Why Weight Loss Centers Don’t Really Work!

Rocco Boulay, CSCS

Are you desperately seeking the answer to permanent weight loss? Like many others, you are not alone. Over the past three decades our society has collapsed into an overweight health care nightmare. If you believe that enrolling into a weight loss center is the answer, think again.

The question is, do you want to lose weight or fat? If you lose twenty pounds at one of those weight loss centers is it twenty pounds of fat? Chances are if you are not weight training and getting adequate amounts of protein you are probably losing that weight as muscle. That’s why weight loss centers “weigh you” instead of measuring your body fat composition. The secret they don’t want you to know is, even though you may “weigh less” this doesn’t necessarily mean you are losing fat. In fact, you may be just getting smaller, and fatter.

The truth is, building a leaner, healthier body takes lots of nutritious foods and weight training exercises. People with poor metabolisms lack sufficient amounts of muscle mass. Therefore, everything they eat quickly turns to fat. Muscle is a vital component to metabolism. For each pound of muscle a person
gains they will burn approximately 6000 calories of fat per year doing nothing. That’s right, doing nothing.

So, how do you lose fat? You lose fat by eating a combination of proteins, fats and carbohydrates combined with weight training. Weight training is essential for women because it not only increases muscle mass, which tends to decrease with age; it also increases the density of tendons, ligaments and bones. The se
connective tissues are critical to overall functional health not to mention the effects that weight training has on defending women against osteoporosis. Knowing these structures are increasing in density, shouldn’t a person weigh more?

Yes, any effective “fat loss” program may begin with weight gain. As the body adapts to the weight training exercise it increases muscles, tendons, ligaments and bones, thus adding good weight. All these structures survive and burn fat as their primary fuel source. Once this process takes place an individual will begin to see their measurements decreasing and then subsequent weight loss from FAT. This is measured through employing a body composition analyzer, not a scale. The analyzer allows us to see how much fat is on the body, how much you weigh is irrelevant. You need to have a healthy ratio of fat to lean mass. This ratio is determined by age and gender.

Think of it this way, if you have two 8-ounce stea ks, one has an inch of fat along its edge and the other one doesn’t, which steak are you going to eat? Each steak weighs 8-ounces, but the ratio of fat is greater on the steak with the one inch of fat compared to the other. Just like the steak comparison, this is the same reason why two people with the same weight and height can look totally
different.

So the next time you jump on the scale don’t be to quick to celebrate your new weight loss goal. You may be losing muscle or in the case of the steak have less red meat on it. If you are not combining weight training with proper nutrition you are probably getting smaller and fatter. This condition leads to later weight gain called the infamous yoyo-dieting syndrome.

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