Written by Life Time Fitness Personal Trainer, Mitchel Black

Almost everyone wants to lose weight, but what is “weight”? It is very important to remember that in volume, muscle weighs 4 times more than fat. So, let’s say that you weight 180 pounds. You decide to work out for two months with a personal trainer, get a meal plan from the nutrition coach, have your metabolic tests done, and follow the plan perfectly. Yet, you still weigh 180 pounds. 

This is when you want to go by how your clothes fit and not what the scale says. In this case, you most likely have lost fat and gained muscle, and that’s why the scale stayed the same. It’s important to determine what kind of weight that you lost. Was it fat mass or muscle mass?

You may also wonder how much you should lose. I strongly recommend getting your FitPoint assessment done at your club. This assessment is complementary and it will allow you to see how much body fat you have. Once you have identified how much fat is on the body, you can identify how much you need to lose.

When losing weight, you do not want to lose more than 1-2 pounds per week. This allows your metabolism to adjust. Let’s say that you weigh 185 pounds and lose 5 pounds in a week. You may weigh 180, but your metabolism is still back at 185 pounds.

Even though it may take a little longer to lose the weight by only losing 1-2 pounds a week, you have a 94% chance of keeping the weight off once you lose it. So, to reiterate, you always want to monitor what type of “weight” you are losing (whether it is fat or muscle), and lose it slowly. Preferably, 1-2lb a week.

There may be weeks where you only lose .5 pounds. That is okay as well. You’ll be on the right track to losing weight and keeping it off for good!

Mitchel Black, CPT, GTC is a T.E.A.M. Training Coordinator, LTE - Endurance Training Specialist and N.P.T.I., N.A.S.M. Certified Personal Trainer at Life Time Fitness in Johns Creek, Ga. Check out his profile here!