Ok so this one will be a bit more complicated and lengthy than the last one but bear with me. If you have any questions at all, feel free to ask, l really can't emphasize this enough

So in my previous raffle, I talked about gaining or losing weight. But when I say the word weight, what am I actually referring to?

Well when it comes to the body, the main components of weight that we are concerned with are fat, muscle and water. 

So what are muscle and fat? Well, muscle and fat are actually just both different ways the body has of storing extra calories - the calories consumed above your maintenance calorie number (discussed in raffle 6L2Y01).

Muscle is what gives our bodies most of its shape (aside from bones). Fat also gives our bodies shape but generally not in the way that we want it to (lol). Water weight (for the most part) refers to the water we drink, the water that our bodies use to digest food, and the water stored in muscle and fat cells.

If we end up beneath our maintenance value, we lose weight composed of all these three things. 

However, these three things are not all made equal. Losing fat weight specifically is normally the goal, while at times it might be gaining muscle. If you try to lose weight in general, you will almost certainly end up losing all three. This doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing but it highly depends on what your goals are. The type of weight you lose or gain depends on the overall total composition of the foods you eat (how much p, f, and c - protein, fats and carbohydrates respectively you consume - these, along with fiber, are the main constituents of food), as well as whether you do primarily "cardio" or weightlifting (weightlifting helps preserve muscle better than cardio does and for fat loss both can be used together or individually - for example, cardio alone is extremely popular).

I'll briefly address why weightlifting can help you preserve and/or gain muscle. This is because the body only develops and keep muscle tissue when exposed to a stimulus that forces it to grow and become stronger and/or bigger. When this stimulus continually increases in some way over longer and longer amounts of time, you should theoretically become more and more muscular (and although there is in fact a diminishing rate of returns - meaning you get the most muscle gains when you start and a bit less when you're advanced, most trainees will not have to worry about this). As a side note, it's nearly physiologically impossible to become "too muscular", especially when starting out, so this is also not something you have to really worry about.

I'll also address why fat exists. Basically, as I said before, muscle and fat are both two ways the body can store energy. Fat is a far more efficient source however, because it is very energy dense. This is something I cannot provide an inherent explanation for as it is simply the way things are (law of nature). The common rule of thumb is 1 gram of protein and 1 gram of carbohydrates ("carbs") are 4 calories each while fats are about 9 calories/gram. The human body basically wants to store fat at all times because of the potential for starvation, which it technically thinks is possible no matter how well fed you are (sad boi hours lol).

(Continued in entered message, thanks character limit)