My friend asked a doctor who was running on a treadmill why he never saw him in the weight room. The doctor said it was because he wanted to lose weight.
“Weight” being the operative word because when my friend told him that dieting and running would cause him to lose muscle, the doctor said he didn’t care as long as the weight came off.
The doctor was more concerned with his body mass index (BMI) than losing fat.
This is a sentiment shared by many dieters. They don’t care what their weight loss is comprised of – fat, muscle, bone, brain tissue – as long as the number on the scale goes down.
Muscle Loss Slows Down Your Metabolism
Muscle losses slow down your metabolism and reduce your calorie-burning power. This makes fat gain much easier. As the number on the scale falls, the chance of you regaining the weight increases.
The only way to prevent these muscle losses is strength training.
The number on the scale tells you nothing about muscle mass, or how you look, and it won’t tell you when your tendency to get fat is increasing.
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