Bod Pod - Need Help Gaining Lean Muscle Mass

mraq93

Hello, I did the Bod Pod yesterday which gives you your body fat percentage.
I'm at a normal weight. 5'11 and 164 pounds. However, my body fat percentage was 37%, which is considered excess fat zone. I know I need to incorporate more weight training. Does anyone have a diet they follow or a home gym routine? I typically do cardio, but I have a set of resistance bands and can do body weight exercise. Thanks.

heybales

Those will probably not tap out existing muscle that fast before the body feels the need to make more.

At least body weight can be made to be difficult for some of those types of workouts.

That's what you need - progressive overload to cause damage - then body knows it needs stronger and more.

Oh - there is no such thing as lean muscle mass except what you order from the butcher, despite commercials.

Your body will include in muscle whatever amount of fat it wants - you have little control over that.

Perhaps you are thinking of the figure on your report that said LBM - Lean Body Mass.
That is merely the opposite of FM - Fat Mass.
So everything not fat - muscle, bone, water, organs, ect.
You could have drunk a couple glasses of water and increased LBM for your Bodpod.

For diet to lose fat with as little weight as you have to go to healthy weight.
Set MFP to 1/2 lb weekly, or 250 cal deficit, and use the program correctly.
Be honest with non-exercise daily activity level.
Be honest with logging exercise and eating back a healthy portion of strong workout calories to maintain the 250 deficit.

Have you Googled anything like Be Your Own Gym, or body weight exercises.

Lean59man

When you honestly look at yourself in the mirror do you think you are too fat or not?

If so, then lose some weight using the app. Maybe 5-10 lbs or so and then see how you look.

As far as exercise with just your bodyweight do pushups of various types, squats and lunges.

Get a pullup bar and work at that too.

Squat, push, pull is the plan. Very simple.

sgt1372

FWIW, the BodPod is one of the least accurate and reliable methods for measuring BF.

See: https://weightology.net/the-pitfalls-of-body-fat-measurement-part-3-bod-pod/

BMI doesn't specifically measure BF and isn't necessarily more accurate but at 5'11"and 164#, your BMI is 22.9 which in the "normal" range.

Also, just on an intuitive level, I don't think it's likely that at almost 6' and 164# you'd only have 104# of LBM and carry the rest of the 60# in fat.

So, a BF of 37% seems really out of line and I'd suggest that you ask for a free retest or better yet a DXA scan or hydrostatic test instead.