One month in and frusterated....
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alissadough84 wrote: »Weight swings of 2-3 pounds in a few weeks sound to me like water weight instead of significant fat loss/muscle gain, so I wouldn't put too much stock into either your first week's loss or this week's gain. Given that you're 140 pounds at 5'2" and right at the edge of being in the normal BMI range, it would be really hard for you to create enough of a deficit to lose 2 pounds of real weight in a week. Plus, women don't gain 3 pounds of muscle mass in a week unless you're actually the She-Hulk. We don't gain 3 pounds of muscle mass in a month. If the exercise is new, the gain is from water retention and will normalize if you give it a little more time.
The #1 thing for you to do is to be patient and give it time. If you're really 30% BF, you may want to run a slight deficit to pull that down a little, but unless you're in a huge rush I might keep doing what you've been doing for another 4-6 weeks before changing anything else.
I second the recommendation to weigh in more often if you're comfortable with that. Everyone has a natural fluctuation range, but most people don't know it. The more you watch how your weight responds to different situations (exercise, high sodium days, TOM, etc.), the more confident you'll feel about interpreting the data.
Thanks! This is helpful! I'll start weighing in more often. I've been doing Crossfit for about 5 years and about a year ago I weighed in on one of those "In Body" scales. It suggested I lose somewhere in the range of 20 pounds. I was kind of guessing on my body fat percentage based on pictures online, but it's probably less than 30% it's just hard to tell from a picture. At one point a couple of years ago, I was at 123- which was hard to maintain and I had lost a lot of strength, so now I am just really trying to focus on building strength and body comp.
The clarification is helpful; thanks! I thought that the Crossfit was new, so that was my misunderstanding.
Can you back up just a little bit, because I think a lot of posters have been confused by your information and I'm not sure whether you're really getting the most targeted advice. What are your current goals? When you say "gain muscle," what do you really mean? (As in, are you trying to get stronger/lift more weight? Do you want to have more muscle definition? Do you want to be heavier on the scale?) Do you really want to lose a little bit of weight, or are you just going by the scale number and what you estimate your BF% to be? I kind of feel like you could either recomp or go into a small deficit, but that might depend on your goals.
Hi! Thank you so much for all of your help. I'd like to get stronger AND gain more muscle definition-(I'd really like to see my abs for the first time). At this point, I feel like I am the definition of skinny fat. It's not really necessary for me to lose weight, but I do feel a lot more comfortable 5-7 pounds less than I am now, just because I carry a lot of weight in my chest and my boobs aren't that proportionate to the rest of my body, so losing a few pounds I can definitely feel the difference there. As far as the BF% goes, I was mostly going off off of pictures of body fat percentage on bodybuilding.com and the reading from the In- Body scale. I know it's possible to only gain or lose a few pounds and see a lot of muscle definition, but I haven't had a ton of success with that so far which is why I was thinking recomp might be good for me.0 -
To be clear, you say "not necessary for me to lose weight" but if you want to see abs, it is still necessary to lose fat. Otherwise you could have abs of steel and they'll just be covered up with fat. You can either do bulk/cut cycles or recomposition.1
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alissadough84 wrote: »alissadough84 wrote: »Weight swings of 2-3 pounds in a few weeks sound to me like water weight instead of significant fat loss/muscle gain, so I wouldn't put too much stock into either your first week's loss or this week's gain. Given that you're 140 pounds at 5'2" and right at the edge of being in the normal BMI range, it would be really hard for you to create enough of a deficit to lose 2 pounds of real weight in a week. Plus, women don't gain 3 pounds of muscle mass in a week unless you're actually the She-Hulk. We don't gain 3 pounds of muscle mass in a month. If the exercise is new, the gain is from water retention and will normalize if you give it a little more time.
The #1 thing for you to do is to be patient and give it time. If you're really 30% BF, you may want to run a slight deficit to pull that down a little, but unless you're in a huge rush I might keep doing what you've been doing for another 4-6 weeks before changing anything else.
I second the recommendation to weigh in more often if you're comfortable with that. Everyone has a natural fluctuation range, but most people don't know it. The more you watch how your weight responds to different situations (exercise, high sodium days, TOM, etc.), the more confident you'll feel about interpreting the data.
Thanks! This is helpful! I'll start weighing in more often. I've been doing Crossfit for about 5 years and about a year ago I weighed in on one of those "In Body" scales. It suggested I lose somewhere in the range of 20 pounds. I was kind of guessing on my body fat percentage based on pictures online, but it's probably less than 30% it's just hard to tell from a picture. At one point a couple of years ago, I was at 123- which was hard to maintain and I had lost a lot of strength, so now I am just really trying to focus on building strength and body comp.
The clarification is helpful; thanks! I thought that the Crossfit was new, so that was my misunderstanding.
Can you back up just a little bit, because I think a lot of posters have been confused by your information and I'm not sure whether you're really getting the most targeted advice. What are your current goals? When you say "gain muscle," what do you really mean? (As in, are you trying to get stronger/lift more weight? Do you want to have more muscle definition? Do you want to be heavier on the scale?) Do you really want to lose a little bit of weight, or are you just going by the scale number and what you estimate your BF% to be? I kind of feel like you could either recomp or go into a small deficit, but that might depend on your goals.
Hi! Thank you so much for all of your help. I'd like to get stronger AND gain more muscle definition-(I'd really like to see my abs for the first time). At this point, I feel like I am the definition of skinny fat. It's not really necessary for me to lose weight, but I do feel a lot more comfortable 5-7 pounds less than I am now, just because I carry a lot of weight in my chest and my boobs aren't that proportionate to the rest of my body, so losing a few pounds I can definitely feel the difference there. As far as the BF% goes, I was mostly going off off of pictures of body fat percentage on bodybuilding.com and the reading from the In- Body scale. I know it's possible to only gain or lose a few pounds and see a lot of muscle definition, but I haven't had a ton of success with that so far which is why I was thinking recomp might be good for me.
Would you be om with weighing in each day? This will allow us to get more data points and then in 2 weeks we can adjust if required.0 -
alissadough84 wrote: »alissadough84 wrote: »Weight swings of 2-3 pounds in a few weeks sound to me like water weight instead of significant fat loss/muscle gain, so I wouldn't put too much stock into either your first week's loss or this week's gain. Given that you're 140 pounds at 5'2" and right at the edge of being in the normal BMI range, it would be really hard for you to create enough of a deficit to lose 2 pounds of real weight in a week. Plus, women don't gain 3 pounds of muscle mass in a week unless you're actually the She-Hulk. We don't gain 3 pounds of muscle mass in a month. If the exercise is new, the gain is from water retention and will normalize if you give it a little more time.
The #1 thing for you to do is to be patient and give it time. If you're really 30% BF, you may want to run a slight deficit to pull that down a little, but unless you're in a huge rush I might keep doing what you've been doing for another 4-6 weeks before changing anything else.
I second the recommendation to weigh in more often if you're comfortable with that. Everyone has a natural fluctuation range, but most people don't know it. The more you watch how your weight responds to different situations (exercise, high sodium days, TOM, etc.), the more confident you'll feel about interpreting the data.
Thanks! This is helpful! I'll start weighing in more often. I've been doing Crossfit for about 5 years and about a year ago I weighed in on one of those "In Body" scales. It suggested I lose somewhere in the range of 20 pounds. I was kind of guessing on my body fat percentage based on pictures online, but it's probably less than 30% it's just hard to tell from a picture. At one point a couple of years ago, I was at 123- which was hard to maintain and I had lost a lot of strength, so now I am just really trying to focus on building strength and body comp.
The clarification is helpful; thanks! I thought that the Crossfit was new, so that was my misunderstanding.
Can you back up just a little bit, because I think a lot of posters have been confused by your information and I'm not sure whether you're really getting the most targeted advice. What are your current goals? When you say "gain muscle," what do you really mean? (As in, are you trying to get stronger/lift more weight? Do you want to have more muscle definition? Do you want to be heavier on the scale?) Do you really want to lose a little bit of weight, or are you just going by the scale number and what you estimate your BF% to be? I kind of feel like you could either recomp or go into a small deficit, but that might depend on your goals.
Hi! Thank you so much for all of your help. I'd like to get stronger AND gain more muscle definition-(I'd really like to see my abs for the first time). At this point, I feel like I am the definition of skinny fat. It's not really necessary for me to lose weight, but I do feel a lot more comfortable 5-7 pounds less than I am now, just because I carry a lot of weight in my chest and my boobs aren't that proportionate to the rest of my body, so losing a few pounds I can definitely feel the difference there. As far as the BF% goes, I was mostly going off off of pictures of body fat percentage on bodybuilding.com and the reading from the In- Body scale. I know it's possible to only gain or lose a few pounds and see a lot of muscle definition, but I haven't had a ton of success with that so far which is why I was thinking recomp might be good for me.
Would you be om with weighing in each day? This will allow us to get more data points and then in 2 weeks we can adjust if required.
As a female I'd need more like 6-8 weeks data to have any sort of picture, especially with a small deficit. Much of last year I lost 0.5lbs per week and only say the monthly 2lbs in the middle of period week when I'd have a whoosh.1 -
VintageFeline wrote: »alissadough84 wrote: »alissadough84 wrote: »Weight swings of 2-3 pounds in a few weeks sound to me like water weight instead of significant fat loss/muscle gain, so I wouldn't put too much stock into either your first week's loss or this week's gain. Given that you're 140 pounds at 5'2" and right at the edge of being in the normal BMI range, it would be really hard for you to create enough of a deficit to lose 2 pounds of real weight in a week. Plus, women don't gain 3 pounds of muscle mass in a week unless you're actually the She-Hulk. We don't gain 3 pounds of muscle mass in a month. If the exercise is new, the gain is from water retention and will normalize if you give it a little more time.
The #1 thing for you to do is to be patient and give it time. If you're really 30% BF, you may want to run a slight deficit to pull that down a little, but unless you're in a huge rush I might keep doing what you've been doing for another 4-6 weeks before changing anything else.
I second the recommendation to weigh in more often if you're comfortable with that. Everyone has a natural fluctuation range, but most people don't know it. The more you watch how your weight responds to different situations (exercise, high sodium days, TOM, etc.), the more confident you'll feel about interpreting the data.
Thanks! This is helpful! I'll start weighing in more often. I've been doing Crossfit for about 5 years and about a year ago I weighed in on one of those "In Body" scales. It suggested I lose somewhere in the range of 20 pounds. I was kind of guessing on my body fat percentage based on pictures online, but it's probably less than 30% it's just hard to tell from a picture. At one point a couple of years ago, I was at 123- which was hard to maintain and I had lost a lot of strength, so now I am just really trying to focus on building strength and body comp.
The clarification is helpful; thanks! I thought that the Crossfit was new, so that was my misunderstanding.
Can you back up just a little bit, because I think a lot of posters have been confused by your information and I'm not sure whether you're really getting the most targeted advice. What are your current goals? When you say "gain muscle," what do you really mean? (As in, are you trying to get stronger/lift more weight? Do you want to have more muscle definition? Do you want to be heavier on the scale?) Do you really want to lose a little bit of weight, or are you just going by the scale number and what you estimate your BF% to be? I kind of feel like you could either recomp or go into a small deficit, but that might depend on your goals.
Hi! Thank you so much for all of your help. I'd like to get stronger AND gain more muscle definition-(I'd really like to see my abs for the first time). At this point, I feel like I am the definition of skinny fat. It's not really necessary for me to lose weight, but I do feel a lot more comfortable 5-7 pounds less than I am now, just because I carry a lot of weight in my chest and my boobs aren't that proportionate to the rest of my body, so losing a few pounds I can definitely feel the difference there. As far as the BF% goes, I was mostly going off off of pictures of body fat percentage on bodybuilding.com and the reading from the In- Body scale. I know it's possible to only gain or lose a few pounds and see a lot of muscle definition, but I haven't had a ton of success with that so far which is why I was thinking recomp might be good for me.
Would you be om with weighing in each day? This will allow us to get more data points and then in 2 weeks we can adjust if required.
As a female I'd need more like 6-8 weeks data to have any sort of picture, especially with a small deficit. Much of last year I lost 0.5lbs per week and only say the monthly 2lbs in the middle of period week when I'd have a whoosh.
I was taking into consideration the previous data point. In total it would be 6 weeks. Although, it could continously be refined as we go.0 -
alissadough84 wrote: »alissadough84 wrote: »Weight swings of 2-3 pounds in a few weeks sound to me like water weight instead of significant fat loss/muscle gain, so I wouldn't put too much stock into either your first week's loss or this week's gain. Given that you're 140 pounds at 5'2" and right at the edge of being in the normal BMI range, it would be really hard for you to create enough of a deficit to lose 2 pounds of real weight in a week. Plus, women don't gain 3 pounds of muscle mass in a week unless you're actually the She-Hulk. We don't gain 3 pounds of muscle mass in a month. If the exercise is new, the gain is from water retention and will normalize if you give it a little more time.
The #1 thing for you to do is to be patient and give it time. If you're really 30% BF, you may want to run a slight deficit to pull that down a little, but unless you're in a huge rush I might keep doing what you've been doing for another 4-6 weeks before changing anything else.
I second the recommendation to weigh in more often if you're comfortable with that. Everyone has a natural fluctuation range, but most people don't know it. The more you watch how your weight responds to different situations (exercise, high sodium days, TOM, etc.), the more confident you'll feel about interpreting the data.
Thanks! This is helpful! I'll start weighing in more often. I've been doing Crossfit for about 5 years and about a year ago I weighed in on one of those "In Body" scales. It suggested I lose somewhere in the range of 20 pounds. I was kind of guessing on my body fat percentage based on pictures online, but it's probably less than 30% it's just hard to tell from a picture. At one point a couple of years ago, I was at 123- which was hard to maintain and I had lost a lot of strength, so now I am just really trying to focus on building strength and body comp.
The clarification is helpful; thanks! I thought that the Crossfit was new, so that was my misunderstanding.
Can you back up just a little bit, because I think a lot of posters have been confused by your information and I'm not sure whether you're really getting the most targeted advice. What are your current goals? When you say "gain muscle," what do you really mean? (As in, are you trying to get stronger/lift more weight? Do you want to have more muscle definition? Do you want to be heavier on the scale?) Do you really want to lose a little bit of weight, or are you just going by the scale number and what you estimate your BF% to be? I kind of feel like you could either recomp or go into a small deficit, but that might depend on your goals.
Hi! Thank you so much for all of your help. I'd like to get stronger AND gain more muscle definition-(I'd really like to see my abs for the first time). At this point, I feel like I am the definition of skinny fat. It's not really necessary for me to lose weight, but I do feel a lot more comfortable 5-7 pounds less than I am now, just because I carry a lot of weight in my chest and my boobs aren't that proportionate to the rest of my body, so losing a few pounds I can definitely feel the difference there. As far as the BF% goes, I was mostly going off off of pictures of body fat percentage on bodybuilding.com and the reading from the In- Body scale. I know it's possible to only gain or lose a few pounds and see a lot of muscle definition, but I haven't had a ton of success with that so far which is why I was thinking recomp might be good for me.
First, you need to get your body fat down.
So I would suggest a small deficit say 250 calories a week, keep protein high, and get on a structured lifting program.
I am not familiar with crossfit so I have no idea how structured their programs are. you really need something built around compound lifts with progressive overload built into it.1 -
^^^this...And also, at 5'2" 140 you are not "skinny fat" you are almost "overweight."2
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DancingMoosie wrote: »^^^this...And also, at 5'2" 140 you are not "skinny fat" you are almost "overweight."
Not necessarily, depending on how much muscle she's carrying. I'm 5'2 and between 130-135. If you saw me you would never think that I am even close to overweight or skinny fat.
Unless people have been training for a long time, its rather rare, especially for women, to have that much muscle that being at the top end of a weight class is going to be in the realm of play.0 -
DancingMoosie wrote: »^^^this...And also, at 5'2" 140 you are not "skinny fat" you are almost "overweight."
Not necessarily, depending on how much muscle she's carrying. I'm 5'2 and between 130-135. If you saw me you would never think that I am even close to overweight or skinny fat.
Unless people have been training for a long time, its rather rare, especially for women, to have that much muscle that being at the top end of a weight class is going to be in the realm of play.
True, I'm very lucky in that I gain muscle very easily and I've been training on and off for 30 years. (Wow, that makes me feel super ancient!) I don't think we can assume though that she is skinny fat or overweight just going by her height and weight. That's all I was trying to say.
Out of curiosity, have you done a dexa scan before or had a body fat evaluation? It'll be interesting to know what your actual body composition would be.0
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