Weight Loss Fraud and Body Composition: The Optimal Threshold.
We can all think of examples of people who have genuinely lost a significant amount of weight in a short period of time. Fantastic! Well, not really. There’s more to the story. First and foremost the distinction between losing fat and losing weight needs to be made and in almost all cases where ‘weight loss’ is the purported goal, it is in fact ‘fat’ that people are trying to lose – not weight.
Total weight is made up of fat, muscle, organs, water and bone. This make up is defined as ‘body composition’ and is usually expressed as a percentage of lean to fat mass, for example 24% body-fat (of total weight). Its this body-fat percentage that we want to reduce, not the lean mass which makes up the balance. For anyone engaged in, tried, or even thinking about a weight management effort then body composition testing is by far the most important and accurate measurement you can take, to assess whether or not you are moving toward your goal.
This then begs the question; how quickly can I lose body-fat, as opposed to just weight? Well the general consensus among experts seems to be around 1 – 2 lbs (0.5 – 1 kg) per week or 1% of total body-weight (provided you are doing all the right things). This seems to be the optimal threshold at which the average person can lose mostly fat without losing muscle. Faster ‘weight loss’ than this certainly can be achieved however the likelihood is that the extra weight will come from lean mass and not fat. Greater fat loss has been reported in exceptional cases, however unfortunately most of us are not exceptional so the rule of thumb outlined above usually applies.
Now even a cursory look at these numbers should tell us that losing fat is not a quick process. So the next time you see an add that reads;
“Lose 20 or more pounds in 10 Days!”
Be suspicious. Caveat Emptor my friends – Buyer beware. Sure its possible to lose this amount of weight in such a short period of time, however if you do the math then you can be fairly certain you wouldn’t lose fat alone. In fact, most of it won’t be fat at all, which is for most people not what they are trying to accomplish.
Given the plethora of ‘weight loss’ misinformation out in the market, it is imperative that people scrutinize what they are investing their time and money into. By all means get into a program, (and there are some excellent ones out there), however I urge you to put them to the test. That test if your ambition is to lose fat is a regular body composition analysis which can be done easily in the privacy of your own home. Use it instead of the scales as your feedback tool and see exactly how your program weighs up.




