As I write various articles about Weight Loss, a little red flag pops up in the back of my mind whenever I use the words “weight loss.” Most of the time, I try to catch myself and change my wording to use “fat loss” instead. So what’s the big deal? Why am I getting caught up on semantics?

First of all, fat loss is more descriptive of what most people really want and need. We’ve all heard the “lose weight” message our whole lives; but when it comes down to it, fat is what we really need to lose and nothing else.

Secondly, when you concentrate on “weight loss” instead of “fat loss” then you tend to do stupid things. There are lots of products, programs, and diets out there that will help you lose weight. Unfortunately, many of them are unhealthy and unsustainable because they cause you to lose weight instead of fat.

What Is Weight Loss?

When you step on the scale, you see one simple number like 125, 163, 205, or 350. Since a bathroom scale is the easiest and most common way of judging your progress toward your health or fitness goals, you see this simple number and all you think about is making it smaller.

However, weight is not a simple number. Rather, it is a complex number determined by several factors like bone density, water retention, Muscle mass, fat stores, position on earth, time of day, amount of food and liquid in your stomach, bathroom schedule, etc. If you decrease any of the factors that make up your weight, you will lose weight. This is why I don’t like the term weight loss. It encourages people to mess with some of the weight factors that should not be messed with. Worse than that, it encourages products and programs that mess with weight factors that should not be messed with.

What is Fat Loss?

Fat loss is much easier to define than weight loss. It is nothing more than burning up the Excess Fat on your Body. This excess fat is the part of your total body weight that is responsible for poor health, poor body image, and poor physical fitness. Get rid of your excess body fat and you will be better off on multiple levels.

Do It The Right Way!

So, what is the right way to lose body fat? There are several things that can contribute to an effort to lose excess fat, but it is my experience that the single most effective thing you can do is build muscle. Muscle and fat are like light and darkness. When you turn on the lights in a dark room, the light fills the room and the darkness flees as a natural consequence. The process of building and maintaining muscle is very much like turning on the lights in a dark room. As a natural consequence of building lean muscle mass, excess fat begins to melt away and stay away.

I feel like a broken record for saying this, but the build-muscle-to-burn-fat principle is perfect for the ladies too. Don’t be afraid to build muscle. You’re not going to look like a body builder  just because you start lifting weights. Most men struggle to Build Large Muscles and we have testosterone on our side. A woman’s body isn’t designed to naturally build large muscles, but it is designed to build sexy, feminine musculature that will turn the body in to a fat burning machine.

Whether you’re a man or a woman, you need to learn to love resistance training. If you are new to it, or just getting back into it, your body will need a little time to adjust. However, once you get used to it, there isn’t much better than the feeling that comes after a good workout.

So, forget about the diet pills, colon cleansing, celebrity diets and other nonsense that claims it will help you lose weight. It’s your excess body fat that you want to lose and it’s muscle that will help you do it. My two favorite muscle-building-for-fat-loss programs are No Nonsense Muscle Building by Vince DelMonte and The Truth About Six Pack Abs by Mike Geary. They are both great programs and I whole heartily recommend both of them. Check them out and get started losing fat the right way.