230 lbs 27.8% BF and now 223.6lbs with 26.1%? WHAT

viren19890

stevencloser wrote: »

27.8% of 230 is 64, 26.1% of 223.6 is 58. You lost 6 pounds. Aside from the inaccuracy of scales and whatnot, where's the problem?

Problem was -I thought I was losing muscle along with fat-so it was basically a lose-lose scenario. Instead of a win-win (ideal) where I lose more body fat than weight (i know it's not possible)

bigJ2025

For me I had to learn to stop looking at the scale as my ultimate goal and keep looking in the mirror or pictures! The biggest problem is there are so many factors that play into weight loss, like water consumption, sleep, sugar intake(as you noted) and sodium intake. Overall fats like pb and oils! Just keep looking in the mirror and if you like what your seeing then your going in the right direction! Just my opinion though

viren19890

howeclectic wrote: »

viren19890 wrote: »

If I'm understanding you correctly -it means that body would rather burn fat than muscle -if we give it a reason to do so and the reason could be keeping protein high and keep lifting heavy weight -so muslce mass stays ?

Well, your body will always want to go after the lean mass during a sustained calorie deficit. But lifting heavy weights will tell the body you don't have much lean mass to spare (you need it). You will still probably lose *some* lean mass. Just less if you lift.

Ok so I understood it wrong then. Anyone ever figure out-why the body doesn't go after fat? I mean wasn't that suppose to be "stored" for the time of need? and deficit would be considered that time lol

howeclectic

Lean mass

viren19890 wrote: »

Ok so I understood it wrong then. Anyone ever figure out-why the body doesn't go after fat? I mean wasn't that suppose to be "stored" for the time of need? and deficit would be considered that time lol

Lean mass expends 7-10 calories per pound per day. Fat mass expends 2-3 calories per pound.

Imagine you had a company and the economy was tanking. Now imagine all of your employees were equally productive. Who do you layoff ? The most expensive employees obviously (your muscle mass). Now... say your more expensive employees were more productive (you use your muscles to get food). Now the equation is less certain... If you don't use your lean mass... your body assumes you don't need it and its too expensive to keep around in a sustained famine. The extra days this can buy you until your next meal can mean life or death.

robertw486

Don't pay attention to the bioimpedance scales for other than showing a trend. We have one and plenty of things will throw off the numbers, including a cup or two of coffee and lotion on my feet. They are ok for showing a trend, but not much more.

Unless your deficit is high and/or sometimes when you are working out at higher levels and don't eat properly for recovery and such, you're going to lose more fat than muscle. A lot more. Even in true starvation and fasting situations the body attempts to protect muscle.

That being said, most people want to keep their muscle mass, so lifting and other types of strength training is a good idea when in a deficit. As is ensuring adequate protein. But you're not going to see any huge swings in muscle mass on most diets that are long term sustainable. Even people that don't lift or do strength training will lose fat in proportion to muscle.

kimny72

OP, whenever you lose weight, you will lose some fat and some muscle. If you weight train and eat enough protein, you can minimize the muscle loss.

Having said that, weight loss isn't linear. The % of fat, muscle, and water gain or loss will be different day to day and week to week based on hundreds of variables, most of which you can't control or see. Your digestive system, stress, energy-level, environmental humidity, minor nutritional differences in the individual foods you eat, your immune system, etc all can create minor, imperceptible changes in the way your body processes your food and fuels your exercise.

You want to look at trends over the long term, like month to month and not stress the small stuff. All the numbers we work with are estimates, hopefully really good estimates, so the long term trend will be the important thing. Good luck!

viren19890

howeclectic wrote: »

Lean mass

viren19890 wrote: »

Ok so I understood it wrong then. Anyone ever figure out-why the body doesn't go after fat? I mean wasn't that suppose to be "stored" for the time of need? and deficit would be considered that time lol

Lean mass expends 7-10 calories per pound per day. Fat mass expends 2-3 calories per pound.

Imagine you had a company and the economy was tanking. Now imagine all of your employees were equally productive. Who do you layoff ? The most expensive employees obviously (your muscle mass). Now... say your more expensive employees were more productive (you use your muscles to get food). Now the equation is less certain... If you don't use your lean mass... your body assumes you don't need it and its too expensive to keep around in a sustained famine. The extra days this can buy you until your next meal can mean life or death.

WOW thanks a lot for dumbing it down for me bro- that really put things in perspective.

So if a person wants to maintain-they should lift heavy or go even heavier if possible so most amount of muscle is maintained since (those guys are more productive at lifting) lol . Thanks

20yearsyounger

bigJ2025 wrote: »

For me I had to learn to stop looking at the scale as my ultimate goal and keep looking in the mirror or pictures! The biggest problem is there are so many factors that play into weight loss, like water consumption, sleep, sugar intake(as you noted) and sodium intake. Overall fats like pb and oils! Just keep looking in the mirror and if you like what your seeing then your going in the right direction! Just my opinion though

I'm with you. I used the body fat pictures.

viren19890

kimny72 wrote: »

OP, whenever you lose weight, you will lose some fat and some muscle. If you weight train and eat enough protein, you can minimize the muscle loss.

Having said that, weight loss isn't linear. The % of fat, muscle, and water gain or loss will be different day to day and week to week based on hundreds of variables, most of which you can't control or see. Your digestive system, stress, energy-level, environmental humidity, minor nutritional differences in the individual foods you eat, your immune system, etc all can create minor, imperceptible changes in the way your body processes your food and fuels your exercise.

You want to look at trends over the long term, like month to month and not stress the small stuff. All the numbers we work with are estimates, hopefully really good estimates, so the long term trend will be the important thing. Good luck!

thanks -that's what I was wondering , that if there was a correlation between weight lost and fat % and muscle %.

brdnw

bigbodybake wrote: »

From what I've read 7 pounds in most people will equal 1% of body fat, so your numbers seem right

70lbs would be much more than 10% fat. Likewise at 35% and 5%. I don't know where you get that # from but i dont agree at all with it.

Sued0nim

Just as proof of how rubbish those scales are. I've been at my goal weight since April 2014 (well actually February but I reset it to my stable weight)

..my body fat on my scales read 31.4%
..in July my scales read 28.7%
...yesterday my scales read 21.4%

My BF is around 23%

Lies, it's all lies :bigsmile:

viren19890

rabbitjb wrote: »

Just as proof of how rubbish those scales are. I've been at my goal weight since April 2014 (well actually February but I reset it to my stable weight)

..my body fat on my scales read 31.4%
..in July my scales read 28.7%
...yesterday my scales read 21.4%

My BF is around 23%

Lies, it's all lies :bigsmile:

LOL -so far mine is very consistent. I measure it third thing in the morning.

I wake up eat a banana , creatine shake with 6-8oz water and then I go relieve myself. I come back -take my clothes off and stand on the mighty scale. Consistently dropping lbs and percent. However , I understand it can be wrong and now on I'll just be using it as a way to see a trend-that's about it.

Also taking proper measurements which are allowing me to see the progress and before after pictures.

3 inches off belly, 2 inches off waist- and 0.3 inches off bicep (this gave me a mini heart attack) lol

This is what I got.

http://www.amazon.com/Escali-BFBW200-Glass-Digital-Bathroom/dp/B000PH2OR0

but I get your point.