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Q: I am at my lowest weight ever but my body fat is at its highest. Could this be right - I would have thought my body fat should be at its lowest too.

It sounds as though the proportion of fat and muscle in your body has changed over time. When your body fat was lower but you weighed more, it’s likely you had a higher percentage of lean tissue (muscle).

The more muscle you have, the heavier you will be. It’s why professional athletes or body builders often appear to be overweight according to the Body Mass Index classifications, even though they have a very low percentage of body fat.

In order to achieve your lowest weight, it looks as though you might have lost a lot of muscle as well as fat.

This is usually the result of a very low calorie intake – effectively, your body goes into ‘starvation mode’ and starts using your muscles to supply it with calories rather than using its fat stores, which it tries to protect at all costs.

Because muscles themselves burn a lot of energy, if you lose muscle your metabolic rate will drop, meaning that after you stop a low calorie diet and return to your old pattern of eating, you will actually put on more weight than you did before. Another problem with losing muscle is that you can become fatigued doing simple daily tasks, because muscles store energy for the body in the form of glycogen, and with less muscle, your body has fewer energy reserves to draw upon. .

In the meantime, doing more exercise will help to increase the amount of muscle you have and for best results, do a combination of different classes ie circuit to burn fat and resistance to build muscle. Having more muscle might mean you end up weighing slightly more, but it’ll give your metabolism a boost so that you can eat slightly more in order to maintain your weight.

Have a look at our Classes available under the Fitness tab or have a read about Cathy, our Nutritionist, found under our Services tab