What should I do from this point?

shirazum2023
shirazum2023 Posts: 54 Member
edited December 26 in Health and Weight Loss
So I got his body analysis test from the gym I got into a few weeks back and the reports are these.

I am 30F (Almost 31), 150cm
Weight : 47.4kg (104.5lbs)
BMI : 21
TBF : 31.4%
VFI : 3
TBW : 50.8
BMR : 1072 KCal/d
Fat Mass : 14.88kg (32.8lbs)
Fat Free Mass : 32.52kg (71.7lbs)

The data suggested to maintain the weight and muscle but reduce fat and increase minerals. Also the recommended daily calorie intake is 1224 KCal/day

I am not sure about the mineral part. And also how do I maintain the muscle and weight but decreasing fat?

Also 1224 KCal/day seems a little low for me.
I have a desk job. I basically am doing generative art (coding to make art) about 16/17 hours a day. And I recently started lifting weight 5 times a week, followed by a 20 minute steady state cardio in 30% incline.

I have been eating 100-125g P, 170-200 C, and 35-40 F

How should I decrease fat but maintain weight and muscle and also increase minerals (which I dont understand what it entails) and also eat 1224 KCal/day?

Replies

  • mirrim52
    mirrim52 Posts: 763 Member
    Here is a huge thread on recomposition.
    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10177803/recomposition-maintaining-weight-while-losing-fat/p1

  • nanastaci2020
    nanastaci2020 Posts: 1,072 Member
    The #s stated: 1072 BMR resulting in maintenance cals of 1224 seem low. To clarify: the maintenance cals seem low unless you are a HARDLY move throughout your day. No judgement - you do mention a desk bound job for 16-17 hours per day. If you can increase your movement ANY it will help in the long run. Under desk cycler? Standing desk? 5 minute break each hour to stretch, walk around the room?

    The macro #s you listed put you at 1395 cals per day minimum. How long have you been eating at this level, and are you maintaining or gaining? It is possible that your maintenance calories are higher. If you're a 'fidgeter' for example you would burn extra calories thru your day from that little bit of constant movement. Assessing your eating level for the past few months and your weight trend in that time is a good way figure out your maintenance calories.

    There are others (and a whole thread for it) who know their stuff about recomp. The general theory I believe is to eat at or just under maintenance, while lifting and getting plenty of protein. To build muscle, and at the same time make slow, steady progress to reduce fat.


  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,622 Member
    shirazum2023 wrote: »
    @MaltedTea this was such a helpful read. Thank you so much. I will ask my partner to take my before photos the next time he comes and maybe take photos again every 12 weeks to see progress. I think I have seen a few pinned post here about body recomposition. I will give them a read. This is such a helpful community. I am really glad to have joined here. One of the best decisions. Thank you.

    @springlering62 hehe you are amazeballs. I always get inspired by people making their lives beautiful. Also yes, I did the handlebar thingy up in the air (this had me laughing for a while haha). I have read somewhere women should have around 25g of fiber daily. I have been incorporating 100g of some kind of vegetables in my lunch and dinner. So 200g in total. Is it too much or too little? I also was diagnosed with adrenal cortical carnicoma (adrenal gland cancer) a month ago. The tumour weighs around 5lbs. So I am not sure if it counts as the fat mass or muscle mass in the body fat results. Also, there's another thing, I am going through radiotherapy, so I am losing a little bit of weight. Can not figure out if its bodyweight or the weight of the mass. So the calories I am eating is about right I feel. I do enjoy the way I am eating. I am given 3 years. And I want to live healthily and make the most out of it. Hence this health journey. Otherwise I would have been the computer nerdall my life I guess. Haha. I loved your reply. It made my day somehow. Thank you.

    Wow, you have a lot of challenges! As someone who has had a personal cancer experience, I can understand your desire to improve your health and functioning, thus improve both your survival odds and your quality of life.

    As someone who's shorter, and in a healthy weight for that height, keeping your weight stable would be the good plan, especially with recomposition goals (to increase muscle) . . . or even let your weight creep up a tiny, gradual bit if you can (that's challenging during treatment, I know).

    I'll bet *no one* knows how a tumor mass shows up in an body composition analysis like that. Frankly, those bioimpedance devices aren't super accurate anyway, so I'd take the whole thing with a grain (or bucket) of salt, even *without* a 5-pound tumor introducing more uncertainty.

    Compare the test results (BMR and estimated calorie needs) to other sources of estimates. Specifically, compare what MFP recommends to you for weight maintenance or slow increase (keeping in mind that MFP will give you a *before exercise* number, to which you can add estimated calories from a typical week's workout schedule to give you an average all-day burn number. Also compare the results from a TDEE calculator, which averages in the exercise. (For most people, those latter two results should be close, once exercise is factored in.) I like the Sailrabbit TDEE calculator, as it shows results from several different research-based estimating methods, and has clearer than average descriptions of the activity level. (https://www.sailrabbit.com/bmr/)

    Then, in your case, I'd suggest eating whichever of those "maintain your weight" estimates is LARGER. Radiation therapy is depleting. If you end up overeating by a tiny bit, there won't be major weight gain, and it may help your robustness from the treatment. However, I'm not a registered dietitian. Ask your oncology team for a referral to a registered dietitian who's familiar with cancer issues, and use that person's advice (way, way more suitable than a gym trainer's advice, especially in your case).

    Right now, the macros you mention would put you at around 1395-1660 calories. If that's the amount you've been eating, and losing slowly, for sure eat more than that.

    To get minerals, the best food sources to get a wide range of them will be veggies, fruits, whole grains, nuts, seeds, and that sort of thing. On the fruit/veggie front, varying them so you get an assortment in varied colors can be a help.

    IMO, 200g of veggies/fruit is on the low side. I recognize that you're a petite person, so your needs will be a bit less than average. Most national nutrition bodies (WHO, NHS, USDA, that sort of thing) are recommending a minimum of 5 servings daily. IMU, the UK is suggesting 10 servings daily, or considering doing so, and that would be 80g servings, so a whopping 800g (much more than most people eat, though some of us do it). So, if you can still get in some protein and healthy fats, the more veggies & fruit, the better - not just for fiber, minerals, and vitamins, but for other beneficial phytochemicals. Someone eating less than these goals should increase slowly, because sometimes going from just a little to really a lot, very suddenly, can cause digestive distress. You don't need that!

    BUT talk with your treatment team (ideally cancer registered dietitian) BEFORE taking any supplements (vitamins, minerals, etc.) or greatly increasing veggies/fruits. Some cancer treatments (including radiation therapy), IMU, work by creating oxidative damage to cancer cells. Supplements tend to be heavy on ANTI-oxidants - may not be the best choice in all scenarios, could work at cross-purposes to treatment at extremes. For sure, during treatment, I was advised NOT to mega-dose on vitamin/mineral supplements, and that is not exotic or unusual advice during treatment. Please, please, check with your team.

    On the exercise front, the recomposition thread linked above is excellent: That's how you gain muscle and lose fat while staying at a constant weight. You sound like you have a good routine going.

    My usual exercise advice is to devote an amount of time that allows for good overall life balance (leaves enough time/energy for other important things), and split it between cardio and strength. You're pretty much doing that, if life balance is good. The other part of my generic advice is to keep gradually but manageably increasing the exercise challenge as fitness improves, to keep making fitness progress but avoid becoming persistently fatigued (which bleeds activity out of daily life and just plain doesn't feel good). The "avoid fatigue" advice is even more important in your case. Exercise can help with treatment-related fatigue, but overdoing is kind of easy, and has a high fatigue penalty. What I mean by "increasing the exercise challenge" is to increase strength training workload (though some combination of increased reps, sets, weight per rep, etc.), and on the cardio front, add a bit of intensity, duration or frequency (without overdoing).

    I love your positive attitude, and I'm wishing you all the best. There's indeed research showing exercise (especially) and healthy eating to have positive influences for certain types of cancer, so I think you're on a good track. Wishing you much success!
  • B_Plus_Effort
    B_Plus_Effort Posts: 311 Member
    first of all you sound perfect, ha ha, are you eating a nice variety of foods, I would try to get all your minerals and vitamins from food, and if there is a deficiency concern ask your doctor to run some blood work, I doubt it she will even recommend it based on your exercise you seem healthy and strong, to build muscle and get the most bang for your buck look into compound exercises (ie multiple joint movements, squats are king, bicep curls are a waste of time, etc.) just eat everything in moderation, lots of green veggies, and watch your sugar intake (sodas, juices, milk, alcohol all bad) we fixate on fat in foods being bad but low fat foods use sugar as a replacement in order to preserve the taste, so it's actually better to eat the regular fat yogurt than the low fat, but good luck convincing people of that, ha ha
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,622 Member
    muszyngr wrote: »
    first of all you sound perfect, ha ha, are you eating a nice variety of foods, I would try to get all your minerals and vitamins from food, and if there is a deficiency concern ask your doctor to run some blood work, I doubt it she will even recommend it based on your exercise you seem healthy and strong, to build muscle and get the most bang for your buck look into compound exercises (ie multiple joint movements, squats are king, bicep curls are a waste of time, etc.) just eat everything in moderation, lots of green veggies, and watch your sugar intake (sodas, juices, milk, alcohol all bad) we fixate on fat in foods being bad but low fat foods use sugar as a replacement in order to preserve the taste, so it's actually better to eat the regular fat yogurt than the low fat, but good luck convincing people of that, ha ha

    Green veggies . . . and yellow/orange/red veggies . . . and purple veggies . . . and white veggies. Varied, colorful veggies. All have good things in them (vitamins, minerals, other beneficial phytochemicals such as antioxidants, fiber, and more).

    And yes, I do disagree with you about low-fat foods. Low-fat food *products* sometimes do use sugar in a quest to create so-called "hyperpalatability" at lower fat content, but that's easily seen on ingredient labels.

    My nonfat plain yogurt contains no more *added* sugar than plain full-fat yogurt, i.e. zero added sugar in both.

    There are more grams of sugar in nonfat plain yogurt (per serving of yogurt) than in full fat, but it's all sugar that the cow put there. When one takes out the fat, the other macronutrients (protein, carbohydrate such as sugar) become a proportion of each serving, because arithmetic. This is in no way harmful or deceptive.

    Personally, I prefer to eat nonfat yogurt, and get my fats from foods that give me more pleasure - such as nuts, seeds, avocados, etc. - than would that extra fat in my yogurt. There are many people whose food preferences cut the other way, i.e., they enjoy full-fat yogurt more than I do. Either of those taste-preferences can be associated with good overall nutrition, and with low intake of added sugar, if those things are among a person's goals.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    springlering62 wrote: »
    Embarrassingly rude and inconsequential detour from serious matter....

    You have a pet raccoon?!!!!!

    That is so freaking awesome!

    Dad was bad to drink and even worse for getting fixations. One time he was absolutely determined to have a pet crow. He dragged me out in the woods and we must have cut half a dozen large trees trying to get to a nest, but the trees kept falling on one another. A case of Pabst later and the nest was finally at arms reach.

    Two terrified field mice ran out.

    He would have been beside himself with joy over a pet raccoon.

    He and mom used to leave leftovers on the porch for the raccoons. One night they left a few stale Krispy Kremes out. Middle of the night they heard someone knocking on the door. They get up to investigate, and two raccoons were banging on the door and motioning at the empty plate for more.

    We won’t talk about how he used to feed the pony cans of beer, and claim to the unamused neighbors (yep, we were in a subdivision) that he was feeding his very large dog liquid hay.

    My family would have provided lots of fodder for Jeff Foxworthy.

    I've always wanted a pet raccoon. We "walk" our cat - last time I tracked him he did 0.7 mile in an hour. My OH holds the leash and I bring clippers and work on the trail. Now I'm curious as to how a raccoon walks as compared to a dog.

    When I lived in upstate New York we had a pet crow for a while. We eventually learned that a neighbor had (illegally) taken an egg from a nest and later clipped her wings. But she was still able to flutter into our yard. One housemate bonded with her, but when this housemate moved away, the feathers had grown back and the crow moved on as well.

    I learned her history when I asked a butcher for "meat scraps for my crow" and he happened to know the whole story.
  • shirazum2023
    shirazum2023 Posts: 54 Member
    @springlering62 @kshama2001 my racoon is just a unit himself. Keeps me occupied a lot. Its a lot of work for him alone. The cats are cool. They are more independent and dont really make my life a complete hell. But I love Sunchip, my racoon. He was rescued from a situation and have been with me ever since. He has become calmer since neutering that I can tell. About if racoons walk like dogs, haha, I guess my racoon is very lazy when it comes to walking and is afraid of any new noise. Its one step forward, two steps backward kind of situation always. Someone once suggested to keep him in cage at night but I couldn’t bear to do it and now I am awake in the middle of night because my cats and him chose to declare war against each other which always happens almost every few days in a week.
    My grandparents have their farms and I spent a good amount of my life there. I guess tending to animals have been meditative for me from an early age. All thanks to them.
    I have seen a few people having their pet crows, not like they keep them inside. But feed them twice. I have this bird feeder which works as my cat's entertainment source but I have never seen a crow coming in for it. Its all the smaller birds. Crows are so elegant.
    I once fostered a few ferrets and I wanted to keep them but the racoon was too aggressive while playing with them and I couldn’t afford that much time to always keep an eye on all of them. Cats are clever. They dodge the racoon in a jiffy. They are actually the kings of the house.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    When I lived in South Florida there were a lot of stray cats that lived in the bushes by parking lots for the beaches. People used to feed them. The raccoons discovered this food source as well. It was fascinating to watch two species of crepuscular and nocturnal animals hanging out together during the day.

    Sounds like raccoons walk like cats :) Mine gets startled when we snap twigs or throw brush around, and really freaked out when we spooked two ducks in the brook who made a lot of noise as they flew off.

    Yesterday he did a mile in an hour - a record for him!
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,622 Member
    shirazum2023 wrote: »
    @AnnPT77 @springlering62 @nanastaci2020 @muszyngr Hello, I just wanted to update you guys that I had an elaborate session with the team and the dietician, and unfortunately I am not allowed to have that much of protein. The tumour has metastased pretty rapidly to a few organs and my kidney function is quite derailed. So I have to tweak the macros. I also was suggested to eat more and not lose anymore weight as it might burn me out from the radiotherapy sessions as I should expect to lose quite a few pounds from that alone.

    But the good news is they found that resistance training has made improvement in not only my muscle mass but also hormones level which is phenomenal because Adrenal Cortical Carnicoma has its most effect on hormones. So victory with a slight bump. Regardless I am very happy. I am allowed to continue my resistance training with the cardio after sessions. The team also was pretty surprised with the bodyfat analysis and they recommended a place for Dexa scan which I am going to think through as Dexa scan is notoriously expensive in UK. I will look into if there's any alternative to it (not that its necessary)

    I just had to thank you guys again. Cancer probably has made me more appreciative of all things in life. Thank you a lot.

    @shirazum2023, thank you for the update. I'm so glad you got customized advice from your team, and that it differs from nutritional info for generic population people underscores the importance of listening to experts, not random people on the internet (especially when in special circumstances like yours).

    Good news, the progress you've made on muscle mass and hormone levels, and that you get to continue the workouts that are paying off so well for you.

    Wishing you all the best going forward!
  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 8,686 Member
    I sincerely hope you’ll continue updating us, so we can cheer you on. 😘
  • shirazum2023
    shirazum2023 Posts: 54 Member
    edited November 2020
    @springlering62 @AnnPT77 Hey guys, I hope you are doing splendid. It has been around 9 to 10 days and I wanted to update you. Despite eating 1876 (median of the last 7 days) calories, I have lost more than 1.5 lbs (0.7 kilos to be exact) in the last week. Making it a total of 5 lbs (2.3 kilos) in the last 19 days. (Doesn't add the math, so much of deficit, how?)
    I am very small. 58.5/59 inches, 149/150 cm, and now 98.5 lbs. According to various TDEE calculators, my intake should be around 1290-1380 calories. Assuming I am working out 5 days a week, walking 10000 intentional steps on rest days and maybe my neat is slightly higher since I have pets and I fidget, do you think I should increase 100-200 calories more? Extra oil, cheese or maybe peanut butter sandwich?

    Also funny thing, I have abs for the first time in life. Upper abs. :# But I look like a stick figure now :D
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,622 Member
    shirazum2023 wrote: »
    @springlering62 @AnnPT77 Hey guys, I hope you are doing splendid. It has been around 9 to 10 days and I wanted to update you. Despite eating 1876 (median of the last 7 days) calories, I have lost more than 1.5 lbs (0.7 kilos to be exact) in the last week. Making it a total of 5 lbs (2.3 kilos) in the last 19 days. (Doesn't add the math, so much of deficit, how?)
    I am very small. 58.5/59 inches, 149/150 cm, and now 98.5 lbs. According to various TDEE calculators, my intake should be around 1290-1380 calories. Assuming I am working out 5 days a week, walking 10000 intentional steps on rest days and maybe my neat is slightly higher since I have pets and I fidget, do you think I should increase 100-200 calories more? Extra oil, cheese or maybe peanut butter sandwich?

    Also funny thing, I have abs for the first time in life. Upper abs. :# But I look like a stick figure now :D

    It's really too short a period to be certain, but 5 pounds in 19 days implies a 921 calorie daily deficit. (5 pounds X roughly 3500 calories per pound, divided by 19 days = 921.)

    Given the totality of your goals and situation, I'd suggest increasing your calories *at least* 200 calories more, and 500 more daily probably wouldn't be unreasonable.

    Yes, add calorie dense, easy to eat (not excessively filling) but nutritious things would be good. Nuts, nut butters, full fat versions of anything lowfat/nonfat you're eating now (yogurt, cheese, whatever), seeds, avocados, that sort of thing. If you can add them without feeling over-full, whole grains, starchy vegetables, sweet/caloric fruits. Beyond that, oils (olive oil, nut oils, etc.), richer sauces or dressings/condiments, etc.

    Please keep your treatment team apprised that you're losing weight pretty fast, and take any advice they have about that.
  • Noreenmarie1234
    Noreenmarie1234 Posts: 7,492 Member
    edited November 2020
    shirazum2023 wrote: »
    @springlering62 @AnnPT77 Hey guys, I hope you are doing splendid. It has been around 9 to 10 days and I wanted to update you. Despite eating 1876 (median of the last 7 days) calories, I have lost more than 1.5 lbs (0.7 kilos to be exact) in the last week. Making it a total of 5 lbs (2.3 kilos) in the last 19 days. (Doesn't add the math, so much of deficit, how?)
    I am very small. 58.5/59 inches, 149/150 cm, and now 98.5 lbs. According to various TDEE calculators, my intake should be around 1290-1380 calories. Assuming I am working out 5 days a week, walking 10000 intentional steps on rest days and maybe my neat is slightly higher since I have pets and I fidget, do you think I should increase 100-200 calories more? Extra oil, cheese or maybe peanut butter sandwich?

    Also funny thing, I have abs for the first time in life. Upper abs. :# But I look like a stick figure now :D

    if you keep losing you need to add calories. I agree with Ann, I would add 500 per day and stick to it for a few weeks making sure there was no further decrease. You may see an increase in weight a day or two after increasing, but the immediate increase is just water weight due to extra glycogen stores and increased food in your system. Even if you were at maintenance (which you aren't) adding an extra 500 calories would only be a gain of 1lb a week.
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