How Do You Measure Fat Loss?
Most people just jump on the scale to measure fat loss.
And let's face it nobody talks about "fat loss" anyway, everyone talks about "weight loss", and the scale will tell you how much you weigh, that's a no brainer.
The key is to know how much of your weight difference is actual fat loss.
This is where things get a bit trickier.
The average person can easily fluctuate 2-4lbs of bodyweight in a day depending on fluid and food intake.
Most, if not all of this fluctuation is body water content.
If you really want an accurate measurement of true "fat loss" or weight loss from fat, you should be weighing yourself in the exact same state each time.
For example: if you are going to weigh yourself once per week; pick the morning after a day when your diet pattern is the most similar each week.
Step on the scale in the morning the exact same number of hours past your last meal.
So lets say you pick Tuesday morning this week at 7am, and you ate dinner Monday night at 7pm, for a 12 hour interval.
Next week you would simply count 12 hours from Monday night dinner and then weigh yourself again.
This is a simple way that can give you a fairly accurate measure of true body fat loss as compared to just water losses and changes due to liquid and food consumption.
Now there are a few things to consider.
If you ate a thanksgiving style turkey dinner on the first Monday at 7pm, and then a light garden salad on the second Monday at 7pm, you might end up with an inaccurate comparison.
To make this work you have to be eating in a similar pattern the day before your measurement.
And maybe even a couple days before your measurement.
The fact is the majority of the population does not have any truly accurate way of measuring fat loss.
Machines that are capable of accurately measuring any amount of fat loss on a day to day or week to week basis are very expensive and typically only found in advanced human testing labs at universities and other research institutions.
Most people simply will never have access to this type of technology.
Only the scientist who happens to run one of these labs can give you a running account of exactly how many grams of fat he/she lost this morning compared to last night.
The rest of us need to be a bit more creative with the way we determine fat loss.
I recommend using things like muscle definition, the way your clothes fit, and weight loss.
Weight loss however should be looked at over longer periods of time like 3-4 weeks (as we have already discussed the larger day to day variation in body water weight).
Even the features in a persons face become more pronounced as soon as someone starts to lose fat.
These methods might seem a bit crude and non scientific.
But after all, aren't these all the reasons we're interested in losing fat/weight in the first place!?
And let's face it nobody talks about "fat loss" anyway, everyone talks about "weight loss", and the scale will tell you how much you weigh, that's a no brainer.
The key is to know how much of your weight difference is actual fat loss.
This is where things get a bit trickier.
The average person can easily fluctuate 2-4lbs of bodyweight in a day depending on fluid and food intake.
Most, if not all of this fluctuation is body water content.
If you really want an accurate measurement of true "fat loss" or weight loss from fat, you should be weighing yourself in the exact same state each time.
For example: if you are going to weigh yourself once per week; pick the morning after a day when your diet pattern is the most similar each week.
Step on the scale in the morning the exact same number of hours past your last meal.
So lets say you pick Tuesday morning this week at 7am, and you ate dinner Monday night at 7pm, for a 12 hour interval.
Next week you would simply count 12 hours from Monday night dinner and then weigh yourself again.
This is a simple way that can give you a fairly accurate measure of true body fat loss as compared to just water losses and changes due to liquid and food consumption.
Now there are a few things to consider.
If you ate a thanksgiving style turkey dinner on the first Monday at 7pm, and then a light garden salad on the second Monday at 7pm, you might end up with an inaccurate comparison.
To make this work you have to be eating in a similar pattern the day before your measurement.
And maybe even a couple days before your measurement.
The fact is the majority of the population does not have any truly accurate way of measuring fat loss.
Machines that are capable of accurately measuring any amount of fat loss on a day to day or week to week basis are very expensive and typically only found in advanced human testing labs at universities and other research institutions.
Most people simply will never have access to this type of technology.
Only the scientist who happens to run one of these labs can give you a running account of exactly how many grams of fat he/she lost this morning compared to last night.
The rest of us need to be a bit more creative with the way we determine fat loss.
I recommend using things like muscle definition, the way your clothes fit, and weight loss.
Weight loss however should be looked at over longer periods of time like 3-4 weeks (as we have already discussed the larger day to day variation in body water weight).
Even the features in a persons face become more pronounced as soon as someone starts to lose fat.
These methods might seem a bit crude and non scientific.
But after all, aren't these all the reasons we're interested in losing fat/weight in the first place!?