Even though they are usually understood as synonyms, they are not. For example: you could lose weight but not lose fat or even gain fat but still lose weight.
That's one of the main reasons why we shouldn't guide our efforts depending on the scale. It is just an instrument that measures strength. Yes, strength. Punctually the strength your body mass (given the gravity force) exercises on the scale. And it translates into a number (lbs or kgs). But that's it, it does not account for lean body mass, fat mass, etc. Is just a number.
Perhaps you have heard that we are "70% water". Although the percentage may vary between subjects, we are indeed more than half our weight water. That should ring a bell when we place ourselves on the scale: we are not just fat.
It's kinda obvious but on my daily practice (been working with patients for almost 7 years) I keep losing the count of the many persons that tremble when they have to weight. They are usually both scared and frustrated by the scale.
During a large period of time, people went to the doctor and got their height and weight measured. And that was it. Most people grew with the concept of the "ideal weight according to the height".
Nowadays those concepts are getting obsolete. And with good reason. You simply cannot do a full analysis of someone's body composition by just measuring height and weight.
With the technology advances came advances on the field of body composition. Nowadays we have numerous type of devices and techniques that allow us a more deep understanding of tissue distribution (lbs, kgs and %).
Once you start measuring people based on some of these new techniques, you constantly find that weight is not directly correlated to fat. Or simply put: you can lose weight but fat may not change and viceversa.
What I use on my practice is skinfolds and anthropometric measurements. They are easy, cheap and fast to do and give us a pretty close picture of what the person is made of. And it also helps elaborating a plan according to the numbers obtained.
Some people never change and no matter how much data and info one shows, they always end up giving the scale priority (and almost control of their lives). But luckily most people, with time, wash up the old concepts of weight and height and slowly stop concerning about what the scale has to say and focus more on how they feel, how clothes fit, what the mirror says, how their strength evolves... all parameters much more effective and important that just a force measurement on a single device.
Of course the weight is a measure we need, it is important. But take home message: it is not the only thing that's important. And one final advice: if you seek to lose fat, instead of aiming towards restrictive diets and endless hours of "cardio", aim to getting stronger. You'd be surprised of the changes you can make.
Bye guys! Stay safe!
