More Fat Than I Thought

karl1901
karl1901 Posts: 7 Member
in Introduce Yourself
Last month I had my body fat percentage measured by hydrostatic weighing. A blogger I follow had it done which is where I heard about it.

A little about me: I'm a 45yo guy who's 6'1" and weighed about 177 a few months ago. I'd lost 13 pounds, down to 164, and wanted to see where I stood and how much more I should lose. Originally I hoped to get to 160.

I was surprised to see a bodyfat of 26%! That means I must have been about 30% before I lost the weight. The test site recommended MFP which is how I found this site. Guess I was the definition of Skinny Fat.

So now I'm motivated to track my nutrition and calories and to lose another 14 pounds. My stretch goal is to add some muscle through strength training. As a reward for sticking to it through the winter I'm going to book myself a cruise in the spring of next year and take my shirt off and not feel self conscious for the first time in my life. That's the plan at least so please hold me accountable!

Thanks for reading and your advice!

Replies

  • Rufftimes
    Rufftimes Posts: 349 Member
    Hey! Welcome! I've been there! we're almost identical aside from the whole height thing! lol
  • steveko89
    steveko89 Posts: 2,223 Member
    Welcome, Karl! I would recommend starting the strength training as soon as you can; double down on your nutrition efforts and help preserve the muscle you have while you're losing. Depending on your experience level with strength training you should still be able to see some nice gains eating at a deficit. I've been using MFP since early 2012 and it's become a daily habit to log everything I eat. Though I'm a fan of the food database, I'm not wild about the calorie or macro recommendations. The fitness sub-reddit has been a great resource for exercise and nutrition information. There's a great spreadsheet that calculates TDEE based on calorie logging and daily weigh-ins found in the "Getting Started" section here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/wiki/getting_started

    If you don't already have one, get yourself a food scale to weigh out portions and treat calorie logging and weigh-ins with a scientific/data-collection approach for the best accuracy.
  • ISweat4This
    ISweat4This Posts: 653 Member
    Welcome and good luck, a cruise is a great reward!
  • karl1901
    karl1901 Posts: 7 Member
    steveko89 wrote: »
    The fitness sub-reddit has been a great resource for exercise and nutrition information. There's a great spreadsheet that calculates TDEE based on calorie logging and daily weigh-ins found in the "Getting Started" section here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/wiki/getting_started

    If you don't already have one, get yourself a food scale to weigh out portions and treat calorie logging and weigh-ins with a scientific/data-collection approach for the best accuracy.

    Thanks, I'll check out the TDEE spreadsheet. I bought a food scale and am weighing and logging pretty well. As with many I imagine the hardest part is when I eat out or don't prepare the food myself.
  • andrew4150
    andrew4150 Posts: 30 Member
    I just need to lose weight all around. Hoping to do this through diet and muscle mass increase. Getting a scale and logging food seems to be really helpful. Diary is open, add me if you'd like and we can keep each other accountable!

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