You want to lose body fat. You want to build muscle. You want to get stronger. And ideally, you’d quite like all three to happen at the same time.
It’s one of the most common things women tell us when they first come to LOKfit: ‘I want to lose some weight, tone up and build muscle.’
It sounds like one goal. It isn’t. Building muscle and losing body fat are two very different physiological processes.
And while they can happen simultaneously in certain circumstances – particularly if you’re new to strength training or returning after a long break – trying to aggressively pursue both at once isn’t necessarily the most effective strategy.
This is why one of the first things we do at LOKfit is establish what you’re actually trying to achieve.
And very often, that starts by changing the conversation around weight loss.
Weight Loss Isn’t the Goal
If you want to change the way your body looks and feels, simply losing weight shouldn’t really be the goal. Losing body fat while protecting muscle should be.
Because when the number on the scales drops, it doesn’t tell you what you’ve lost. Body fat? Water? Muscle? A combination of all three?
You can slash calories, add lots of cardio and see the scales move relatively quickly. But if you’re losing valuable muscle tissue alongside body fat, is that really the result you wanted?
At LOKfit, we’re interested in body composition – what your body is actually made of.
Because muscle matters. For strength. For shape. For bone health. For metabolic health. And for keeping us physically capable as we get older.
Muscle is your currency. We want to build it and protect it – not sacrifice it simply to make the scales show a smaller number.
You Need Something to Shape
This is where the conversation around ‘toning’ gets interesting. We hear: ‘I don’t want to get bigger. I just want to tone.’
But what most people describe as a toned appearance generally comes from having muscle and having a level of body fat that allows that muscle to be visible.
Which means you need the muscle in the first place.
If you’ve spent years dieting, doing lots of cardio and avoiding heavier weights because you were worried about becoming ‘bulky’, another fat-loss phase might not be what you need.
Sometimes we need to build first. Build strength. Build muscle. Create the foundation.
Then, if reducing body fat is appropriate, we can move into a controlled fat-loss phase while working to preserve what we’ve built. You need something there to shape.
Stop Letting the Scales Decide Whether It’s Working
Imagine you’ve lost body fat while gaining or preserving lean mass. The scales might not move dramatically. But your waist measurement may change. Your clothes may fit differently. You may look noticeably different. You’ll hopefully be stronger. And your body composition may have improved considerably.
That’s why at LOKfit we use body composition scanning alongside measurements of strength, fitness and performance. We want to know what’s happening inside the number. Muscle. Body fat. Visceral fat. Measurements. Strength. Fitness. Performance. The scales are one piece of information. They aren’t the goal.
Change the Question
Instead of asking: ‘How much weight can I lose?’ Ask: ‘What do I want my body to be made of?’. That’s a completely different conversation. Sometimes the answer is fat loss. Sometimes it’s building muscle. Sometimes it’s maintaining what you’ve already achieved. And sometimes, particularly after years of dieting, the smartest thing you can do is stop trying to become smaller and start building a stronger body.
Because the goal isn’t weight loss at any cost. It’s fat loss, not muscle loss.