For many people, the weight scale is the enemy. Every time they step on it, it tells them how much weight they gained or lost or if they stayed the same. For those feeling like they are fighting a losing battle against weight gain, it can be stressful to take that step onto the scale each day.
The scale only tells some of the story, though. What it is not telling you is whether you’re turning fat into muscle. It’s not telling you if you’re losing one kind of mass and gaining another. What happens with a lot of people as they work out and diet is that their fat turns to muscle. Did you know that muscle weighs more than fat? That means that if you’re putting in the effort to lose weight and become healthier, you may actually gain weight while becoming more toned and physically fit.
What you’re doing is changing your body composition, improving what your body is made out of to become healthier. Do you know how to improve your body composition?
We’re going to share with you some measures you can take to change what your body is made out to be healthier stuff. Having more muscle means you’re stronger and may be able to be more active. Having less fat can mean a healthier heart and longer life.
We will show you how to improve body composition by targeting the different kind of components that make up your body. When people speak about body composition, they usually talk about fat mass and fat free mass. The fat mass is, of course, your fatty tissue. Fat free mass refers to any other components in the body, which can be blood, bone, muscles, and other components.
Is Your Composition Changing?
You can identify if your body mass is changing or if the composition is changing by measuring parts of your body, particularly those trouble parts that tend to be kind of fatty. You can measure the circumference of your arms, your waist, your hips, and your chest. As you exercise and diet, you can tell if these parts of your body are changing.
Another way to tell if you are affecting your body composition is to check the density or firmness of these trouble areas. When you flex or press down on your chest, belly, hips, or other areas that may be fatty, do they feel less firm or firmer than the last time you checked? Muscle will be firm especially when flexed, whereas fat will be soft and doughy.
Changing Your Diet
To change the composition of your body, getting rid of fat and replacing it with healthier material, one of the best ways to do that is to change up what you eat. What you put into your body will determine what your body is made out of. You can’t build muscle by eating a lot of sugar or eating fatty and salty foods.
It’s important that before you drastically change your diet, especially if you have health problems, that you consult with your doctor. If you want to affect your fat intake and fatty deposits, you should start by counting your calories. Keep track of how many calories you eat for the day and set yourself a realistic goal that you would like to achieve with your calorie count.
Another way how to improve body composition through diet is to track your fatty foods, salty foods, sugary foods, and oily foods. You can make a plan for what you would like to eat for your diet and then buy that and only that at the grocery.
To change their body composition, some people can simply decide to eat healthier, cutting down on fatty, sugary, and high carb foods. Other people will need something more precise, creating a personalized diet plan for each day and each meal. You can try one method and see if it works for you, and if not switch to the other method. It’s best to start off your diet slow and easy so that is not stressful but manageable, and that way you are more likely to stick with it.
Exercise Regularly
When you eat right, that will cut down on how much fat is added to your body as well as the amount of fat on your body, but if you want to turn that fat into muscle, you’ll need to exercise. Exercising regularly helps to burn fat that your body uses for energy, getting rid of fatty deposits. This is how you tone your body and transform your body composition.
How to improve body composition and muscle through exercise is to exercise anywhere from 150 to 250 minutes each week, according to the American College of Sports Medicine. If you want to lose a significant amount of weight, you will need to exercise more than that, though.
There are some exercises you can do that will build muscle and not just help you lose weight. That’s an excellent way to transform your body’s composition. Keep in mind that the method for how to improve body composition wellness in geriatric persons will differ from recommended exercises for people who are younger. You have to do exercises that are manageable for you at a rate that you can handle safely. That’s why it’s important to set realistic goals for body composition and weight loss.
Cut out the Vices
Some of the unhealthy habits you enjoy could be keeping you back from having body composition you want. It’s especially important for those who are looking how to improve body composition wellness in the geriatric population to consider unhealthy habits or vices.
This can include drinking alcohol, which could be considered part of your diet but should be pointed out as a vice as well. It’s the kind of habit that many people don’t think of too much as something that is detrimental to their body composition, but alcohol is usually very sugary and can create what is known as a beer belly. Cutting alcohol out can help you to make great strides toward reaching your body composition goals.
Smoking can also hurt your body composition, even though many people will smoke to keep their weight from ballooning. However, people who are prone to smoking often suffer from self-control in their dietary habits. They also have difficulty in keeping up with an exercise regimen, since smoking greatly diminishes lung capacity and endurance. Cutting out smoking can help you to exercise more and longer and help you to feel more energized, enabling you to improve your body composition.
Reduce Stress
How to improve body composition? It could be as simple as cutting out stress in your life. Now, most people will experience some stress in their life no matter what changes they make, however, you can definitely reduce the amount of stress that you experience.
If you’re looking for how to improve body composition goal, trying to eliminate stress can make a big difference. A lot of people who are stressed out will engage in what is known as stress eating, often eating large amounts of unhealthy food. Stress eaters tend to gravitate towards salty and sugary foods.
You can reduce stress in a number of ways, such as by lightening your work schedule, pulling away from social media, and using relaxation techniques when you start to feel stressed. If you can learn to cope and deal with your stress, you will be less likely to treat it by binge eating or by skipping exercise because stress is making you feel unwell or tired.
Closing Thoughts
Keep in mind that using the scale cannot tell you your body composition and how much fat and muscle mass your body contains. We’ve given you a couple ways to identify and keep track of your body composition as well as a few methods for how to improve it. If you keep working at it, eating right, exercising, and living healthy, you can start to close the gap on those body composition goals of yours.
