A New Perspective on Losing Body Fat

Sometime last week I was bored. My wife and daughter were out visiting with my in-laws and I just couldn’t muster up the desire to head over to the cigar shop to socialize with the guys. Instead, I turned to my phone for some much needed entertainment.

I opened up my YouTube account and a video caught my eye – Body Fat Testing at Untamed Strength. The video shows Alan Thrall of Untamed Strength having his body fat tested in a mobile Hydrostatic Testing Clinic.

After the testing is complete, Alan shares his results and then goes on to show you the results of various gym members. It is a pop-quiz of sorts – asking you to choose the body fat percentage of a member prior to them revealing the results.

The most interesting part of the video wasn’t the test results, it was the footage where Alan speaks with the owner of the Hydrostatic Testing Clinic – Mike Hickok. One of the remarks that I found most important was “The key to losing body fat with regard to diet is consistency and discipline”.

I know, hardly groundbreaking, right? That isn’t all, he went on to elaborate on that by saying that many individuals are disciplined throughout the week. We eat well and make healthy choices, however, when the weekends roll around we tend to relax and make poor choices.

Despite good habits throughout the week, those weekends quickly add up – be it poor choices or outright binging. Lets look at it like this…

Breaking it down

1 Week: 2 Bad Days
1 Month: 8 Bad Days
3 Months: 24 Bad Days
1 Year: 96 Bad Days

When I saw those numbers flash across the screen, it blew my mind. Looking at it from that perspective, it is no wonder why so many of us eventually reach that dreaded plateau. Our healthy habits no longer counteract the “I’ll eat whatever I want because I earned it” weekends.

I’m not saying that if you want to lose weight you can never deviate from your diet and exercise regimened, I’m saying that those bad choices stack up far faster than I had realized. Alan’s video has put things into a new perspective for me and I have some new things to consider.