Evolve Fitness Weight Loss

If your goal is weight loss then we are here to support and help you to reach that goal. Join Evolve and our trainers will design a programme to suit your capabilities and goals, specifically tailored for you. Here is some information to get you started.

Don’t Weigh Yourself - No Scales

If weight loss is the goal, why are we telling you not to weigh yourself?
When you lose weight, it's possible you've lost a combination of three things:

  1. Water Weight
  2. Lean Body Mass (muscle)
  3. Fat

The real goal of weight loss is fat loss. What matters is how much fat you’re a losing. This is not what the scales measure.

Scales are not inherently bad, but all scales can tell you is how many kilos you weigh at a given moment in time.

If you want to become healthier, fitter and more balanced, the scales will deceive you, especially if you subject yourself to daily weigh-ins. Here are just a few of the reasons why:

  • When you begin an exercise regimen and you challenge your body's muscles and allow for adequate recuperation, the body begins to become more efficient at holding fuel in muscle. All you need to do is eat supportive meals, exercise and recuperate.
  • Suppose, because you're making positive shifts in metabolic efficiency and performance ability, that 10 days after you begin your programme your body holds an additional kilogram of water in muscle tissue. Suppose in the first 10 days you liberate and burn a ½ kilogram of fat. You are leaner. The scales, however, will say that you have put on weight, even though you have lost fat.

This is why we suggest you avoid the scales, at least until after the first 21 days are complete.

So please, do not weigh yourself with any regularity!

Human beings are not really capable of effectively shedding more than a ½ - 1kg of fat per week on a consistent basis and even that would be an extreme. Because it is possible to lose 4 kilograms in a matter of days if you're willing to count water weight and muscle loss, too many people are lured by the scale and are led to believe "quick weight loss" can be healthy and permanent. The truth is, this is the trap of the "yo-yo" weight fluctuations. Don’t let yourself be tricked.

Muscle is metabolically active tissue. If you lose weight, and any portion of that weight is muscle, you will cripple your body's fat burning ability and reduce the size of the overall fat burning engine. Muscle and metabolism are intertwined. Muscle burns calories, thus if you lose muscle, although the scale will tell you what a nice job you're doing, you will slow down your metabolism.

How will you know if you are moving closer to your fat loss goal?

Have your body fat measurements taken. As a member of Evolve Fitness, we take your body fat measurements every 8 weeks so you can see exactly what is happening within your body. Not a member of Evolve Fitness? We can still do this for you.

Another way to tell if you are moving closer to your fat loss goal is to look for a positive shift in your energy’s consistency. When energy elevates and remains consistent it's a clear indication your blood sugar is stable, and that creates an optimal hormonal environment for ongoing fat release.

Note the way your clothing fits. Although you may increase intracellular water, when you lose fat you'll find the waist (in men), the hips and thighs (in women) tend to reduce.

Listen to other people. Since you see yourself every day, you may not notice much of a difference, and the changes will be gradual. This is not how it will appear if someone sees you for the first time in two months after you have begun your journey. So, pay attention when people notice your improvements.

Here’s something to keep in mind as you commit yourself to becoming a healthier person. "Muscle fuel" includes glucose that is shuttled into muscle tissue. When stored, those glucose molecules become "muscle glycogen" and glycogen attracts water. Muscle is predominantly water, thus, if you hold more glycogen, and residually more water in muscle, "weight" is affected. It is, therefore, possible, even probable, that you will initially lose fat without seeing the scale move.

Successful Weight Loss

Here’s something they don’t tell you, because it is so simple: If you are taking in more calories than you are exerting and using, then those calories will be stored as fat.

The way to reduce fat stores, slim down, and look amazing, is to create an energy imbalance. All this means is that you need to make sure you are consuming fewer calories than you are exerting. So, this requires adjustment to your diet, as well as a well-structured exercise routine.

Let’s take a hypothetical example to prove this point. To lose 500g of fat in a week you need to create a 3500 calorie deficit for the week. For example, in a practical context, this means eating 250 fewer calories than you need each day and burning off 250 more through exercise. This way you would create a calorie “credit” which, over the course of a week, would total 3500. In just 6 months this would result in a  10kg weight loss .

The First Important Step

It is worth spending some time figuring out how you have gained weight. Think about the eating and exercise habits of the past, then together we can come up with a weight loss strategy that will create new healthier habits, and which fit in with your lifestyle. For this, we recommend you use the 3 P approach.

P = Planning
It is no use just wishing or wanting to be slimmer. You actually have to plan how to go about this. This is important because it is a lot easier to begin something if we already have a concrete plan to handle it. When it comes to losing weight, having a plan makes it doable and practical. “If you fail to plan - you plan to fail.”

P = Persistence
Once you have a plan stick with it. Slipping up occasionally can happen, but what is important is that you do not let a stumble turn into a landslide. When we make a mistake, it is a great chance to reaffirm our commitment and realign ourselves with our vision for our life. The importance here is to keep going, one foot after the next.

P = Patience
This is why many people fail. They want instant results and quit when they don’t get them. If you want to be slimmer, healthier, and more confident, then you have to be in it for the long haul. Good habits, persistent effort and a good plan all require patience. It took months, if not years to gain the extra weight, and it may take just as long once we have replaced your old habits with new ones.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. How fast should I lose weight?
A. Everyone wants to see instant results, but in our experience, slow and steady tends to win the slimming race. Weight loss of 200-500 grams per week is achievable for most people and more importantly sustainable over the long term.

Q. I’ve read that weighing myself isn’t the best indicator of fat loss?
A. This is true. As you gain lean mass (or muscle) the scales can go up, yet you may be losing fat and centimetres. Measuring body fat percentage is more meaningful, as are the circumference measurements of your waist, hips, and thighs. We will measure every 8 weeks for you at each assessment.