Do I first have to lose weight or arrive?

You do your best for a fitter body. Ideally, you want to build muscle at the same time and lose fat. Yet this proves to be more difficult than expected. What should you start with? First, lose fat or first arrive in muscle mass? Or is this possible at the same time? Read here how you make this decision yourself.

Go after your starting point
To determine whether you choose to lose weight or arrive, it is important to first look at your starting point *. You usually determine this starting point on the basis of your BMI and your fat percentage. This is important to know because if you have a high BMI and fat percentage you run a higher risk of health complaints.

Our preference is to calculate your fat percentage. But this calculation is more difficult than determining your BMI. So both methods have their pros and cons. Your BMI does not take into account the ratio between your muscle and fat mass. For example, it is possible that someone who is relatively muscular according to the BMI calculation is overweight, while his fat percentage is relatively low.

The table below roughly indicates whether you can better lose weight or arrive. This is based on the combination of a healthy weight and improving your body ratio (for example a tight stomach as a goal).


Note: the above data are not guidelines, but give an indication. Estimate your situation yourself and discuss this with an expert coach or dietitian. Also, make sure that the fat percentage between women and men and young and old is quite different. This can be a pretty big difference between the two individuals. Do you want personal advice tailored to your needs? Ask our online personal coaches or a dietitian in your area.

Simply put, there are two possibilities: to lose weight or to arrive. Make a choice for yourself: what do you think is most important?