How much of your body is really fat? | Sneak Peek Fat Loss Challenge Update

Aloha, Fat Burning Babes! It's Michelle here.

Real quick, check back tomorrow for a  Day 16 Kick Fat in the Ass Challenge update. Some interesting stuff going on with our participants. But, only for you,  here's a sneak peek of Kim K. who's down 13lbs and 25.1 inches as of this week:

Kim K says No Fail Fat Burning is "...the easiest plan to follow ever."

Congrats, Kim! Onto the show...

I know you're tired of me railing against the evil, awful, anti-Christ of a woman's sanity:

Scale weight.

If you want to understand why scale weight is as about as useful as tits on a fish, read this post. But sometimes the scale is all we have. No worries. We can hack that for a true fat loss number --- opposed to total weight of everything in your body.

 

Why small bodyfat % losses are huge

Shout out to our Fat Burnin' Babes overseas who click their way here, but most of you reading this are American. We like things BIG:

• Big Macs
• Big Boobs
• All about that bass
• Big drops in scale numbers.

For a lot of women who still don't get it, saying you lost five (5) scale pounds this week somehow sounds better psychologically than saying you lost 0.5% bodyfat.

Half a percent of bodyfat versus five total scale pounds. Remember that scale pounds are TOTAL weight of muscle, water, blood, bones, organs, tissue, skin, and then fat. Fat is only one of eight things measured in scale weight.

So, when your scale weight drops when you have a lot of fat to lose that's initially a good sign. But I also have plenty of clients whose scale weight stays the same yet they're rocking curves and shape in all the right places. All while losing inches, firming up and dropping percentages of bodyfat.

Why? Because of smart nutrient timing and sculpting themselves with that precious, oh-so-hard-to-earn lean muscle which weighs more than fat.  So, sometimes after an initial water weight loss and some fat, the scale number goes down then stays at a certain number. Yet you keep dropping pant sizes because of muscle gain and pure fat burn. I've experienced my scale weight increasing while my bodyfat decreases. In fact, two weeks ago a measurement showed my bodyfat dropped 1.5% while my scale weight increased a couple pounds. That's a great thing!

 

How do I know what my bodyfat weighs in pounds?

Let's say a woman (Fannie) weighs 157 lbs and is 40% bodyfat. 
To know how much of her is pure fat in pounds, we must first determine her lean body mass which is everything else in/on her body BUT fat.

It looks like this:

157lbs (body weight) - (157lbs x 40%bodyfat) = Her lean body mass is 94.2lbs.

This means Fannie is carrying 62.8lbs of pure fat. She wants to lessen this number and not the 94.2lbs lean mass number. If the lean mass number (94.2lbs) drops, it would probably mean Fannie's muscle wasting from bad nutrition, starvation dieting, calorie restriction, and chronic endurance cardio habits. You don't have to diet like that anymore, Fannie! Stop!

How do I know if I'm losing fat or muscle when I step on the scale?

Let's say our bestie sister-from-another-mister Fannie wants to use the No Fail Fat Burning for Women method to go from 40% bodyfat to 20% bodyfat... which, by the way, is completely safe, practical, achievable, and sustainable with the protocol.

If she can't consistently get a quality bodyfat test, we can determine how much she should  weigh on the scale to reach the desired 20% bodyfat while ensuring she's not also losing muscle. We want to preserve that precious muscle at all costs.

So if Fannie's total body weight is 157lbs, and her lean body mass is 94.2lbs, determining her ideal scale weight goal to achieve 20% bodyfat would be:

94.2lbs lean body mass  ÷ (1 - 0.20 bodyfat) = 117.75lbs

Fannie would ideally weigh about 118lbs to hit 20% bodyfat without wasting muscle. This means she must lose about 39 lbs of FAT if her total body weight -- including fat -- is currently 157lbs.

Make sense?

Be sure to check back tomorrow for a Kick Fat in the Ass Spring 2015 Challenge update! You can also follow No Fail Fat Burning on Instagram @No_Fail_Fat_Burning and Facebook!

Remember: you're not a damsel in distress. You're the hero of your story.

Yours in resilience, strength and sticks of butter,
Michelle