysis, you would need to look to two more sophisticated methods: dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA)and Direct Segmental Multi-Frequency bioelectrical impedance analysis (DSM-BIA). Not only will these methods tell you how much fat you have, but they will differentiate your skeletal muscle mass from your lean body mass. 

So, Lean Body Mass, Muscle Mass, Lean Mass, Which Is it?

Back to our originally three statements: which is correct to say?  Let’s review:

·  Lean Muscle: You should stop using this term because it is misleading.  All muscle is “lean muscle,” and it is a confusing mix of two real terms: Skeletal Muscle Mass and Lean Body Mass.

·  Muscle Mass (or Skeletal Muscle Mass): Yes, it is likely true that if you’re performing resistance training/weight lifting workouts and adding enough protein to your diet, a percentage of the change is likely due to muscle mass development. But remember that skeletal muscle mass is part of LBM. Things get tricky when you start putting numbers on your muscle mass gains. Everyone’s body composition is different, and the proportion of your skeletal muscle mass to Lean Body Mass will not be the same as someone else’s. ·  This makes accurate estimations even harder unless you have access to sophisticated tools that can differentiate between LBM and SMM.

·  Lean Mass (lean body mass):  This is probably the best and safest term to use to describe your gains.  When you use this term, you’re telling people that you have gained weight from muscle and water, not body fat.

However, that’s all you can really say.  Because of the nature of Lean Body Mass, it is very hard to say how much of the gain is due to water and how much is due to muscle (which is largely water to begin with). A gain of 5Kg of LBM is not 5Kg of pure muscle,

When it comes to tracking your muscle gain (or fat loss), it all comes down to what tools you’re using to measure your progress.  If all you are working with is a weight scale, then all you will ever know for sure is your weight is increasing or decreasing. It would be hard to differentiate the weight gain from water, muscle, or body fat. If you are serious about accurately measuring your muscle gain and assessing your health, go get a body composition analysis. Then – and only then – can you tell people that you gained 5Kg of muscle with confidence.

Contact My Body Composition Solutions for an analysis of your composition and more information.

Disclaimer: This article should not substitute professional medical advice. When starting a new diet or exercise plan, always consult your physician and exercise professional first.

Information in this article has been extracted and edited from InBody USA ‘Lean Body Mass and Muscle Mass – What’s the Difference?’

This post was updated on August 24, 2018, for accuracy and comprehensiveness. It was originally published on September 24, 2015.

 This article includes words and phrases that link to several other information resources.

Like many topics in the realm of nutrition, a quick search on the Internet about snacks will give you pages of conflicting recommendations. Some sources recommend frequent snacking, and some demonize snacking altogether. Even the word “snack” seems to carry a negative connotation.

Perhaps this is because of the common association between snacking and mindless eating, or the assumption that “snack” often refers to candy or salty processed foods. The idea that snacking can’t be part of a healthy diet is a common misconception. Although it’s true that snacking can cause weight gain, it all comes down to doing it the right way. 

Benefits of Snacks

• Fullness and Satiety

Snacking may help you stay full between meals. Feeling satisfied between meals helps avoid excessive hunger at mealtime, which therefore prevents overeating. 

Specific types of snacks are more likely to help you feel less hungry between meals. In fact, one study found that almonds had more influence on satiety when eaten as snacks, rather than with a meal. Another study found that eating high-protein yogurt promoted satiety more than chocolate or crackers as snacks. 

• Metabolism

Eating a high-protein diet has been shown to increase your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). This is due to the process of gluconeogenesis, which forms glucose from non-carbohydrate substrates such as glycerol from fat and amino acids from protein. This process uses a lot of energy, meaning your body may burn more calories when you eat a high-protein snack.

• Body Composition

If you’re working to build muscle, you have likely heard that a high-protein diet is a way to go. This is because when you exercise, muscle is broken down. Protein from your diet contains amino acids that repair and rebuild Skeletal Muscle Mass. 

It may be difficult for some to meet the high protein needs needed to build muscle. Eating high-protein snacks can help contribute to meet protein recommendations to build Skeletal Muscle Mass.

• Post-Workout

A snack is a perfect way to replenish your body’s energy after a tough workout. Carbohydrates are your body’s preferred source of energy, and protein helps repair muscle fibres that were broken down during the workout.

For optimal results, choose a post-workout snack that offers a balance of carbohydrates and protein.

Components of a Healthy Snack

• Protein

Depending on your activity levels and goals, your protein needs may range from 0.8 – 2.0 grams per kilogram body weight. If you’re highly active and looking to build muscle, your needs will be on the higher end of the spectrum. Some people struggle to meet a high protein need with meals alone, which is why snacks are important.

Not all protein is equal. Animal protein (meat, dairy, etc.) and plant-based protein (from beans, tofu, etc.) look a little different when they’re broken down in the body.

Basically, protein is broken down into smaller parts called amino acids. There are nine “essential” amino acids that must be present to make a complete protein. Most animal protein provides all essential amino acids and therefore a convenient source for protein. 

However, it’s easy to create complete proteins by eating a variety of plant-based proteins which complement each other. Complementary proteins do not need to be eaten together, so long as the day's meals supply them all.

By way of example, here are some common meal items that naturally complement each others’ proteins:

o  Beans and rice or tortillas

o  Peanut butter rice cracker

o  Tofu with rice (or any grain)

o  Hummus with pita bread

o  Noodle stir-fry with peanut or sesame seed sauce

o  Lentil soup with bread

o  Whole grain cereal with soymilk

o  Quinoa salad with black beans

o  Tacos filled with beans or lentils

• Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates serve as the preferred source of energy in the body. Eating enough carbohydrates is especially important if your activity level is high.

Like protein, not all carbohydrates are equal. Choose complex carbohydrates such as whole grains, beans, and vegetables as often as possible. These foods are high in fibre and other nutrients, and they are broken down more slowly by the body. Due to this, complex carbohydrates can serve as great snacks to help subside hunger until your next meal.

However, for both pre and post-workout snacks, simple carbohydrates (which the body can break down quicker) can prove to be very beneficial as they can help to provide you quick easy energy for your workout, as well as help you to recover faster post-workout. 

• Fat

First and foremost, it is not necessary to avoid fat if your goal is fat loss. Researchers now know that eating fat doesn’t necessarily make you fat. In fact, fat may actually benefit the body in many ways. Fat may play a role in preventing chronic disease. One meta-analysis found that increased intake of omega-3 fatty acids from fish significantly increased HDL cholesterol and decreased triglycerides. A separate meta-analysis found that increased polyunsaturated fat intake reduced common markers of inflammation in the body. 

Choose snacks that contain healthy fats – specifically, polyunsaturated fats. These fats are essential, meaning the only way to get them is through your diet. 

The Fine Line Between A Snack and A Meal

Without proper planning, the calories you consume from snacks can really add up.  In fact, it has been discovered that snacking contributes an average of 35% of calories consumed per day by people in Australia. (1)

Remember, weight loss, gain, and maintenance essentially comes down to calories in vs. calories out. In other words, eating snacks that are too high in calories, or snacking too often can easily derail your health goals. 

Therefore, it’s important to know what a snack really consists of, as well as what to look for on a label and how to plan ahead.

• Snacks may range in calories, depending on your overall goals. For many, 100-200 calories is a good target for snacks. People with higher calorie needs may prefer a higher calorie snack.
• Likewise, the number of snacks you eat per day depends on your personal needs and goals.
• It’s best to plan ahead, and factor snacks into your overall meal plan to avoid overeating. 
• Remember to check labels and measure out snack portions.

Types of Healthy Snacks

There are countless snack products that are marketed as healthy. However, reading the label proves these snacks are anything but. Product labels are often misleading, so it’s important to learn the basics of building a healthy snack. Here are some examples.

• Eggs

Eggs are a classic choice for breakfast. However, they also make a great snack that will keep you full and help you eat less. Eggs are a great source of protein and fat, as well as a healthy array of vitamins and minerals. 

Hard-boiled eggs are easy to prepare ahead of time and portable. 

• Cheese

Like eggs, cheese is a great go-to snack for protein and fat. However, it’s important to watch the serving size if you’re limiting calories. Cottage cheese is highest in protein (around 10 grams per ½ cup), but cream cheese and cheese sticks may also be good options. Pair cheese with a serving of fruit or a vegetable such as grape tomatoes, bell peppers, celery, apples or pears.

• Jerky

It’s no secret that meat is an excellent source of protein. Jerky is convenient and portable, making it a great way to pack in extra protein throughout the day. If eating beef jerky, the best option is grass-fed. Keep in mind that some jerky is high in sodium if you are trying to limit your intake. 

• Greek Yogurt

Greek yogurt is a great option if you’re looking for a high-protein, grab-and-go snack. Keep in mind that many yogurts are high in sugar. Choose yogurt with less than 10 grams of sugar per serving or go for plain yogurt to avoid sugar altogether. Sweeten yogurt with Stevia if needed or serve with fresh berries or in a smoothie. 

• Veggies with Hummus or Guacamole

Hummus is a great source of plant-based protein, balanced with carbohydrates, fat, and fibre. Specifically, the olive oil in hummus provides a healthy dose of heart-healthy polyunsaturated fats. Guacamole is a delicious source of healthy fats.

Both dips are fairly calorie-dense, so be mindful of portion sizes. Pair them with carrot sticks, bell peppers or celery.

• Edamame

Edamame is an excellent source of plant-based protein. It’s also high in fibre and antioxidants while being low in carbohydrates. Frozen, shelled edamame is easy to keep on hand and prepare. Eat this snack plain or tossed in chili sauce for some spice.

• Nuts

Nuts are filling due to their fat content. However, nuts are also balanced in protein, carbohydrate, and fibre. A little will go a long way, and calories will add up quickly. It’s important to measure out portions of this calorie-dense snack. Pair almonds, walnuts or mixed nuts with a little dark chocolate if you’re craving something sweet.

• Fruit

Fruit sometimes gets a bad rep because of its low protein and high carbohydrate content. However, fruit is a natural nutrition powerhouse that provides fibre, antioxidants, and other vitamins and minerals while being low in calories. Pair fruit with nut butter, cottage cheese or yogurt to incorporate protein for a low-calorie snack.

• Tuna

It doesn’t get much easier than tuna when it comes to snacking. Packets of tuna are easy, portable and fairly inexpensive. They are also low in calories, high in protein and a great source of polyunsaturated fat. Snack on tuna on its own, or with a few whole-grain crackers. 

• Protein Shake 

Drinking a protein shake is one of the easiest ways to get the most protein for the least amount of calories. Many protein powders can be mixed with water, making this a very portable snack option as well.

There are several types of protein powder in the health and fitness market. Keep in mind that whey protein has been shown to help with muscle gain and fat loss. However, plant-based protein powders are a good alternative for those with other dietary requirements. 

The bottom line: Snack Smart and Reap the Benefits.

Snacking can be part of a healthy lifestyle if done correctly. Choose nutrient-dense snacks that provide carbohydrate, fat, and protein for the most benefit, and paying attention to portion sizes is the key to smart snacking.

Contact My Body Composition Solutions for an analysis of your composition and more information.

Disclaimer: This article should not substitute professional medical advice. When starting a new diet or exercise plan, always consult your physician and exercise professional first.

Information in this article has been extracted and edited from InBody USA ‘Your Guide To Smart Snacking’. It was written by Breanna Woods is a Registered Dietitian with over 5 years of clinical experience. She is passionate about giving her clients the tools they need to build a healthy lifestyle.

 This article includes words and phrases that link to several other information resources.

  (1) Source: MDPI Journal

Why this is better: It’s safe to assume that in most circumstances, when people want to get “bigger”, they want their muscles to get bigger, not their waistlines.  By defining your goal as being Lean Body Mass gain (muscle is the biggest component of Lean Body Mass) and putting a number to it, you have a numerical goal to work towards.

“I want to lose 10kg of fat”

Why this is better: Similar to getting bigger, when people say they want to lose “weight”, it’s safe to assume that they really want to lose fat.  You don’t want to lose muscle – muscle is metabolically active tissue that serves many important roles: from maintaining your metabolism to supporting healthy bone density to keeping a healthy immune system.

It’s likely that some muscle loss will occur when you try to lose fat, so by monitoring the changes in your body composition, you’ll be able to keep an eye on this and minimize any losses that may occur by making the necessary corrections in your diet and exercise program.

Tracking Changes In Your Body Composition Lets You Set Reachable Time-Based Goals

Sometimes, you start a fitness journey because you have a special event coming up. Maybe you’re going on a vacation and you want to have a rockin’ body when you hit the beach.  Maybe there’s a wedding coming up, and you want to make sure you fit into a new/favourite dress.

Point is: there’s a deadline you want results by, and you want a solution that will help you get there. This is a really common situation, so common that nearly every fad diet or gimmicky product makes time deadlines a critical part of their marketing. These diets and products all claim to solve an immediate problem, which makes people feel better, and which is why popular magazines just love promoting them (looking at you, Cosmopolitan).

There are no shortcuts to losing weight, gaining muscle in a very short amount of time. But instead, by tracking your progress by tracking your changes in body composition, you can actually set real goals with real results that you can actually achieve.

Let’s build on the goals we made before, this time adding a reasonable time frame.

“I want to build some muscle in the next 5-6 months”

When you try to build develop muscle and Lean Body Mass, there are a lot of factors that go into whether or not you achieve that goal.  What type of exercises you do, the degree to which you properly perform your exercises, whether you lift heavy with few reps or light with many, how often you strength train, how often you rest…the list goes on, and that doesn’t even include proper nutrition.

However, assuming that you do everything perfect and you’re a beginner, experts posit that you can gain roughly 1 kg of muscle a month with consistent, proper training. If you’re not a beginner, your rate of lean mass growth will be slower as you get closer to your genetic limit for natural muscle development.

Knowing this, if you’re just getting started, you can track your progress every month and expect to see up to a 1 kg increase every month until you reach your goal of 3-5 kg of muscle by following a challenging lifting program.

Here’s how your composition history can look with muscle gain:

When you use your body composition to track your progress, it suddenly doesn’t matter as much how much you can lift, or how many reps you can do. Instead, what matters is that you’re working towards a physical goal – getting bigger and more muscular – and you’re doing it in a way that you can reliably track towards a realistic goal.

“I want to lose 10kg of fat in 5-60 months”

In some ways, losing Fat Mass is easier than building Lean Body Mass and muscle.  There are many types of exercise that encourage Lean Body Mass development, many workout plans to organize them in, and it requires significant amounts of rest and recovery. Fat loss, on the other hand, requires less arguably less planning and actually occurs faster than muscle gain. 

To lose Fat Mass, you need to be in a caloric deficit (taking in less calories than you use) and maintain it carefully over an extended period of time.  This isn’t rocket science, and virtually every peer-reviewed study that includes groups that undergo a caloric deficit experience fat loss. Here are three published in 2015 alone. Hypocaloric diets work.

How quickly can you lost fat? Many studies and health groups, including the Centres for Disease Control, report that by reducing your caloric intake by 3,500 calories a week typically results in ½ kg of fat loss.

Here’s how your composition history can look with fat loss:

Note: ½ kg of fat loss, not weight loss.  If you’re just a scale to measure your rate of change, you may experience even more “weight loss,” but if you’re on a hypocaloric diet, especially one that focuses on cutting out carbohydrates, you might experience additional water weight loss.

That’s because water bonds to glycogen at rate of about 4 grams of water: 1 gram of carbs. If you’re much lower on carbs than you usually are, you’ll be retaining less water and weigh less accordingly.

When you use your body composition to track your progress with fat loss, you can account for what’s actually being lost when you see your weight decrease on the scale. This helps you avoid mistaking your weight loss for water weight loss or (hopefully not) muscle loss.

Why is this important to know? If you’re tracking your body composition changes instead of simple scale weight changes, you won’t be confused when you gain a few pounds back after reintroducing carbs into your diet.  You’ll know that this weight is water, not fat.

Also, by being patient and tracking a pound or two of fat loss each month, you can stay motivated by knowing you’re making real changes that will last in your body. Gaining water weight is as easy as refueling on carbs, but gaining actual fat? That requires you to be in a caloric surplus over a period of time.  Eat within your Total Daily Energy Expenditure, and you can expect your fat mass to remain stable.

Tracking Changes In Your Body Composition Helps You Reduce Negative Changes In Your Body

Unfortunately, the truth is that “positive” results– increases in muscle and decreases in fat – usually come paired with negative consequences.

·  Gaining Fat with Muscle

If the results you’re working for are muscle gain, you may end up experiencing some unwanted fat gain as a side effect.  This is due to the nature of the diet you should go on to encourage muscle tissue growth: namely, a caloric surplus.

Getting sufficient nutrients/calories – particularly carbohydrates and protein – is essential for encouraging increased muscle and strength. However, just as eating fewer calories than you use causes a decrease in fat, eating more than your body “needs” will cause a gain in fat over time.

For some people, gaining a little extra fat is not a big concern, but for others it is – especially if clothes start to not fit properly.  By tracking your body composition changes, you’ll be able to track both muscle and fat gain, allowing you to change your diet or exercise routine if you feel that you’re gaining too much fat.

·  Losing Muscle with Fat

The opposite is true when you try to lose fat. With large reductions in fat due to a hypocaloric diet, you can lose Lean Body Mass and Skeletal Muscle Mass.  Muscle is healthy tissue that you should work hard to preserve.

Fortunately, you can minimize the loss of muscle while reducing fat mass by increasing your protein intake and by performing resistance training. In a study of overweight police officers, the group that ingested casein protein supplements and performed regular resistance training experienced less loss of muscle tissue and increased strength vs. the group that simply dieted.

By tracking your body composition changes, you’ll be able to keep an eye on any losses in muscle development.  Just like for people who want to build muscle, if you see that your negative change – loss in muscle – is becoming too great when you track your body composition changes, you can made the necessary adjustments to your diet and workout plan to help mitigate that loss.

Tracking Progress and Setting Reachable Goals Leads to Success

Tracking your progress over time is one of the most important things you can do to ensure your reach your health and fitness goals.  Whether that’s gaining muscle, losing fat, or both, by accurately tracking your progress with something measurable instead of something visual – like a mirror – or unreliable – like scale weight – you will be able to reach your goals faster.

That’s why tracking progress with your body composition delivers results: it offers objective, measurable values in your body that translate into physical results.

With more muscle and less fat, you’ll be stronger, look fitter, and will be healthier. You’ll be able to gauge this progress objectively instead of guessing, and you’ll be able to make smart adjustments in your training as needs be.

Contact My Body Composition Solutions for an analysis of your composition and more information.

Disclaimer: This article should not substitute professional medical advice. When starting a new diet or exercise plan, always consult your physician and exercise professional first.

Information in this article has been extracted and edited from InBody USA ‘Why Tracking Changes in Body Composition Leads to Results’

originally published on March 24, 2016..

 This article includes words and phrases that link to several other information resources.

Many tend to assume that body fat is either good or bad for you. But it’s more complex than that.

While research supports the idea that people with high body fat levels are more likely to develop cardiovascular disease and metabolic syndrome, body fat levels that are too low are not necessarily good for you either.  The reality is that there’s more to body fat than meets the eye.

Essential vs. Storage Fat: What’s the Difference?

To start, there are two main types of body fat: essential fat and storage fat.

As its name implies, essential fat plays a critical role in your overall health and cellular processes.  In Exercise Physiology: Nutrition, Energy, and Human Performance, essential fat is described as,“…the fat in heart, lungs, liver, spleen, kidneys, intestines, muscles, and lipid-rich tissue of the central nervous system and bone marrow.”

As metabolic fuel, essential fat makes sure that you have sufficient energy reserves and it helps conserve body heat when needed. It also protects your internal organs and joints from injury, acting as a soft, fluffy cushion.

As chemical messengers, they help ensure that bodily processes like metabolism, growth, and immune functions are going as smoothly as planned. Finally, essential fat plays an important role in a woman’s reproductive abilities.

Normal bodily functions will go haywire if essential fat falls below the recommended minimum level of 5% in men and below 15% in women. Women have high essential body fat ranges as a result of childbearing and reproductive needs.

Meanwhile, nonessential or storage fat is accumulated body fat for energy reserves. This is the fat that you notice in your body.

What is Body Fat Percentage?

Put simply, body fat % is the amount of fat you have in your body, excluding your fat-free mass (or lean body mass). Your fat-free mass is made up of your bones, organs, muscles, and body water.

Your body fat percentage (also known as percent body fat) reflects how much of your weight is made up of body fat. It is calculated by dividing the weight of your body fat mass by your total weight. Currently, there is no official standard for acceptable body fat percentage values.

At InBody USA, we recommend a body fat percentage range of 10-20 percent for males and 18-28 percent for women.

How Certain Body Fat Percentages Look in Men and Women

Before we go through the pitfalls of dangerously low body fat, let’s take a look at the following five body fat percentage ranges in both men and women.

Excessive: >25% (Men); >32% (Women)

Excess fat will be present in the entire body — often concentrated in the abdominal area, thighs, and hips. 

Individuals within this range of body fat percentage have an increased risk of metabolic or cardiovascular disease. Obesity is also linked to poor self-esteem as well as low energy levels.

Overfat: 20-25% (Men); 28-32% (Women)

Men and women who fall in this body fat percentage range may not have as much excess body weight as those in the previous category but still have excess body fat.

While it is true that some people in the overfat category will be overweight, it’s also possible to have a normal or average body weight but have too much body fat. This is also known as sarcopenic obesity or skinny fat.

Like their obese counterparts, possible issues include low energy levels, higher risk of metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease, poor self-esteem due to physical appearance, and a shortened life expectancy.

People who are skinny fat are also particularly vulnerable to health problems because they have similar body compositions as people who are overweight, but may have very few visual indicators that can warn them of their health risks.

Average Fitness: 15-20% (Men); 23-28% (Women)

Men in this body fat percentage category are often described as moderately lean and fit. While muscle definition may not be obvious, outlines and striations may slightly appear.  A bit of vascularity may be present in the arms.

For women, this category is neither slim nor overweight. With more body fat around the thighs and buttocks, curves will begin to form in the hips.

Both men and women may have some muscular definition but it may take on a softer appearance. Off-season athletes typically fall in this category. People in this category typically enjoy high energy levels, better sleep, and good overall health. They may also look good in tight fitting clothes which in turn leads to better self-esteem. Health issues due to excess body fat are less likely to develop over time.

Athletic Fitness: 10-15% (Men); 18-23% (Women)

Men and women who fall in this body fat percentage category have the classic beach body look. They are lean, muscular, and clearly fit. There is little fat to pinch and muscle definition is particularly obvious in the shoulders, arms, and abs. Professional athletes may fall into this category.

Vascularity may appear in the arms but it may not as pronounced in the legs among men. Women with this body fat percentage may have fat in the arms and legs but it’s not as obvious than those with higher body fat percentages.

Besides looking really fit, individuals with this body fat percentage tend to enjoy excellent overall health and well-being. They also experience less cravings due to regular physical activity and strict adherence to a diet that works for them.

Exceptional Fitness /Bodybuilder Range: 3-10% (Men); 12-18% (Women)

This body fat percentage category often includes bodybuilding competitors and fitness models.

Muscle definition tends to be high in both men and women and there is very little fat. Bodybuilders, for instance, may aim for the extreme low end of this range on cycles when they are competing because in order to have a competitive look, they require next to no body fat.

This is an incredibly difficult body composition to maintain consistently over time, especially at the lower end of this range.

Throw into the above numbers, other factors like age and actual fat layout or distribution across the body, and you can see why it can become such a confusing topic.

Health Risks and Dangers of Low Body Fat in Adult Men and Women

Men who have less than 6 percent body fat and women with less than 16 percent body fat are considered too low. They are typically bodybuilders in contest training or fitness models on the day of their photoshoot. These individuals have gone to great lengths such as going on a strict diet and exercise regimen for weeks.

You might be thinking that these body fat percentage ranges are actually healthy because they are still above the essential fat values. 

But, not so fast.

In a 12-month case study conducted by the International Journal of Sports Physiological Performance, researchers tracked the body composition and physical state of a male competitive bodybuilder whose body fat percentage was around 4.5 percent for competition.

Researchers indicated that several negative outcomes consistent with overtraining, such as decreases in physical performance and reduction in immune system function, had occurred.

A more recent investigation showed that in order to achieve these extremely low body fat levels, these athletes had to rely on steroids and other drugs to help them achieve their goals, common practices within the field of bodybuilding/figure competition. What is now becoming clear is that these practices, while useful for helping attain the desired look, are associated with significantly greater risk of heart disease and liver dysfunction.

These athletes went on to explain that these negative physiological changes are unfortunate, but necessary, repercussions of competitive bodybuilding.

Female bodybuilders, on the other hand, experience an additional side effect of having an extremely low body fat percentage — the temporary stop of menstruation or amenorrhea. It forms one part of a condition known as the Female Athlete Triad.

Additionally, competitive female bodybuilders have been shown to share the same eating-related habits as those with bulimia. They may shun social events that involve dining out and may not have the time for other activities. Female bodybuilders may also experience other reproductive and fertility issues.

Bodybuilders’ Bodies Are Not Ideal

Despite their impressive physical appearances, bodybuilders do not have an ideal body composition.

Their sports demand they put their body through stress to the point where normal biological functions become impaired. Therefore, looking like a bodybuilder should not be a goal (unless you’re a bodybuilder).

Can Low Body Fat Improve Sports Performance?

While low levels of body fat seem to be associated with improved sports performance, body composition alone is not a great predictor of athletic success. There is little evidence for any health benefit when men drop under 8 percent in body fat and when women drop under 14 percent body fat.

Additionally, trying to achieve a body fat percentage that is similar to professional bodybuilding goals can lead to a slew of health issues and complications like impaired body thermoregulation, increased risk of injury, fatigue, loss of muscle tissue, and suboptimal body performance.

The Takeaway: Going Beyond Body Fat Percentage

Although your body fat percentage is a significant and useful metric, relying on it alone will not provide you with solutions or answers that can improve your overall health and fitness.

You will need more specific values than your body fat percentage and weight such as your skeletal muscle mass, visceral fat, and even segmental lean analysis. This will not only help you maintain a healthy body fat percentage in respect to a healthy weight,  but it can also help you figure out if you have muscle imbalances, reduced muscle mass, or are not eating enough.

Your body is a very complex system of specific components working together. Think of body fat percentage as merely a single tree in a large forest. It’s important to get as much information as possible about the health of the entire forest and not just for one specific tree.

By completing regular body composition analysis you will not only have a much better understanding of this, but it is a method by which you can track your progress if improvement is your goal.

Contact My Body Composition Solutions for more information.

Disclaimer: This article should not substitute professional medical advice. When starting a new diet or exercise plan, always consult your physician and exercise professional first.

Information in this article has been extracted and edited from InBody USA ‘Is It Healthy to Have a Low Body Fat Percentage?”

published on August 9, 2018 and written by Kyjean Tomboc, a nurse turned freelance healthcare copywriter and UX researcher.

 This article includes words and phrases that link to several other information resources.

You probably don’t think about your body composition when you’re thinking about your metabolism. But you should.

You probably think about it in terms of speed: “My metabolism is fast” or “my metabolism is slowing down.” 

People are naturally afraid of their metabolism slowing and the weight gain they know comes with it. To some extent, those worries are well-founded.

Metabolism is linked with weight gain and loss because of its a biological process involved with energy and calories.  

A well rounded and accepted definition of metabolism is: the process by which your body converts what you eat and drink into energy. During this complex biochemical process, calories in food and beverages are combined with oxygen to release the energy your body needs to function. 

Notice how it doesn’t mention anything about the speed you process your food. That would be digestion.

In medical terminology, metabolism Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR), which is the minimum number of calories your body needs to perform basic bodily functions. This includes all the involuntary processes in your body such as breathing, digesting food, pumping blood, brain activity. BMR is usually expressed in terms of calories. Your Basal Metabolic Rate also has another interesting quality: the more Lean Body Mass (which includes muscle, water, and minerals) you have, the greater your BMR will be.

When we talk about metabolism, we should always start the conversation with how many calories your body needs. But because your BMR and Lean Body Mass are linked, that means any conversation about metabolism becomes a conversation about your body composition.

Your BMR is calculated when you have an InBody composition analysis. Having this available to you is a valuable tool when monitoring your body’s overall health changes. 

Metabolism 101

Let’s take a deeper look at what you might call a “slow” metabolism. Far from being an issue of fastness or slowness, weight gain is almost always the result of a caloric imbalance that goes unchecked over a long period of time.

To clarify, your Basal Metabolic Rate is not the only factor that plays into your overall caloric needs, and it’s not the total amount of calories you need in a day. There are two other major influencers, which are:

• Your energy level–how active you are 
• The thermic effect of food–the energy your body uses to digest your food

These taken together with your Basal Metabolic Rate provide your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE). This is the number of calories your body burns in a day.

BMR is a necessary piece of information to estimate TDEE. Although they’re not exact, there are multiplication factors for estimating your TDEE based on your activity level and BMR. These are based on multiplying your BMR with an activity factor–a number between 1 and 2–that increases the more active you are (and decreases when you are less active, regardless of your appetite).

The table below gives you multiplication factors to apply to your BMR to establish your TDEE. Using this information will assist in determining how many calories are required to maintain your current body weight.

In our previous example, the person has a BMR of 1437. They consider themselves to be moderately active. Therefore, their TDEE is 2227 calories. If weight loss is their goal, they work on fewer calories, if weight gain is what they’re after, then a surplus of calories will be required.

As with any dietary plan, you will expect to see changes over time.  All this hard work has to produce results, right? So, how long will it take to see results? Unfortunately, that is going to vary for each individual. A good rule of thumb is to weigh yourself every 1 – 2 weeks.  If you are looking for a more precise analysis, you should get your body composition measured as well. Another important factor to consider: your BMR. Since your BMR is closely linked to your lean body mass, any changes will affect the number of calories you burn.

For example, if your plan is to gain lean body mass, and over a period of time you are successful in doing so, your energy needs are going to increase. This is why it is so important to be measuring body composition.

A diet is much more than creating a calorie deficit. It’s important to use a BMR calculator or body composition analyser to understand how much energy your body needs. Without this information, you won’t know how much food you need to add or remove to your diet in order to achieve your goals. With this information, you’ll see quicker results and reach your goals faster.

Improving and Increasing Your Metabolism

With the correct exercise and dietary plan, you can make your metabolism work for you. It all goes back to improving and maintaining a healthy body composition.

Because your body needs more energy to support itself when it has more Lean Body Mass, working to increase your Lean Body Mass can actually increase your Basal Metabolic Rate, which can have a huge impact on your TDEE once you factor in your activity level.

Many people simply maintain their metabolism or avoid a “slowdown” (which as we’ve seen, is a myth right up there with muscle turning into fat) is an important goal. How can you be sure to stay away from creating a decrease in your metabolism?

In short: by maintaining the Lean Body Mass that you already have. That means maintaining your Skeletal Muscle Mass.

Your Skeletal Muscle Mass isn’t the same as your Lean Body Mass, but it is the overall biggest contributor to it. It’s the muscle that you can actually grow and develop through exercise, and increases/decreases in SMM have a strong influence on increases/decreases in Lean Body Mass.

Skeletal Muscle Mass is best developed through strength training and resistance exercise along with a proper diet. A regular exercise plan that includes strength training and resistance exercise will help you maintain your Skeletal Muscle Mass.

This can be especially important as you age. As people become older and busier, activity levels tend to drop and a proper diet can become harder to maintain as responsibilities increase. Poor diet and nutrition can lead to loss of Lean Body Mass over time, which leads to a decrease in overall metabolism–not a slowdown.

So what can be done to improve and increase your metabolic rate? Just like with most things in life, the key is finding your body’s perfect balance. 

Balance Your Diet And Boost Your Metabolism – The Truth About Metabolic Flexibility

At times, a well-intentioned and thoughtful dietary plan doesn’t match the metabolism of the person practicing it. Even though someone may be led to believe that 1,800 calories is right for his or her diet regimen based on age and gender, our metabolisms might not require that caloric intake, ultimately resulting in weight gain despite our well-intended efforts. 

In the end, most individuals will end up blaming their issues with weight loss on a “slowing metabolism,” illustrating the importance of understanding how the relationship between a balanced diet and body composition can actually lead to a boosted metabolism. 

Contradicting health articles do not help the confusion. They preach that carbs should be eaten before you work out, as they will improve your performance. They also say to eat more fats like peanut butter or avocados. Others say that if you don’t eat at all, your body will burn more calories, and you should instead refuel with carbs or recover with protein to build muscle. Is your head spinning yet?

You’re not alone if you ever feel like every health article you see contradicts the one you saw the day before.

This is where the perpetual carbs-versus-fats debate comes into play. Everyone’s quick to tell you about their success with the Keto diet or how more balanced macros improved their performance in the gym.

In reality, there’s no perfect diet. Everyone’s preferred macronutrient ratio and calorie intake depend on their unique resting metabolic rate, activity level, food sensitivities, and more. But there is one thing everyone can count on: 

Your body will – or should – use what you give it.

What is Metabolic Flexibility?

If you eat a lot of fats, fat will be your body’s primary source of fuel. If you eat a lot of carbohydrates, glucose will be your body’s primary source of fuel. If you eat more protein than anything else – you guessed it – your body will burn more protein for energy.

Metabolic flexibility is your body’s ability to adapt to metabolic demands. When things change – such as changing what time you eat breakfast or what you eat for breakfast – your body is forced to change the way it metabolizes your food.

When you eat, your food is either burned for energy or stored if what you ate was in excess of your energy needs. Any excess carbohydrates are stored as glycogen(which serves as quick energy reserves) or fat tissue if glycogen stores are full. Any extra fat is also put away for later use, as fat tissue.

How flexible your metabolism refers to how efficiently your body can switch between using carbs or fats for fuel – or, more importantly – how efficiently it can use what is already available.

Someone with great metabolic flexibility can burn carbs when they eat them. They can also burn fat when they eat it, or when they don’t eat at all. People with flexible metabolisms can “flex” between carbohydrate metabolism and fat oxidation relatively easily.

For example, a person with great metabolic flexibility does cardio in the morning on an empty stomach. Because their metabolism is highly flexible, their body powers through the workout on fat tissue that already exists. The same person, however, could eat oatmeal and a banana an hour or two before their workout and instead use those carbs as fuel (instead of storing them for later use).

A flexible metabolism gives your body more leeway when determining what fuel source to use. Take the example of the person doing fasted cardio in the previous section. If that person was metabolically inflexible and exercised on an empty stomach, he or she would first burn through the glycogen (stored carbohydrates) in their body – leaving the fat untouched.

This is why it’s so hard for many people to burn fat: They are metabolically inflexible.

If you’re very metabolically flexible, eating calorie-dense, sugar-laden, or very fatty foods from time to time won’t always be an issue for your body. Your body can convert those calories into energy without much negative aftermath. 

Those who are metabolically flexible carry more mitochondria in their muscles, which allows them to produce energy more efficiently. Having too few mitochondria, or having dysfunctional mitochondria, limits the amount of energy a person can produce. It makes switching between fuels difficult, which makes utilizing any stored body fat between meals almost impossible. This is why metabolically inflexible people tend to snack often.

Training Your Metabolism to be More Flexible

The key to understanding metabolic flexibility is understanding how insulin regulates our energy. A healthy person with normal insulin action can effectively switch between fats and carbs as fuel. An insulin-resistant person cannot do this as effectively.

Insulin is the hormone that regulates your blood sugar by taking glucose into your bloodstream. There are two primary states of being as it relates to a person’s metabolism: fed and fasting.

During fed conditions (e.g., having just eaten,) your insulin levels will be high due to incoming food. During fasting conditions, someone who is very metabolically flexible will easily be able to tap into stored body fat. The workings of insulin are vast, and you can learn more here, but these points are essential to understanding metabolic flexibility:

• All of the food you eat, regardless of its macronutrient composition, sparks the release of insulin.
• Insulin is a factor in deciding which fuel source your body uses.
• When insulin levels are low, your body primarily burns fat.
• When insulin levels are high, your body primarily burns carbs and stores fat.

One of the best–and easiest–ways to improve your metabolic flexibility is to exercise. If you’re generally sedentary, adding exercise to your days is a surefire way to kick your body into a fat-burning mode it’s never experienced before. If you already exercise regularly, add more variety to your workouts.

Varying the type of training you do (strength training, intervals, and some sort of aerobic or endurance activity) might just give your body the nudge it needs to tap into your fat reserves. Different types of exercise use different mixes of fuel and eventually may train your body to use different fuel sources during day-to-day activities.

Fasted cardio is one type of exercise intended to tap heavily into your body’s fat reserves. Doing high-intensity cardiovascular exercise with little to no glycogen stored can train your metabolism to be more flexible.

Another way to improve your metabolic flexibility is intermittent fasting (IF). Remember the person who used body fat as fuel during their morning fasted cardio? That worked because his or her body was trained to use the available energy in the absence of food.

Metabolically inflexible people would just feel atrocious in the same scenario because their bodies don’t know how to function without incoming energy (food). If you can’t make it more than two-to-three hours without food, you’re impairing your body’s ability to utilize your body fat. Work slowly to increase your spacing between meals.

Timing your nutrient intake can help your body use fat more efficiently, and the longer the fasting period, the more your body has to tap into its fat reserves, which may be one way to combat obesity.

You should also test out different macronutrient ratios. The fewer carbohydrates you consume, the more your body will have to rely on fat sources for fuel. This is the premise behind the ketogenic diet. Try cutting out added sugars and overly processed grains first. Then you can try reducing your carb intake even further by cutting out starches like potatoes. If keto’s not for you, try out the paleo diet, which is also low in carbs and higher in fat and protein.

While it’s encouraged to consume fats, avoid trans fats and too many saturated fats. Try to get your fats from nutrient-dense sources like olive and coconut oils, avocados, nuts, seeds, and fatty fish. Another good source is foods containing high antioxidants. Antioxidant consumption has been linked to a reduced risk of metabolic syndrome, as well as an increase in insulin sensitivity. 

Wrapping Up

The link between our metabolism and body composition is strong, and it prompts many questions. How much Lean Body Mass do you have? What might your Basal Metabolic Rate be? What are the benefits of hot and cold exposure when it comes to your metabolism? These questions should be answered first before starting any weight loss or diet program. Getting the information you need and the answers to these questions by getting your body composition accurately tested is a great first step in your journey.

Contact My Body Composition Solutions for information regarding regular analysis to assist with monitoring your BMR.

Disclaimer: This article should not substitute professional medical advice. When starting a new diet or exercise plan, always consult your physician and exercise professional first.

Information in this article has been extracted and edited from InBody USA ‘Metabolism 101- A Look Inside Your Body’s Energy Engine”

published on March 18, 2020. This article includes phrases that link to several other information resources.

  (1) Source: InBody USA article ‘How to Use BMR To Hack Your Diet’ 15/03/2018

When someone wants to lose excess weight, the first thing they do—or the first thing they’re told to do by their friend who acts as their personal trainer —is to adopt a low-carb diet. This can definitely lead to fat loss but cutting carbs shouldn’t be a hard and fast rule in body composition, especially when it comes to gaining muscle.

Carbs usually aren’t restricted if muscle growth is the goal. It seems like weightlifters and athletes know some things about carbohydrates that the general public doesn’t: carbs aren’t the enemy to achieving your body composition goals.

Like a lot of things in life, there are carbs that will help you reach those goals and carbs that will prevent you from reaching those goals. Out of all of the types of carbs, complex carbohydrates play a largely important role in building muscle mass.

Carbohydrates and Building Muscle Mass

Think about it: building anything takes a lot of time, energy and resources. Building muscle is no different. The body requires a lot of energy to power through workouts that result in bigger, stronger muscles. Where does the body get most of that energy? Usually from carbs.

Energy from Complex Carbohydrates

Out of all the energy sources for the human body, researchers have found that carbohydrates are the main source of energy in the human diet. This means that carbs aren’t just for athletes. Carbs are a great source of energy for anyone’s daily activities, including exercise.

You can think of carbohydrates as a source of fuel for the body, otherwise known as calories. As you’ve probably heard, there are two types of carbohydrates: simple carbs and complex carbs. 

What are simple carbohydrates?

Basically, simple carbohydrates are sugars, all those lovely substances that have the kids bouncing off the walls and you wondering why the scales continue to lie about your real weight.

Raw sugars, brown sugars, glucose, fructose, sucrose; all simple carbs and an extra kilo of weight in the making.

If you want to cut simple carbs out of your life, stay right away from sodas, baked treats and cookies, fruit juice concentrates and pretty much all breakfast cereals.

What are complex carbohydrates?

Your average complex carb comes in one of two forms: fibre or starch.

Fibre is great because it helps to keep our digestion working as it should so we stay regular. Fibre also helps to control cholesterol.

Where will you find complex carb fibre? In fruit, vegetables, beans, nuts, and whole grains. (1)

If you’ve ever heard of an athlete eat candy before a game or training session, that’s because simple carbs, like white sugar, are one of the fastest ways to spike energy. However, this energy kick cannot be maintained for long. Complex carbs may not be as readily available for immediate energy as simple carbs are, but they’re more efficient and healthier. Complex carbs provide sustainable energy, which means the energy is constant and there’s no “crash” like with simple carbs. 

One of the main reasons why complex carbs sustain energy throughout the day is because they take longer to digest. Simple carbs like fruit are easy for the body to break down and get rapidly digested, so they don’t provide energy for a long period of time. Complex carbs like starches are slow to digest and therefore slowly provide calories, giving you continuous energy for a longer period of time. 

Because of their slow-release properties, complex carbs should be the largest component of daily energy intake.

Isn’t Protein More Important Than Carbs for Building Muscle?

When you think of building muscle, you may think of a high-protein diet. Protein is extremely important in building muscle because the amino acids (the building blocks of protein) help repair and maintain muscle tissue. Essentially, protein helps you recover from workouts because muscles slightly tear during exercise.

If protein is so important, why put an emphasis on carbs? Well, complex carbohydrates don’t get enough credit when it comes to the important roles they play in muscle gains.

Some of the ways that complex carbs help to build muscle include:

1. Carbs help regulate muscle glycogen repletion

You may have heard of glycogen stores before. Glycogen is a form of glucose that is stored for later use. When the body needs energy, glycogen kicks into gear and acts as a ready fuel source. 

Carbohydrates and glycogen go hand in hand because carbs are stored as glycogen. When carbs are low, glycogen stores are low. When carbs are consumed, glycogen stores are full.

Since glycogen is used for energy, it’s important to replenish those stores. This is why researchers recommend to consume carbohydrates immediately following exercise; it replenishes glycogen stores for future use.

2. Carbs prevent muscle degradation

One concern about low-carb diets is muscle loss.

A Netherlands study compared a low-carb diet to other diets and found that restricting carbs results in protein loss. This is because restricting carbs causes an increase in the amount of nitrogen that get excreted by the body. Nitrogen is a component of amino acids (the stuff that forms muscle proteins), therefore nitrogen loss indicates that the muscles are breaking down.

3. Carbs help muscles recover from exercise

The role that carbs play in recovery goes back to glycogen stores. Immediately after exercise, athletes need to replenish their glycogen stores in order to prevent glycogen depletion.

Glycogen depletion, when glycogen stores have run out, causes gluconeogenesis. This is when the body forms glucose from new sources to compensate for the lack of glucose from carbohydrates. When this happens, the body turns to sources like fat and protein to fill this need. Protein acts as the last line of defense when energy is required, meaning that energy accessibility is running very low. 

When the body breaks down protein to make more glucose, it takes from the muscle, causing them to waste away. 

Gluconeogenesis is more common in carbohydrate-free diets, so be sure to consume healthy carbs to prevent this. 

Replenishing glycogen stores with complex carbs is important to prevent protein breakdown and muscle wasting.

Why Athletes Consume a Lot of Carbs

There are many reasons why athletes don’t adopt low-carb or carb-free diets. They know those good carbs are a necessary nutrient to help them power through training sessions, resulting in muscle maintenance and growth.

Some of the reasons why athletes consume a fair amount of carbs include:

1. Carbs prevent muscle weakness

By now, you understand the importance of glycogen stores. Some glycogen is even stored in our muscles. 

When you use those muscles during exercise, you tap into the glycogen stores in that particular muscle. When you lift weights with your arms, for example, you’re accessing the glycogen in your biceps.

Some athletes take advantage of glycogen by loading up on carbohydrates (by consuming carbs a day or more before a workout) to maximize the muscle glycogen stores. This can delay fatigue and even improve athletic performance, making for a better workout and stronger muscles.

2. Carbs improve athletic performance

Out of the three macronutrients, carbs are the most efficiently metabolized. 

The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the Dietitians of Canada, and the American College of Sports all share the position that high carbohydrate availability is associated with improving performance during high-intensity exercise. 

Why? Because carbohydrates are the only macronutrient that can be broken down quickly enough to provide sustained energy during high-intensity training. 

Both carbohydrates and protein will both provide 4 calories per gram. But it is much easier for your body to digest and use the calories from a gram of carbohydrate than it is a gram of protein. 

Research has shown the link between nutrition and athletic performance is greater than initially believed.

3. Carbs repair muscles

During exercise, muscles slightly tear. Muscles feel sore after intense exercise because of this minor damage that allowed the muscles to exert more force than during regular activity.

After exercise or during rest, the muscles need to be repaired and rebuilt. Just like for building muscle, protein and glycogen is needed for that muscle repair. 

The importance of glycogen for muscles can’t be over-emphasized, and in order to maintain glycogen stores, carbohydrates are needed.

What Happens to Muscle When Carbs are Low

With the popularity of low-carb diets, it’s important to discuss the major concern that muscle mass is at risk of deterioration when carbs are low. 

Now that we know how important carbs are to build muscle, let’s discuss some of the possibilities when carbs are restricted.

Muscle is Broken Down For Fuel

The body looks to complex carbs as its main energy source. When carbs aren’t available, the body breaks down protein, i.e muscle, for fuel. 

Carbohydrates are stored as glycogen, which is a readily available source of energy for when it’s needed. Dietary protein, however, isn’t really meant to be stored in the body specifically as an energy source.

When the body breaks down muscle tissue for energy, it does so to access the amino acids (the building blocks of protein). The amino acids are then broken down into glucose and used for energy.

Carbs help to prevent this process encouraging protein sparing, which means they conserve muscle tissue by providing energy instead. When carbs are present, the body will use carbs first and foremost for energy. When carbs aren’t available, muscle gains that you have worked so hard to achieve can be lost.

Replenishing glycogen stores by consuming complex carbs prevents this muscle loss.

Decreased Athletic Performance

Decreased energy due to low-carb consumption may affect athletic performance. When glycogen stores are low, athletic performance is decreased.

Muscle strength can be compromised and fatigue increases when glycogen stores are low.

It’s widely accepted that athletic performance is somewhat dependent on carbohydrate consumption. Therefore, consuming carbs before the workout for energy and after to replenish glycogen stores are important contributors to improved exercise performance

Everyone knows that protein is important for building muscle, but without carbs, the gains just aren’t the same. Complex carbs are vital for sustained energy, athletic performance, and overall muscle building.

However, the type of carbs and when they’re consumed are also vital to experience these benefits.

When to Consume Complex Carbs for Muscle Building

The time of carb consumption also impacts athletic performance and muscle building. 

It’s important to consume complex carbs before an intense workout so that glycogen stores are full enough to fuel the training. Consuming complex carbs immediately before a workout could lead to digestive distress, so try to limit complex carb consumption to up to a few hours before an intense workout. If you’re short for energy before an event, lean towards simple carbs.

After exercise, it’s important to consume complex carbs to replenish those glycogen stores for later use.

Balancing Carb Consumption

The amount of complex carbs you eat depends on your body composition goals. Generally, very low carb consumption (<5%) is used for weight loss, while adequate carb consumption (55-60%) is used for muscle gain. 

Athletes may pile on the carbs as they are required to train day-in and day-out. So it makes sense that they should consume a higher carb diet than the average person because they have higher energy needs. For non-athletes, it’s generally suggested to adopt a more balanced diet. Even if you’re mostly sedentary, you should still consume some carbs to fuel your daily activities. 

If the goal is to build muscle, we now know to eat all three macronutrients, including a fair amount of carbs.

Take Away

Fruit and vegetable intake

Definition: The proportion of people eating sufficient serves of fruit and vegetables each day to obtain a health benefit.

Calculation of this indicator is based on relevant dietary guidelines published by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC 2013).

In the NHMRC guidelines, the minimum recommended number of serves of fruit per day is 1 for children aged 2–3, 1½ for children aged 4–8, and 2 for people aged 9 and over. The minimum recommended number of serves of vegetables per day is 2½ for children aged 2–3; 4½ for children aged 4–8; 5 for children aged 9–11, females aged 12 and over and males aged 70 and over; 5½ for males aged 12–18 and 51–70 years; and 6 for males aged 19–50. (1)

With the modern prevalence of cheap fast food and the standard Australian Diet, it’s no surprise that most Aussies don’t hit the daily recommended intake of 2 to 3 serves of fruits and vegetables.

However, nutrition-conscious Australians aren’t immune to it, either. The rising popularity of restrictive diets like the Ketogenic Diet and the Carnivore Diet may also be a contributing factor to declining fruit and vegetable consumption.

While most forms of the Ketogenic Diet allow for some vegetables and low sugar fruits, like berries, it is common to focus on the part of Keto that emphasizes “sausage, bacon, eggs, and butter” without remembering to include nutrient-dense plant foods.

The Carnivore Diet is even more extreme, omitting fruit and  because the body can’t store them. Following the Carnivore Diet, in the long term, might lead to decreased intake of essential nutrients and water-soluble vitamin deficiencies.

Between restrictive diets that deteriorate quality of life and fast food, many people may be missing out on the amazing health benefits that fruits and vegetables have to offer. These profound health-promoting qualities lie in the high antioxidant, fibre, and water-soluble vitamin content.

In this article, we will discuss the mechanisms by which the nutrients in fruits and vegetables can support health. By understanding these key components, you’ll be more motivated than ever to get your full servings of these amazing plants.

The Role Antioxidants Play In Health

If you’ve spent any time googling healthy foods, you’re sure to have stumbled upon the benefits of antioxidants. Antioxidants are needed for preserving our health and are a major reason why fruits and veggies are so beneficial.

Antioxidants Protect Against Free Radical Damage

Metabolic processes, like energy production, along with other factors, like environmental pollution, resulting in free radical production. These are highly reactive molecules that can damage cells and lead to oxidative stress in the body — which plays a role in the development of many diseases, including heart disease.

Our bodies have natural protective mechanisms to neutralize these damaging free radical molecules, including glutathione production, our body’s master antioxidant. When glutathione becomes depleted, as a result of increasing free radical load, the body relies on dietary antioxidants from food as a secondary defence. There are many studies that show antioxidant therapy as a promising treatment for oxidative stress in the body.

Fruit and Plant Sources of Antioxidants

Fruits and veggies like berries, dark-coloured grapes, spinach, kale, sweet potatoes, and carrots are all great sources of antioxidants. Purple-coloured fruits like blueberries and dark-coloured grapes contain an antioxidant called resveratrol that has been shown to have therapeutic potential for heart disease.

Beta-carotene is an orange-coloured carotenoid with antioxidant properties and has also been shown to be protective against heart disease. Orange and yellow coloured plant foods are a good source of the antioxidant carotenoid beta-carotene, or pro vitamin A, along with leafy greens.

Moreover, minerals like zinc and selenium have antioxidant capacities which can be found in vegan sources. Other notable minerals found in fruits and veggies are blood pressure lowering potassium, magnesium, and calcium.

Antioxidant Content of Various Fruits and Vegetables

Blueberry  14.98 nmol/100g dry weight

Strawberry  4.44 nmol/100g dry weight

Broccoli, cooked  0.5 nmol/100g dry weight

Curly Kale  2.8 nmol/100g dry weight

Routinely including these antioxidant-rich foods in your diet can help to reduce free radical levels and prevent oxidative stress from accumulating.

Fibre Is Your Friend!

Fibre has a wide array of health benefits including lowering the risk of developing diseases like diabetes, obesity, hypertension, and more. It may also be beneficial for those who already have diabetes in its proven ability to improve insulin sensitivity — a major issue for diabetics. For those seeking to improve body composition, research shows that adding fibre to your diet can amplify weight loss goals. Although the exact mechanisms behind the benefits are not all defined yet, studies show a clear association with high fibre intake and markers of health. Considering fruits and vegetables are the highest fibre foods available to us, they are a huge contributor to fibre intake.

Fibre and Gut Health

To add to the list, the friendly bacteria that live in our gut also thrive off of fruit and vegetable fibre. Because our body doesn’t absorb fibre, it becomes readily available to these bacteria ferment it. Anti-inflammatory short chain fatty acids are released as a by-product of this process and are key to protecting the health of the gut. They may also have metabolic implications, including appetite regulation and correlation with lower insulin levels.

Fibre-Rich Fruits and Veggies

Fibre is exclusively found in plant foods, which is just another motivating reason to boost your vegetable and fruit consumption. The level of fibre is dependent on the individual vegetable or fruit.

Fibre Content of Fruits and Vegetables

Lentils  11.7g/100g

White Beans, raw  17.7g/100g

Kidney Beans, (can)  6.3g/100g

Kiwi fruit   3.39g/100g

To protect the high fibre content of these foods, avoid peeling as this can reduce fruit and vegetable fibre content.

Water Soluble Vitamins

There are two forms of vitamins: water-soluble and fat-soluble. The fat-soluble are your vitamin A, E, D, and K (although one form of vitamin K is found in plant foods, the active form, vitamin K, K2, is primarily found in animal foods). In contrast, the B-complex and vitamin C make up the water-soluble vitamin family. B-complex vitamins are found in both plant and animal foods, whereas vitamin C is only found in fruits and vegetables.

Besides playing different roles in the body, fat-soluble and water-soluble vitamins are maintained very differently in the body. In excess, fat-soluble vitamins are stored in tissues of the body, whereas water-soluble vitamins are excreted out of the body.

Both the B-complex and vitamin C play key roles in the function of the body. Considering their critical role in the body and our inability to maintain water-soluble vitamin stores, it’s important to replenish these vitamins daily through regular fruit and vegetable intake.

The B-Complex

There are eight B-vitamins in the B-complex. They all possess different roles within the body, however, the B-complex as a whole is often referenced for its role in energy production.

The Mechanism Behind the B-Complex Role in Energy Production

The B-complex works by acting as coenzymes for energy production processes in the body. Every single B-vitamin is required for completing the ATP-producing Krebs Cycle, the compound that powers every function of every cell in the body. For this reason, a deficiency in any one B-vitamin can really put a damper on energy production.

Folate, specifically, also plays a critical role in energy production. Folate is essential to the Folate Cycle which assists in converting homocysteine to methionine in the Methionine cycle.

Essentially, without regular intake of the entire B-complex, you might end up feeling fatigued and disrupting normal metabolic function.

The B-Complex and Gym Performance?

A vital component of reaching optimal body composition is successful gym performance. Proper energy production is so important to provide the energy to keep you working hard in the gym. And, as we all know, working hard is one of the main factors in achieving your body composition goals. Because of this, ensuring you are properly supporting energy production by consuming enough B-vitamin rich foods is something to keep an eye on.

Sources of the B-Complex

Although not a fruit or vegetable, beef, eggs, and liver are some of the richest source of the B-complex. However, seven of the eight (minus B12) are also found in abundance in plant foods.

B-Complex Vitamins Found in Fruits and Vegetables

Thiamin (B1)  Lentils (0.165mg/100g), Asparagus (0.11mg/100g)

Riboflavin (B2)  Spinach (0.2mg/100g), Avocado (0.1mg/100g), mushrooms (0.5mg/100g)

Niacin (B3)  Avocado (1.7mg/100g), Mushrooms (6.3mg/100g)

Pantothenic Acid (B5)  Mushrooms (3.6mg/100g), Avocado (1.4mg/100g)

Pyridoxine (B6)  Bananas (0.4mg/100g), Potatoes (0.3mg/100g)

Biotin (B7)  Banana (.12mcg/100g), (1.4mcg/100g)

Folate (B9)  Spinach (77mcg/100g), Asparagus (52.3mcg/100g), Brussel sprouts (45.8mcg/100g)

Some B-vitamins are easily destroyed by heat: thiamin (B1), pyridoxine (B6), and folate (B9). To preserve the nutrition of these foods, opt for eating them raw (obviously, only with plant foods!).

Vitamin C

Vitamin C is renowned for its immune-boosting properties, however, it is also important for healthy cholesterol levels, synthesis of crucial nutrients, proper absorption of iron, collagen maintenance, and assisting in energy production. There is also evidence that it may play a role in lowering blood pressure.

Vitamin C’s Role in Energy Production

In addition to the B-Complex, vitamin C also plays a role in energy production. It works by acting as a cofactor of transporting fatty acids, an energy source, to the mitochondria for ATP production.

As mentioned before, proper energy production and utilization of energy sources could play a role in gym performance, and, therefore, possibly help to improve body composition.

Sources of Vitamin C

Despite citrus fruits often being the spotlight of vitamin C rich foods, there are many other sources!

Vitamin C Content of Fruits and Vegetables

Red Bell Pepper 55mg/100g

Strawberries  29mg/100g

Kiwi fruit  64mg per medium kiwi

Broccoli  30mg/100g

Green Pepper  30mg/100g

In the same way as some B-vitamins, vitamin C is also destroyed by heat. To make sure you’re getting the most vitamin C out of your foods, consume these vitamin C rich foods in their raw form.

Conclusion

The well-known health benefits of fruits and vegetables due to their high antioxidant, fibre, and water-soluble vitamin content, like the B-complex and vitamin C, are the basis for the encouragement of including them in your diet. Government bodies currently recommend 1 and ½ to 2 cups of fruits and 2 and ½ to 3 cups of vegetables per day, depending on your sex and age, for optimal health.

Restrictive diets that exclude or significantly reduce plant consumption may result in deficiencies of these nutrients, specifically and most likely, vitamin C and fibre. It’s best to discuss a plan for implementing these diets in detail with your doctor after blood work, making sure adopting one of these diets won’t lead to deficiency.

You can include more of the plant foods mentioned above in your diet by consciously planning your meals. Try substituting your snacks for fruits or veggies or include a vegetable in every meal. If you meal prep, it’s really easy to prepare your fruits and veggies in bulk for easy access and consumption!

With the amazing health benefits of fruits and vegetables, abundant availability, and easy preparation, it’s so easy to get these beneficial foods into your diet and achieve optimal health and nutrition.

Disclaimer: This article should not substitute professional medical advice. When starting a new diet or exercise plan, always consult your physician and exercise professional first.

Information in this article has been extracted and edited from InBody USA ‘The Health Benefits of Fruit and Vegetables’ by Sophia Ruiz.Sophia is a health and wellness freelance writer & blogger. As an Instagram influencer, she uses her platforms to promote consumer empowerment through education.

(1) Source: Australian Institute of Health & Welfare; Aust health 2018

It’s a classic dilemma.

To maximize weight loss, you are tracking every calorie, substituting junk food with healthier alternatives, and cooking all of your meals at home. All of your hard work is paying off. As long as you stick to your plan and don’t cheat; the weight is just going to keeping coming off. You have already lost 10Kg and feel unstoppable!

That’s when life gets in the way.

Maybe it’s your birthday celebration. What would everyone think if you didn’t take a slice of your own birthday cake? Or your best friend is back in town and just wants to indulge for the entire day! Unfortunately, quinoa isn’t what your friend was craving for.

You’ve already made so much progress, so you think, “I can eat my cheat meals this weekend and splurge for a couple days and it won’t affect me that much right…”.

When Monday comes, you weigh yourself for your weekly weigh-in and you can’t believe it: you’ve gained 2Kg.

Two months to lose 5Kg and then one weekend to gain 2Kg. The daily morning workouts. Eating nothing but steam vegetables and skinless chicken breasts. And counting every calorie. Wasted.

First the bad news: no, your scale isn’t lying to you, you gained 2Kg. But the good news is it’s definitely not 2Kg of fat. Most likely it is nothing more than water weight.

But how do you know for sure?

Can I Gain Fat in One Day?

Let’s get one thing straight: you can’t gain a kilo of fat in a day, or even 2kg in one weekend. Biologically, it would be astounding if you did. You are very much aware of how difficult it is to lose fat quickly, but don’t laugh when I tell you, in theory, it is just as “difficult” to gain fat.

Fat gain or loss has a lot to do with your energy/caloric balance–how many calories you take in vs. how many calories you use during the day.  If you are using more energy than you take in, your body gets some energy it needs from your fat stores.  If you’re taking in more energy– eating beyond your body’s needs–then the opposite happens: you build fat stores.

A common theory in the health and fitness world is that there are around 3,500 calories stored in a pound of fat. The theory goes that if you reduce your daily caloric intake by 500 every day of the week, in 7 days you’ll lose ½ kg of fat.  Conversely, if you overeat by 500 calories a day, you can gain a ½ kg of fat in a week.

500 Calories x 7 Days = 3,500 calories/week or 1 lb/ week 

The point is it TAKES TIME to gain or lose fat.

Of course, it is much easier than you think to overeat 500 calories a day. A large blended coffee-flavoured drink once a day will do it.

In order to gain a ½ kg of fat, you would need to add about 500 calories a day on top of your normal diet, every day, for about 7 days.  This makes gaining any significant amount of fat from even the craziest all-out cheat days extremely unlikely.  

To gain 2 kg of fat in a day, you’d have to eat about 17,500 calories on top of your daily caloric limit. Not even Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson can consume that many calories!

What is Water Weight?

So, if that 2 kg of weight isn’t fat, then what is it? And how long is it going to stick around?  The answer involves your body’s favourite energy source: a molecule called glycogen.

Glycogen is an energy source that is produced primarily from carbohydrates.  Your body loves glycogen because it’s an easily accessible energy source that provides a lot of energy.

Glycogen also has an interesting attribute: it bonds really well with water.  In fact, for every gram of carbohydrate in your body, there are about 3 to 4 molecules of water bonded to it. This can cause some large increases in weight, but weight due to water, not fat. Depending on what kind of diet you were on, loading up on carbs on a cheat day can increase your weight noticeably.

If you were trying to lose fat, you likely were trying to cut carbohydrates out of your diet.  It’s a very popular technique, and diets structured around low carbohydrate and low caloric intake are about as basic a diet as they come.  The Mayo Clinic notes that a diet targeting low carbohydrate intake constitutes about 60-130 grams of carbs a day.  Some popular diets – such as the Atkins Diet – target extremely low levels of carbohydrates, as low as 18 grams a day.

If you’re consuming 60 grams of carbs a day, you’re holding onto approximately 210 grams of water. That’s about half a pound of water.

But if on a cheat day, you decide to eat and drink whatever you want and load up to 300 grams of carbohydrates (the average number of carbs eaten by men (1)), you would be retaining around 1kg of water. 

If you were on a 60 carbs/day diet, you could be 700 grams heavier already.  If you went up to 400 grams of carbs, you could add on almost 1.5kg of water.

However, glycogen is far from the only substance or factor that can cause your body to retain extra water.  Excess sodium (salt), something commonly found in your favourite cheat meals, can also cause your body to hold onto the water on top of the water held onto by your glycogen.  Once you factor in the effects of other things you ate and drank, your hormones, and your unique body composition, you can see why your weight can fluctuate so much.

Once you return back to eating a low carb, low sodium diet, your body will naturally shed the extra water weight you gained.

So, Can a Cheat Day Ruin My Body Composition?

A cheat day every once in a while will not erase weeks and months of hard workouts and careful calorie counting. You can’t put on kilos of fat over one weekend.

Changing your body composition and losing weight is a long-term process, but if you do it right, you’ll have long-term results.  Quick fixes and crash diets that focus on cutting out nearly all carbohydrates for a short period don’t actually achieve lasting results, and now that you understand a little about glycogen, you also understand why.

However, this doesn’t mean you can get carried away on cheat days.

It’s so easy for your cheat day to become a cheat weekend, and your cheat

weekend to suddenly become a cheat week. Before you know it, you are

back to your old eating habits. Try a cheat meal instead and make sure you

plan a workout before to rev your metabolism.

Your body will thank you the next day.

Bottom line: it’s OK to indulge once in a while!

Making cheat days a part of your routine makes it easier for you to manage them. Just make sure after you’ve had your fun, you get back on your fitness journey and keep working towards your goals.

Disclaimer: This article should not substitute professional medical advice. When starting a new diet or exercise plan, always consult your physician and exercise professional first.

Information in this article has been extracted and edited from InBody USA ‘Does a Cheat Day Undo a Week at the Gym?” updated

on September 17, 2018, for accuracy and comprehensiveness. It was originally published on February 17, 2016.

(1)  Source US department of agriculture

Losing weight is hard.  It requires working out regularly, making sure you get enough nutrients in your diet (like protein). If you’re like most people, you want to see results that justify your hard work.  And that result, more often than not, has to do with seeing that number on the scale go steadily down. So, you step on the scale every day because you need a reason to keep going.

Everything is fine until the unthinkable happens:  the scale stops going down. Or, after one “cheat day” you find yourself 3 kg heavier and you think, “Oh no! Everything I’ve done for the past 2 weeks is for nothing!”  Repeat this a few times and before you know it, you’ve given up on working out and you’ve dumped your diet.

Sound familiar?

The truth is, you were probably making progress before you quit. Don’t give up.  You probably just got discouraged because you did what no one should ever do: you let the scale trick you.

Here are 5 reasons why your scales are a terrible tool for weight loss and how it can make you give up.

First and foremost…

1. You’re confusing “weight loss” with “fat loss”

It’s a safe bet to assume that when people want to lose weight, what they really want is fat loss.  The problem is, many people use the words “weight loss” and “fat loss” interchangeably, which are two separate concepts.

Losing overall weight isn’t hard – you’ll drop a few kg of water weight if you sit in a sauna for a while. Fat loss is harder to achieve, depends on several factors, and it takes more time than you think to truly lose it.  Here are a couple key points about fat loss to consider:

·  When you lose weight, you lose more than just fat.  

Muscle and water (in addition to water weight) are two major components that make up your weight, and when you lose weight, you can lose some of each.  How much of each you lose depends in part on how much fat you have to lose when you start. Heavier people have more to lose than thin people, and they will lose more weight from fat than muscle than thin people.

·  You can drop weight but dropping actual fat takes time– more time than you think.  

Many people set fat loss goals for themselves that are unreasonable.  The truth is, without going on an unhealthy near-starvation diet, you can only expect to drop 1kg at best.

Don’t expect to lose 5 kg in a week, because even if you do, it’s not going to be all fat.  Some of it will be muscle and losing muscle is not good for your health, so you will want to preserve it as much as you can.

But what about the people who do claim to lose 5 kg in a week?  There are reasons for this, beginning with…

2. Your glycogen levels are changing, which can

cause large weight swings in either direction

Glycogen is a short-term energy source that your body taps into when it needs immediate energy.  Although it is produced from many different types of foods, foods rich in carbohydrates like bread trigger glycogen production more than any other food source.  It’s a very good energy source, so much so that this is the major reason why marathon runners have “pasta parties” the day before the race: it’s to fuel up on glycogen!  You might also know this by another term: carb-loading.

In terms of your weight, however, glycogen has a very interesting attribute: 3 to 4 grams of water will bond to each gram of glycogen.  You always knew that diet played a big role in both fat and weight loss, but once you understand the role glycogen and water have with each other, a lot of things will make sense to you.  For example:

This is why people lose weight on carb-restricting diets like the Atkins diet

The Atkins diet and other diets similar to it (ketogenic, paleo, etc.) revolve around one major concept: restricting carbohydrates, and by extension, glycogen. Once your glycogen levels become depleted, there is less water for the glycogen to bond to. This is why many people who go on ketogenic-style diets appear to lose pounds very quickly: much of the initial weight loss is simply water.

This is why people believe they’ve “gained it all back” after cheating on their diet

Here’s a common situation that everyone has probably experienced at least once: after going on a strict diet (most likely low in carbs and high in protein) for a couple of weeks, you treat yourself to a weekend where you ate all the carbs that you missed so dearly.

Weighing yourself Monday morning, you find that you’re 2 kg heavier. Sad face. Good news: you didn’t waste any of your hard work!  It’s glycogen that’s fooling you and its mostly just water weight.

It’s deceptively easy to refuel yourself on carbohydrates and replenish your glycogen levels.  A typical endurance athlete, for example, requires around 500-600 g of carbohydrates a day to perform at optimal levels.

500-600 g of carbohydrates might sound like a lot to you at first, but consider that unless you actually are an athlete, your carbohydrate needs are a lot lower than you think.  Add this to the fact that:

One wheat bagel contains 48 grams of carbs (minus anything you put on it)

One slice of pizza contains 35.66 grams of carbs (and do you ever eat only one?)

One serving of lasagne with meat can contain up to 40 grams of carbs (again, just one piece?)

One cup of steamed white rice contains 45 grams of carbs

One standard can of soft drink contains 35 grams of carbs

Since many popular foods are so rich in carbs, it’s not very hard to refill your glycogen stores in a day if you aren’t watching your carb intake or are choosing not to for a special occasion.

By refuelling on carbs, you’re replenishing your glycogen levels, and water is binding to it.  So, you haven’t sabotaged your goals; you’ve probably put on water weight. Watch how fast you will lose body water again if you reduce your carbohydrate intake.

However, glycogen isn’t the only molecule that can retain water.  There are others that influence your water and your weight, which leads to the next point…

3. You’re retaining water due to your salt intake

Salt (or more accurately, sodium) is everywhere and extremely hard to avoid.  It might not surprise you that a single patty cheeseburger contains over 500 mg of sodium (nearly a quarter of the daily recommended levels), but would you be surprised to know that the ranch dressing you’re putting in your salad contains over half that, as much as 270 mg? Or that a tablespoon of soy sauce that you’re using in your healthy, vegetable-only stir-fry has 879 mg of sodium? Little surprise that the Mayo Clinic estimates that the average American consumes about 3,400 mg of sodium a day: close to double what’s recommended.

Sodium is linked with water retention, and it is the job of your kidneys to expel unneeded sodium out of your body.  Until your kidneys are able to do that, you will temporarily be holding onto extra water. If your daily water and sodium intake habits change from day to day, this can contribute to water retention, which will cause fluctuations in your daily weight.

So, if you were on a diet but flooded your body with more salt than you normally have, you can expect to see a temporary increase in weight. It doesn’t mean that all your hard work is for nothing; it just means that you’re experiencing additional water weight because of the extra sodium in your body.

However, there are other factors other than diet that can lead to weight fluctuations including…

4. Your muscle gains are outweighing your fat loss

If you’re strength training as part of your strategy to reduce your body fat percentage, you’re doing something right!  Adding resistance training (or any type of strength training) to your fat/weight loss plan is a great way to protect and preserve muscle loss as you subtract fat from your frame.

However, if you’re new to weightlifting and you’re pushing yourself hard, you’re going to see the number on the scale go up! 

Why?

This is because as you are losing fat, you are replacing that weight with muscle. Your weight may not go down, but your body fat percentage will.

For example, let’s take a 68kg woman and assume she has 21.4kg of fat mass and 25.7kg Skeletal Muscle Mass.  That’s consistent with a body fat percentage of 31%, which is slightly over the normal range for women (which ends at 28%).

Now let’s take that same woman and say that she begins a comprehensive fat burning program that includes dietary changes, cardio, and strength training.  After 2 months, she now has 19 kg of fat mass and has increased her Skeletal Muscle mass to 28.1kg. She still weighs 68 kg, but now her body fat percentage is 27.9% – a big drop from her previous result of 31%, which also brings her into the normal/healthy range.

You may be thinking right now “Oh, but this woman would know that her efforts were successful because she should look different and feel different with over 2kg of fat loss and more than 2kg gain in skeletal muscle mass.”  But remember, it took her two months to get there.

Do you think she would looked and felt different right away, with only a scale to measure her progress?  Without measuring your body composition, would she have known if that she was making any progress in skeletal muscle mass gain or fat loss after, say, 3 weeks?  

You can imagine the frustration she could have felt by not seeing the scale move at all. She would probably give up before she reached the two-month mark. This is why measuring body composition is so important.

These first four all point to one unifying, very important reason why you shouldn’t weigh yourself every day, which is…

5. You’re weighing yourself at different times of the day, under different conditions

If you’re weighing yourself whenever you feel like it without being consistent in terms of what time you weigh and what you’ve done during the day up to that point, the scale is going to mislead you every single time.

Generally, people’s weight increases during the day due to the food and drinks they consume.  Food and drinks also produce waste, which can also lead to additional weight gain throughout the day.  Naturally, this weight gain is temporary, but if you weighed yourself in the morning on an empty stomach, and then without thinking weighed yourself 5 days later in the middle of the day, you can’t compare those weights against each other.

Also, if your diet has changed in between your weigh-ins, that can cause significant weight changes.  Did you eat an unusually large amount of carbs the day before? You could potentially see very large swings in your weight. But if you remember how glycogen bonds with water, this won’t bother you anymore because you’ll understand that it’s just water weight.

Did you just finish exercising?  You probably lost some water, leading to temporary weight loss.  Were you drinking water while you were working out? Your muscle cells may have absorbed some of it, causing your weight to respond accordingly. If you are going to rely on the scale, make sure you weigh yourself under similar conditions every time.

Don’t let the scales trick you!

There are so many things that can affect your weight, so you should never get into the habit of weighing yourself every day.  So, if not that, what should you be doing?

Look for consistent, steady, and gradual changes in your weight every 2 – 4 weeks

As difficult as it sounds, if you are using just a scale to determine your progress, you have to space out your weigh-ins.  If you still aren’t seeing weight changes in that period of time, you need to take another look at your diet and exercise plans and potentially make some adjustments.

Get your body composition analysed and track your body fat percentage

Because your weight is made up of many different elements and can fluctuate for so many different reasons, assessing your weight by tracking your body composition is a much better way to determine how you’re meeting your goals.

Don’t let the scale trick you!  If you diet and exercise properly with enough patience and determination, you will reach your goals.

Contact us at info@mybcs.net.au to book your body composition scan

and let us show you this in person.

Disclaimer: This article should not substitute professional medical advice. When starting a new diet or exercise plan, always consult your physician and exercise professional first.

 Information in this article has been extracted and edited from InBody USA “5 Reasons to Stop Weighing Yourself Everyday” which was updated on October 17, 2018, for accuracy and comprehensiveness. It was originally published on September 11, 2015