Weight Loss and other factors...

Getting healthy - changing your lifestyle for the better - isn't just about losing weight. Anyone can lose weight if they just starve themselves or burn more calories than you take in... and that's not healthy or a good change for you to go through. In many of those cases, the lost weight comes back with a vengeance shortly thereafter. It's good for a short-fix, but not long-term.

I was one of those people concerned only with the scale and what it said for a long time. I just want to lose weight I just want to lose weight I just want to lose weight... 

But it's not about weight. It is about body make-up and composition. What I really wanted was to lose fat, build some muscle, and learn how to treat my body better. Don't get me wrong - if they came out with a pill tomorrow that would allow me to lose all of this weight in a week - I'd really consider it. I'm lazy. 

Fat loss is better than weight loss. 

So - 3 weeks ago, or so, on January 14th I decided to take some measurements along with my weigh-in and track that as well. 

My first measurements looked like this:

Neck: 17.25"

Hips: 43.5"

Waist: 44.5"

Not exactly the picture of fit - even though I was "losing weight" I wasn't losing size. In all reality I was probably losing muscle do to an insufficient diet. Muscle, as you might know, weighs MORE than fat... 

Here we see 5 lbs of fat next to 5 lbs of muscle... note the MASS of each....

For the past 3 weeks - I've been really working on eating the right foods - high in protein, low in carbs, healthy fats that my body can process... And my weight-loss has slowed.  I felt I should be down to 225 by now easily. But that's not the case - I'm still hanging around 228/230... but...

BUT...

I measured again today... 3 weeks to the day.

Neck: 16.5" (down .75")

Hips: 40.75" (down 2.75")

Waist: 42.5" (down 2")

And that's pretty damn great!!

So - I am pleased... and I am going to go another 3 weeks and re-measure. Maybe I'll be down another couple of inches and another couple of lbs... Who knows. 

Wish me luck, kids!