When you’re following a weight-loss plan, few things are more uplift than observing the number on
the weighing scale goes down. Unfortunately, many people who look at weight-loss success fetch up losing
muscle along with fat. This situation because not only is muscle pointer for helping you perform everyday
tasks but muscles are also metabolically active tissues; that means muscle burns more calories at rest than
fat. Maintaining a good amount of lean muscle mass remain your basal metabolic rate elevated, which may
help you to lose fat in the long-term. This article will tells you how to know that whether you are losing
weight or muscle?
1) Energy levels
If you’re losing muscle instead of weight is if you heed greater levels of fatigue or tired than usual, doing
activities that don’t usually make you tired. The only difficulty with using energy levels to gauge whether
you’re losing weight or muscle is there are many other factors that influence energy, including sleep, diet
and medications.
2) Cardio
One of the best method to know whether you’re losing weight or muscle is to inspect your exercise
routine. If you’re doing a lot of cardio, but you’re not adding strength training, there’s a chance in weight
you lose will be about 50 percent muscle and 50 percent fat, says Heather Milton, MS, certified strength and
conditioning specialist and board-certified clinical exercise physiologist at NYU Langone’s Sports
Performance Center. Suppose you’d like to keep your muscle, make sure to lift weights a minimum of two
days per week, and hit all the large muscle groups including glutes, quads, hamstrings, back and chest.
“When you utilize those muscles, you generate greater recruitment of muscle fibers, and you get a best
results for your defy in terms of energy cost,” Milton says. In other words, set up larger muscle groups over
smaller results in more calories burned – both during and after your workout.
3) See your progress in photographs
Its way to tell if you’re losing weight or muscle is to take progress photos every 2- 4 weeks. “See if you
notice any changes of how things are altering on the body,” If you’re only losing fat, you’ll probably a
smaller waist and hips, while the rest of your body may start looking shapely.
4) Bioelectrical impedance scale
The bioelectrical impedance scale is like a regular scale. The device measures your body composition
through electrical impulses. As we all know Muscles are highly conductive compared to fat. Therefore, if
the scale notifies faster electrical impulses, you probably have a higher amount of lean muscle mass. You
can check in from time to time to see how your body composition alters and ensure you’re not losing muscle
mass.
5) Skin fold calipers
This is a finest tool that measures the thickness of your subcutaneous fat i.e., the fat beneath your skin in
different areas of your body. Generally, women are measured in the triceps, hips and either the thigh or the
abdomen, while men are measured in the chest, abdomen and thigh, though this can vary. Then, the various
measurements are stopped into an equation that offers an estimated breakdown of your body fat and lean
muscle percentage.
