Greg's Weight Loss Blog

“So when are you going to be done with your diet?” I get this question quite often from friends, family and co-workers. And when I tell them that I have another 6-8 or maybe even 10 lbs to go they all act surprised or tell me that I’m fine as I am and I really should stop the weight loss right now. They consider me skinny now. They think I’m about to turn anorexic and fall on the other side of the spectrum of unhealthy. But I know that they are wrong. I think most people making these assessment of my fitness and body composition are wrong simply because of two reasons.

The firs reason is relativity. Relative to my old, 237 lbs size I look pretty darn skinny now. But that doesn’t mean that I’m skinny, it just means people around me are overweight. I’m currently weighing in around 171 lbs (77.5 kg). I remember when I was a sophomore in high school I just surpassed this weight for the first time and they started calling me fatty. They were making jokes about my weight and how I was growing bigger by the minute. I used to be a lean 135 lbs when I started high school and relative to that, 175 lbs was indeed fat and overweight. I remember my stepmother and the rest of my family telling me that I should really start watching my weight and stop eating all that food that I had been eating. And I barely weighed more than what I weight now at the very same height yet the perception was that I was getting overweight and out of control. Boy, were they right! But I paid little attention and kept on gaining weight until I have reached my all time high of around 245 lbs. So while I think I am getting close to my target I’m not quite there yet.

The other and probably more important relativity is my relative weight when compared to people around me. Compared to them I look pretty darn lean and skinny too. I think most people have no concept of what fit or skinny people look like nowadays. A bit of a gut hanging, 10-20 lbs extra here and there does not seem to be a big deal nowadays. And relative to obese people those folks who only carry an extra 20 lbs around all day every day are downright skinny. But it doesn’t mean that they are fit. They might be fitter than most people but I would not consider them fit. If you want to see fit people you have to go to a local 5K or 10K race and check out the top 10 male finishers coming in under 19 minutes for the 5K and 38 minutes for the 10K. Chances are, those folks are pretty fit. Your average office dweller who does nothing all day long is probably not fit at all even if they’re skinny.

And this is the other misconception or lack of concept in the general population. Most folks have no idea about the difference between body weight and body composition. Body weight is simply the amount of mass you carry around on your frame all day long. Body composition is the percentage of this body weight that would be considered bad weight, AKA fat. There are guys in my office who weigh 10-15 lbs less than I do yet have more body fat than I. There is also a guy in the office who weighs 30 lbs more than I do yet looks a heck of a lot better than I. Now, I’m not a fan of huge muscles. I really prefer a slimmer look for myself but you can be skinny and still fat. It’s called skinny-fat. You can weigh 160lbs with a normal BMI and I’d still consider you fat while others would consider you skinny. I can show you people at my office who weight less than I do yet they would not fit into a 31″ size pair of jeans, the very size I have been buying for the past month. I can also show you guys that are 10 lbs heavier than me and still fit into the size 31″ waist. So what’s the difference? The difference is in body fat percentage, or body composition.

OK, so what do I consider ideal body fat percentage? My goal is to get to single digit body fat percentage. I’m currently hovering around 13-14% at 171 lbs. It means I have 147 – 149 lbs of lean body mass, stuff that is not fat; muscles, bones, internal organs, ligaments and the like. It means to be at under 10% body fat I need to be around 163 to 166 lbs. That means I need to lose another 6 to 9 lbs of fat. So when people ask me if I’m done I usually tell them I have another 6-9 lbs to go which should take another 6 weeks or so. And why did I pick the sub 10% body fat as my target? Because 10% is the place where six-pack abs start showing up. So you could say that my ultimate goal is to have six-pack abs showing. And that, I would consider fit and done. So hang with me for another month and a half and watch me transform from lean and skinny to ripped and fit!