Flip Garcia, with MiLEO Fitness, brought some props to get an idea of what weight loss and muscle gain looks like.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — When it comes to weight loss, it’s good to know what healthy weight loss looks like and how little gains actually are a lot.
Trainer Flip Garcia, with MiLEO Fitness brought in some props to visualize that. Five pounds doesn’t sound like a lot but the props show what it looks like in fat and in muscle.
“A lot of people tend to say, ‘oh, well, you know, muscle weighs more than fat, so that’s why I weigh more on the scale.’ Well, that’s incorrect. One pound of fat and one pound of muscle is still one pound,” Garcia said. “The difference is the amount of volume that fat tends to take on the body compared to the dense muscle.”
You want to see results quickly but trainers like Garcia warn against that.
“With crash diets, GLP-1s in particular also, the risk that we run with losing weight rapidly is not only do we lose fat but we also tend to lose muscle, about a 1-to-1 to 2-to-1 ratio of losing muscle to fat. So what ends up happening is, even though that number on the scale may let you know that you are healthy, your body fat percentage can still be relatively high,” Garcia said. “So we’re talking about a 40% to 45% body fat percentage, which is just as unhealthy as being overweight. We call it skinny fat.”
If you’re on a crash diet or any of those medications, you have to understand your calorie intake. Garcia recommends prioritizing your protein and doing some level of resistance training to retain lean muscle mass and optimize the loss of body fat.
For Related Stories: Wellness Wednesday
