Am I losing too fast? WHAT am I losing?

rsalty

About a month ago I picked a goal of dropping from 30% body fat (electronic scale reading) to 15%, and try to build enough muscle to give the resulting body some texture, with a deadline of Christmas (when my girlfriend might be back in the country). Starting from 200lbs, a bit of calculation suggested that I needed to lose at least 30lbs of fat. End weight... who knows, depends on muscle mass at that point, right?

So I started with the basics: a lot more fruits and veggies (yeay summer dieting!), sugar/simple carb avoidance, and biking to work (6mi each way). I've added a 3 mile or so walk to a grocery store for lunch each day (usually 2oz meat from the deli counter, a roll, and a melon). And a little strength training (push ups, rows, inverted rows, reverse crunches, russian twists, and so on, but no squats since traffic requires so many bicycle sprints), and a bit of stretching to counteract the loss of range of motion from bicycling.

I'm now pushing myself to eat at least 100g protein, and trying for 200g, and I'm making certain that I get at least 1200 calories on really bad days and 1500 to 1700 normally - but it usually makes me feel uncomfortably full, I was eating less for the first couple of weeks. At this point, I seem to be losing nearly a pound a day, and I'm concerned about this. Is there a delay between eating more and slowing weight gain? With exercise included, I think I have a deficit maxing at about 1,500 calories, but that doesn't get me anywhere near to one pound of fat. It is pretty close to losing one pound of muscle though (1550 calories/lb). The scale I used at the start now shows me at 27% body fat, so by that I might be losing 50:50 fat and muscle.

As for strength, I have definitely improved my cycling endurance, number of push ups (and can now do a diamond push up, which I couldn't before), can do more reps on all the rest, and have started using weights on the twists to keep the challenge level even. No tremendous improvement, but still a gradual improvement.

Any clue where I'm likely to have made an error? I can't reconcile the fitness level with the numbers that suggest I might be burning just muscle mass.

Hints? Suggestions? Are there others in a similar situation?

PikaKnight

A guy's calorie goals should be 1500 not 1200 - as a minimum.

For 30lbs, you need to change to either 1lb/week loss or 0.5lb/week loss. The closer to goal, the longer and harder it will be to lose. Also make sure you are picking the right activity level. Creating too large a deficit is counterproductive.

Once this is set, also make sure you are eating back a majority if not all your exercise calories back. This is how MFP is designed. The formula can be found on the Goals Page.

As for strength training...look into AllPros, Starting Strength, and Stronglifts to get a better idea on exercises, reps, etc.

If you aren't using a food scale to measure your food...get one ASAP. It is one of the best and most important investments you'll make.

Log EVERYTHING and log EVERYDAY. Wait 4-6 weeks and then adjust if need be.

deksgrl

You want a smaller calorie deficit in order to preserve muscle mass.

bajoyba

I agree with the others.
In the beginning, you will lose water weight, which can look on the scale as if a lot of weight is coming off quickly. However, if you're eating at too large a deficit, you greatly increase your chances of losing more muscle mass along with fat, which will not give you the body you want.

Aim to lose a pound a week and eat accordingly. Plug all of your info into MFP, eat that calorie goal every day, and eat back at least half of your exercise calories.

rsalty

Thanks for the feedback. I may have to try to find time to add another meal, because I honestly can't imagine eating more at one sitting. As it is I'm feeling stuffed for a half hour to an hour afterwards, and breakfast is already so large that I have to make certain that I have an hour afterwards to digest before biking in to work. (Didn't do the waiting one day after pushing for a bigger meal: not making *that* mistake again.) Eating so way more eggs, ham, fish and other animal proteins turns out to be fairly hard to adapt to. But by the numbers it appears that I need something like that.

@Joy : 1200 is for *bad* days, where I hit the evening, enter the food, and discover that I'm only at 800 or so... so I stuff myself as effectively as I can. (I've even considered the Big Mac and fries option, but.... is ewww! a valid reason to pass up "the remaining calories you need in one sitting"?) My real target is still reaching BMR+exercise for my total lean mass, but lean mass only. (i.e. feed everything but the fat) - I haven't quite figured out how to put that as a goal in this system though.

@bajoyba: I hadn't considered that there might be a background water weight loss. That could explain the inconsistencies between the measurements. Thank you!

Thanks to you all!

Now onward to finding that 40" waist.... it's under here somewhere!

deksgrl

There are a lot of ways to add calories to your meals without adding a lot of volume of food. Cook your eggs in olive oil, add it to your vegetables and salads. Add seeds and nuts to your salads. Hard boiled eggs. A good handful of raw almonds is 200 calories. Also, do not use "low fat" anything. It's not necessary.

You do realize that 1200 calories is insanely unhealthy for a man? There is no way you are getting the amount of nutrients your body needs.

RM10003

@Joy : 1200 is for *bad* days, where I hit the evening, enter the food, and discover that I'm only at 800 or so... so I stuff myself as effectively as I can. (I've even considered the Big Mac and fries option, but.... is ewww! a valid reason to pass up "the remaining calories you need in one sitting"?) My real target is still reaching BMR+exercise for my total lean mass, but lean mass only. (i.e. feed everything but the fat) - I haven't quite figured out how to put that as a goal in this system though.

Have you tried planning out your meals in advance, rather than waiting until evening, entering, and being surprised?
I find it's much easier to hit my calorie and macro goals that way.

It also sounds to me like your lunches could use some fine tuning to better meet your nutrition goals--are you really eating a whole melon? If you're really trying to hit that much protein today, I think it would make more sense to eat more protein there, and perhaps less fruit. I love fruit and eat a lot of it in the summer, but my "a lot" would be 2 cups of cantaloupe, not a full one.

rsalty

Planning meals would make it easier, but has been a significant failure point for me in the past. So I put some effort into finding healthier foods that appealed to me this summer, and now I'm finding myself again on a wrong side of caloric balance, but the other way. And a lot of the higher calorie foods that I used to enjoy have just stopped tasting as good, so I'm swimming a little bit there. At the same time, trying to eat more protein (the classic one gram per pound) has made me so averse to it that I actually find myself craving veggies even more. *sigh*

And no, I don't eat a whole melon at lunch, just a half. It's become a treat for putting up with a high complex carb and high protein breakfast. No more fruit, toast, and coffee breakfasts. : (

I'll keep measuring body fat (slowly dropping), and will make a more severe eat-more adjustment if I see that the percentage starts to rise. And I expect that I'll have to do a muscle building phase before going to maintenance to rebuild the lean mass (and after that, No More Tuna Ever Again!). Since the original post and feedback, I am gradually creating a new habit of a high water and protein, with natural sugars definitely allowed, snack right after exercise (well, exercise over 250 cal or so), so that's helping some.

I'm also going to give it a bit more time to balance out. I realized today that I am still building the commuter muscles (biking 6mi to/from work), and the level of workout may be suppressing my appetite still. If that's the case, I should plateau soon with a more efficient body, higher appetite, and closer to a sustainable calorie balance.

Thanks for the help. Onward!

deksgrl

I'll keep measuring body fat (slowly dropping), and will make a more severe eat-more adjustment if I see that the percentage starts to rise. And I expect that I'll have to do a muscle building phase before going to maintenance to rebuild the lean mass (and after that, No More Tuna Ever Again!). Since the original post and feedback, I am gradually creating a new habit of a high water and protein, with natural sugars definitely allowed, snack right after exercise (well, exercise over 250 cal or so), so that's helping some.

Your body fat isn't going to stop dropping or go up if you are eating at a calorie deficit. The problem is, on too severe of a calorie deficit, you are losing too much muscle mass. This is not what you want. You need to preserve your lean body mass while losing the fat. The muscle is more metabolically active and will burn more calories than fat, so you want to keep as much of it as possible, in addition to how it is going to look when you burn the fat off but have no muscle underneath.

It is incredibly backwards to burn up all of your muscle and then want to bulk, when you can so easily just eat more and preserve your muscle and not have to do that. You are just prolonging the time to get your ideal body. Really inefficient. If you can't eat enough food now to retain the muscle, then how in heck are you going to eat enough to bulk?

My real target is still reaching BMR+exercise for my total lean mass, but lean mass only. (i.e. feed everything but the fat) - I haven't quite figured out how to put that as a goal in this system though.

This is not a smart plan. Why? Because it gives you a ridiculously low calorie intake, and we have already determined that this is a bad thing.

Also, your body isn't differentiating "feeding the fat" versus "feeding lean mass". Your body processes are a lot more complex than that. You need to feed it enough so that all of your hormonal systems are working properly, this is actually what controls energy balance and storage or burning of fat. When you are not eating enough, and putting demands of exercise on your body, this creates an excess of cortisol, a stress hormone. This is unhealthy, it is the cause of many diseases and problems if the exposure is long term, AND it prevents fat loss.

Turnaround2012

Hi - I am similar to you in that I started at 205 lbs and about 32% bodyfat. I want to also get to about 15% bodyfat eventually. I used to eat 1200-1300 calories to lose weight and I gained it all back. Like you I am very aware of lean body mass. I am just starting on this journey and I am trying to eat more. So far I have lost body fat and preserved my lean body mass.. but the process is slow.. but I don't mind.

Here are some of my thoughts... just so you can get another opinion:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1071235-if-i-did-not-lose-a-singlelb-kg-stone-i-would-be-happy

QuilterInVA

You can add a lot of protein with protein shakes and they won't fill you too much. I have one every morning for breakfast. Get the powder and mix it with 8 ounces of water or milk, add some fruit if you want a smoothie. Get the good stuff for muscle building.