How Much Fat Can You Lose in a Week?

By Craig Ballantyne

Viewers of "The Biggest Loser" were bewildered by the early results. In the first week, one contestant lost an astonishing 29 pounds. But in the second week, the biggest weight loss was only three pounds - and one contestant even gained a pound.

Here's why it happened...

During the first week of any weight-loss program, when you go from eating junk food to healthy, fiber-rich food and start even the easiest of exercise programs, the body loses excess water, some body fat, and possibly even more weight as a result of "cleansing out the colon."

A lot of factors determine weight loss - and some of them will have only a temporary effect. So if you really want to know how well you're progressing in your fitness regimen, skip the scale. A better way is to measure your body fat percentage over time. If your gym doesn't offer this service, you can do it at home using a body fat scale, which is different from a regular scale. You can purchase one at major retailers for about $50.

If you weigh yourself on one of these scales each week, under the same conditions each time, you'll get a reliable picture of whether you are losing body fat.

The rate of fat loss to aim for is 0.5 percent per week. If you are following a good fat-loss program, you should be down by 4.0 percent after eight weeks.

It's Fun to Know: The Android Dental Patient

The Kokoro Company of Japan has come up with a cutting-edge tool for training dentists: a human-like robot with a mouth full of sensors. The "Simroid" grimaces and says things like "That hurts!" It records the missteps and mistakes novice dentists make as they practice dental procedures. Training with the Simroid should also help students view their patients as people and not just sets of teeth.

(Source: LiveScience)

Word to the Wise: Bootless

"Bootless" (BOOT-lis) means "useless" or "with no benefit." The word is derived from the Old English for "without advantage."

Example (as used by Peter Gay in My German Question): "Late in the nineteenth century there had been a bootless competition between Munich and Berlin as to which was more modern, more civilized."
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These articles appear courtesy of Early to Rise [Issue #2268, 02-02-08], the Internet's most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com/.