# "Lose weight" or "lose diameter?"
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lose-weight-or-lose-diameter/754738
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [May 14, 2016, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lose-weight-or-lose-diameter/754738 "2016-05-14T00:59:12Z")
**Posts on this page:** 17
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)
#### Post date: [May 14, 2016, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lose-weight-or-lose-diameter/754738/1 "2016-05-14T00:59:12Z")
A minor quibble with the societal talk about losing weight: IMHO, what most people really are trying to do is lose _diameter_, not weight.
If you offered most fat people trying to lose weight a choice: “Would you rather lose 20 pounds of weight, or 5 inches of diameter?” they would probably choose to lose diameter. The aim is to slim down, not lighten oneself, although the two are of course often hand in hand.
(Just a minor IMHO quibble, maybe could have gone in MPSIMS…)
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### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [May 14, 2016, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lose-weight-or-lose-diameter/754738/2 "2016-05-14T02:45:43Z")
I don’t think they call it their “diameter.” Not even “circumference.”
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### Author:  [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)
#### Post date: [May 14, 2016, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lose-weight-or-lose-diameter/754738/3 "2016-05-14T04:07:25Z")
They sort of go together. Ten or fifteen pounds is good for one notch on the belt.
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### Author:  [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)
#### Post date: [May 14, 2016, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lose-weight-or-lose-diameter/754738/4 "2016-05-14T12:49:06Z")
> [@panache45](#):
>
> I don’t think they call it their “diameter.” Not even “circumference.”
“Does this outfit make me look circumferent?”
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### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [May 14, 2016, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lose-weight-or-lose-diameter/754738/5 "2016-05-14T13:18:37Z")
Well I’d agree that the focus on weight is understandable as it is a simple and easily measured number but is may be misleading especially if someone is exercising at the time. Two different people could both gain 10 pounds. One is lifting weights and running, eating lots and lots of lean protein, veggies and fruits, and one is a couch potato eating crap - one has increased waist circumference one has not. Same going down - the exercising person will preserve more lean body mass and loss more fat around the waist even as they lose the same exact amount of weight.
Whether the motivation is vanity or health it is indeed likely true that accurate and precise waist circumference is more meaningful. Weighing is just simpler and correlates well enough for most.
If someone _could_ lose 5 inches of waist circumference with diet and exercise without losing any weight that would fantastic. It would mean that somehow they lost fat and put on significant muscle mass at the same time, very hard to do.
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### Author:  [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)
#### Post date: [May 14, 2016, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lose-weight-or-lose-diameter/754738/6 "2016-05-14T19:10:14Z")
I was pretty damn fat and now I’m down to plain old fat; I must admit that the inches made me prouder than the pounds. Now I’m at that point where girth is still falling (if slowly) while basic weight is about the same and I feel pretty good about it all. Which of the two was my original intent? I can’t really say. My only real intention was to feel better both physically and mentally and it worked.
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### Author:  [@TPWombat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TPWombat)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2016, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lose-weight-or-lose-diameter/754738/7 "2016-05-15T13:25:47Z")
H.G. Wells wrote a short story in which this question proved highly relevant.
[**“The Truth about Pyecraft”**](http://www.online-literature.com/wellshg/20/)
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### Author:  [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2016, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lose-weight-or-lose-diameter/754738/8 "2016-05-15T14:56:30Z")
To be honest it’s kind of a silly question since five inches of diameter is going to be much much more than 20 pounds of Fat. It’s like on Cartoons when a sleazy character tries to take advantage of a simple character and asks him questions like, “would you rather have 1 killogram of candy or 100 micrograms?” knowing he’ll pick the bigger number. That’s a terrible example because I couldn’t think of a better one but you get what I mean.
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### Author:  [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2016, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lose-weight-or-lose-diameter/754738/9 "2016-05-15T16:53:45Z")
I used a science text once that asked “A person’s clothes are too tight. Should the person lose weight or mass, and why?”
The correct answer is the person wants to lose volume. The clothes are too tight because the person is too voluminous.
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### Author:  [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2016, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lose-weight-or-lose-diameter/754738/10 "2016-05-15T18:04:54Z")
Some people are afraid of heights. . .I’m afraid of widths. - Steven Wright
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### Author:  [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2016, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lose-weight-or-lose-diameter/754738/11 "2016-05-15T21:12:49Z")
You could go with girth, although that is more often focused on one individual body part, and losing some(not sure how exactly) would usually be undesirable.
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### Author:  [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2016, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lose-weight-or-lose-diameter/754738/12 "2016-05-15T22:10:33Z")
I’m at my ideal weight if only I were a foot taller. I don’t wanna lose weight, I wanna gain height.
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### Author:  [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2016, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lose-weight-or-lose-diameter/754738/13 "2016-05-15T23:49:52Z")
> [@california\_jobcase](#):
>
> I used a science text once that asked “A person’s clothes are too tight. Should the person lose weight or mass, and why?”
>
> The correct answer is the person wants to lose volume. The clothes are too tight because the person is too voluminous.
I remember an old science fiction story about a sign in a spaceship; “Weight changes, mass doesn’t. Weight you feel but its the mass that hurts you.” or something like that. I know – it really doesn’t add to the conversation. But to remember an obscure line from a story I read maybe twice 40 years ago surprised me.
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### Author:  [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2016, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lose-weight-or-lose-diameter/754738/14 "2016-05-16T02:18:15Z")
> [@TPWombat](#):
>
> H.G. Wells wrote a short story in which this question proved highly relevant.
>
> [**“The Truth about Pyecraft”**](http://www.online-literature.com/wellshg/20/)
Oh well done! 🙂 Reading the thread title set me to thinking of that story, and I thought I’d have quite a quest to find it. Especially as I had mixed it up with one by Ray Bradbury. :smack: Problem solved! Thank you.
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### Author:  [@spamforbrains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spamforbrains)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2016, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lose-weight-or-lose-diameter/754738/15 "2016-05-16T02:34:39Z")
You want to reduce your % body fat, and perhaps increase your % lean mass. But since we have no easy way to measure % body fat we have no good words for it. A really low % body fat body builder can be technically obese as measured by BMI and weigh significantly more than a fluffy couch potato. Possibly might have more volume, too.
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### Author:  [@Blaster\_Master](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blaster_Master)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2016, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lose-weight-or-lose-diameter/754738/16 "2016-05-16T12:49:16Z")
> [@Velocity](#):
>
> A minor quibble with the societal talk about losing weight: IMHO, what most people really are trying to do is lose _diameter_, not weight.
>
> If you offered most fat people trying to lose weight a choice: “Would you rather lose 20 pounds of weight, or 5 inches of diameter?” they would probably choose to lose diameter. The aim is to slim down, not lighten oneself, although the two are of course often hand in hand.
>
> (Just a minor IMHO quibble, maybe could have gone in MPSIMS…)
“Lose weight” has just become the catch-all phrase for reducing body fat. Some people talk in terms of losing inches from their waist, hips, thighs, etc. or they talk about building muscle or body fat percentage or lean mass or whatever. The problem is, most people don’t really know all the ins and outs of training and weight is a simple, though ultimately rather poor, metric for tracking one’s progress, so it stuck. Ideally, I think people would be talking more in terms of body fat % and/or lean body mass because those metrics are not only more accurate in terms of judging one’s health, but they can be used for various training goals, not just the goal of losing fat.
That said, just deal with it. Yes, people say lose weight when, really, their goals vary from wanting to look sexy and pick up chicks/guys to just wanting to be healthier. The bigger problem I see isn’t the term which, if inaccurate, at least conveys the desire, it’s the disconnect between what their actual goal is, how much work it will be, and some arbitrary number of pounds. Everyone, it seems, wants to lose 20 lbs. However, when I talk to people about these sorts of things, I always try to realign their focus off of the scale number and toward what their actual goals are. At that point, it turns out some what to lose body fat, some want to gear in shape or get healthier, some want to get stronger and don’t really care too much about fat, or whatever. It’s at that point I can actually give them somewhat more targeted and useful advice.
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### Author:  [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2016, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lose-weight-or-lose-diameter/754738/17 "2016-05-16T14:26:42Z")
> [@kayaker](#):
>
> I’m at my ideal weight if only I were a foot taller. I don’t wanna lose weight, I wanna gain height.
One of cruelest tricks of nature is that at a certain age a man can be too tall for his hair and too short for his weight…