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.

• In 2025, I got 3 body composition analyses at the athletic club Life Time.
• The scans helped me track my progress in losing fat and building muscle.
• I lost over five pounds and 7% of my body fat mass by making simple changes, such as taking more walks.

At the start of 2025, I knew I wanted to lose a little body fat. I just didn't want to be miserable doing it.

All the weight loss tactics I'd grown up internalizing — painstakingly tracking calories and steps, feeling "naughty" for eating half a cupcake, pretending raw almonds are a treat — didn't just present a challenge to my soul. I was also pretty sure they didn't work for me.

So, I got a body composition analysis: a complimentary service offered through my membership at Life Time Fitness, an athletic club. On average, membership costs between $100 and more than $330 in the US.

Using an InBody machine, the analysis took five minutes and involved me holding hand electrodes while stepping on a scale. The machine, using bioelectrical impedance analysis, then scanned my skeletal muscle mass, body fat, and water content in proportion to my overall weight.

I got another analysis roughly halfway through the year to track my progress, and a final one in December to see how far I've come — if at all.

To my relief, the simple lifestyle changes I made had been largely effective. At the beginning of the year, my visceral fat score, the number estimating the amount of dangerous fat surrounding my organs, was a 10 — the very end of the healthy range. Midway through the year, it dropped to 8, more centered in the healthy range, and stayed there through December.

I also cut my body fat mass, or the total weight of fat in my body, by a little over 7%, and lost exactly 5.5 pounds.

While there's still room for improvement, such as gaining more muscle for better joint health and easier fat loss, I'm glad all it took was a few easy, sustainable habits to see results.

I chose walking over running

For the past few years, I'd been solely focused on running as my main form of cardio exercise. I jogged about four times a week and took up to two strength training classes.

I couldn't fathom adding more training to my schedule. Then I realized: I could just walk a little more on the days I didn't run. I started walking anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour on strength training and rest days.

Not only did it help me shave off a few hundred calories here and there, but it also introduced a calming habit into my routine. Most importantly, it made me less sedentary, reducing my risk of developing heart disease, diabetes, inflammation, and osteoporosis.

I also started planning vacations around movement. I took a few hiking trips, organized weekend hikes upstate with friends, and walked the length of Manhattan in one day just for fun.

Matching meals to workouts

Every trainer who did my body composition analysis told me the same thing: I could not rule out my diet.

Luckily, I didn't have to do a complete overhaul. I simply had to be a little more mindful.

On days focused more on strength training, I'd add protein powder to my coffee and eat a protein-rich meal, such as salmon with farro and vegetables.

On running days, I'd focus more on carbs, while also adjusting my portion sizes. If I had only finished a light, three-mile jog, half of a whole-wheat bagel sandwich felt like enough fuel. The same went for sugary treats and alcohol: cutting back on portion sizes and opting for more mocktails helped me have fun without feeling like I was rolling back progress.

In general, I also started focusing more on fiber-dense foods, such as salads and grain bowls, which kept me feeling full for longer and provided other essential nutrients, like folate and vitamin C, in greens like kale and arugula.

Using metrics to my advantage

About halfway through the year, I also took a VO2 max assessment, in which I ran with an oxygen mask and a heart rate monitor to determine my unique cardio zones, or ranges of heart rate that correspond to levels of exercise intensity. Zone 5 is the most challenging, corresponding to being near your maximum heart rate.

I learned that having hard numbers helped me challenge myself in every part of my workout routine. I started taking Orangetheory classes, which use heart rate monitors to give you feedback in real time.

I also bought a scale — something I'd always been against in theory. It took time to adjust to weighing myself every day and not taking the numbers to heart. Once I started to look at the data neutrally, I found it helpful in providing me with quick (albeit incomplete) feedback on my performance.

I got better about writing down my weights so that I could progressively overload: gradually using heavier weights or increasing rep counts over time. Without that, I'd never actually build muscle.

I won't lose more fat until I gain muscle

There was one area in which I didn't make progress: building up muscle mass. I learned from a trainer that this likely limited my fat loss, since muscle is metabolically active tissue that helps the body burn more calories, even at rest.

I lost about a pound of muscle, which also slightly reduced my basal metabolic rate (BMR), or the number of calories I burn at rest. It dropped slightly below the average woman's.

The solution? Focus more on strength training, the trainer said, particularly making sure I consume enough protein to supplement my workouts. It doesn't necessarily require a huge overhaul: just taking one more class a week and snacking on more protein-packed foods can make a meaningful difference, she added.

In the end, it's just another small habit to stack onto the others. No, I didn't go through a massive body transformation this year. But what I gained — or technically lost, in terms of fat — was far more sustainable (and a lot more fun).