Additional Coverage:
- I tried to change my body composition for a year. Here are 3 things I did to cut my body fat mass by 7% without hating my life. (businessinsider.com)
Local Woman Sheds Pounds and Inches with Simple Lifestyle Tweaks
A local woman has demonstrated that achieving fitness goals doesn’t require extreme measures or deprivation. By embracing simple, sustainable habits, she successfully reduced her body fat, improved her visceral fat score, and lost over five pounds in 2025. Her journey highlights the effectiveness of mindful changes and the power of data-driven tracking.
The individual, a member of Life Time Fitness, utilized complimentary body composition analyses offered by the athletic club. These five-minute scans, conducted using an InBody machine and bioelectrical impedance analysis, provided detailed insights into her skeletal muscle mass, body fat, and water content. She underwent three such analyses throughout the year to monitor her progress.
“I knew I wanted to lose a little body fat, but I didn’t want to be miserable doing it,” she explained, reflecting on her initial reluctance to adopt traditional, often restrictive, weight-loss tactics.
To her pleasant surprise, the analyses confirmed that her straightforward adjustments were yielding positive results. Her visceral fat score, an indicator of potentially dangerous fat surrounding organs, decreased from a 10 (the high end of the healthy range) to a more centered 8 by mid-year, where it remained. She also saw a reduction of over 7% in her total body fat mass and a weight loss of 5.5 pounds.
While acknowledging room for further improvement, particularly in building muscle for enhanced joint health and metabolism, she expressed satisfaction with the ease and sustainability of her new routine.
Walking Takes Center Stage
A key shift in her exercise regimen involved prioritizing walking over running. Previously focused solely on jogging four times a week with two strength training classes, she found adding 30 minutes to an hour of walking on strength training and rest days to be a manageable and beneficial change. This not only contributed to a modest calorie burn but also introduced a calming element to her routine and reduced her sedentary time, mitigating risks of heart disease, diabetes, inflammation, and osteoporosis.
Her commitment to movement extended to her leisure time, with planned hiking trips, weekend excursions with friends, and even a full-length walk across Manhattan for enjoyment.
Mindful Eating, Not Overhauls
When it came to diet, the consistent advice from her body composition analysis trainers was clear: diet couldn’t be ignored. However, a complete dietary overhaul wasn’t necessary. Instead, she adopted a more mindful approach.
On strength training days, her meals prioritized protein, often incorporating protein powder into her coffee and enjoying dishes like salmon with farro and vegetables. Running days saw a greater focus on carbohydrates, with portion sizes adjusted to match the intensity of her workout.
For instance, a light three-mile jog might be fueled by half a whole-wheat bagel sandwich. Similar moderation was applied to sugary treats and alcohol, with smaller portions and mocktails allowing for enjoyment without derailing progress.
She also increased her intake of fiber-dense foods like salads and grain bowls, which provided sustained fullness and essential nutrients.
Leveraging Metrics for Enhanced Performance
Mid-year, she underwent a VO2 max assessment, which involved running with an oxygen mask and heart rate monitor to identify her unique cardio zones. This experience underscored the value of hard numbers in challenging herself across her workout routine. She began attending Orangetheory classes, which provide real-time heart rate feedback, and even overcame her aversion to daily weighing, learning to view the data neutrally as a quick (though incomplete) performance indicator.
Tracking her weights became instrumental in implementing progressive overload – gradually increasing weight or repetitions – a crucial element for muscle growth.
The Muscle-Fat Connection
One area where she noted a lack of progress was in building muscle mass, a factor a trainer explained could limit further fat loss. Muscle is metabolically active tissue, meaning it burns more calories even at rest. A slight loss of muscle mass also led to a small decrease in her basal metabolic rate (BMR), the calories burned at rest, bringing it slightly below the average for women.
The solution, according to the trainer, is a renewed focus on strength training and adequate protein intake. This doesn’t necessarily mean a drastic change, but rather incorporating one more strength training class per week and opting for more protein-packed snacks.
Ultimately, her journey demonstrates that sustainable fitness transformations are often built on a foundation of small, consistent habits. While a dramatic physical overhaul wasn’t the outcome, the gains in health, understanding, and enjoyment were far more meaningful.