Lot of us evaluate our body statistics on the basis of percentage of fat, protein & water. We still are not much aware of the fat free mass(FFM). Fat free mass is one of two main body components of the body & consists of vital body organs, bones, muscles, water & connective tissue. Fat free mass differs from body fat. There are different methods to evaluate fat free mass. For instance, if your body fat is 20% as evaluated by BMI machine, your fat free mass works out to be around 80%. Fat free mass consists of the following
1)Organs: : Vital internal organs such as heart, brain & liver consists of fat free mass.
2)Muscles: Cardiac muscles, smooth muscles & skeletal muscles are examples of muscles. Skeletal muscles when contracted produces movement in the body & perform other essential duties.
3)Bones: Bones that form your body structure are part of fat free mass
4) Connectivity Tissue:Tendons and ligaments that connect your body’s bones and muscles are examples of fat-free mass
5)Water: Around 50% to 70% of the body is water & free from fat.
Fat or Adipose tissue is not part of fat free mass. I have already discussed about what constitutes fat in my previous blog: https://thesushantkumar.com/2019/07/11/importance-of-fat-in-our-body/
For those aspirants looking to shed weight, you should strive to reduce fat mass & maintain/improve free fat mass components such as muscles & bones. Most of us face problem of having body fat more than the optimum & end up getting exposed to situation of obese & attract many lifestyle diseases such as diabetes, heart stroke etc.
How an improved fat free mass is beneficial for you
If you adopt a healthy diet, sleep well & do regular exercise you can build strong bones & protect vital organs. However, there is limited scope to impact bones or organ tissue in your body. You can improve FFM by focussing on muscle tissues. Essentially, you can increase muscle mass by doing the following:
1)Better Metabolism:Muscle tissues burn more calories that fat mass & improve your fat free mass that assists in improving metabolism of the body.
2) Improved strength: By doing strength workout including weight lifting you can improve your strength & better fat free mass.
3)Improved appearance: By indulging in exercise that build FFM your body looks in good shape
4) More Active: Muscles that are strong & flexible increases your daily movement & activities & helps you stay active.
So how to improve the ratio of fat free mass to fat mass?
You can build muscles through strength & resistance training. This involves a mix of weight training , stamina & strength building. By getting into regime of weight training, you can increase the weight but it also improves the ratio of FFM to fat mass. Overall it improves your body metabolism & helps you gain a perfect shape. So instead of getting feared about increase in weight due to weight lifting, you should evaluate ratio of FFM to fat mass to see how your body has transformed.
In case you are willing to get your body into shape & improve your fat free mass, please sign up with us for our full range of fitness & resistance training plans that shall help you improve your metabolism & burn more fat
