Long-term rearrangement of body composition (MFP 1.5+ years)

atrgemini

I just recently hit an all-time high for lean muscle mass - 185 pounds, right before the new year!

How's everyone else doing? I was on reddit this morning and saw a post from a man that's been doing keto for 2+ years and it was insane; this guy was totally not recognizable in his before and after photos.

How does MFP continue to teach you better habits? I find that I don't use it as often to log meals anymore because my focus has shifted to increased muscle mass and I have a better idea now of how to ballpark meals, but I've been consistently doing 20/4 fasting M-F for the last 1.5 years, sans Sundays. The week before the new year I started using it to log meals again, just because I'm doing a 1.5 month cut to try and get my fat pounds down to 30ish. One thing I've started doing, too, is one 72 hour fast every quarter. It's exhausting on days 1 and 3, but day 2 is usually excellent because of the ketone rush. It's a quick and dirty way to achieve fat loss but at the cost of muscle - for example, I just ended one that saw 10 pounds shed (229 to 219): 4 pounds water loss, 3.1 pounds muscle loss, and 2.9 pounds fat loss.

It's a really great strategy for entering ketosis and I find it helps to fuel fat burn when you break your fast. I will note that my fasts are medically supervised by a licensed physician. and you should never do it without first consulting a doctor.

When I first started my journey, I cut 85 pounds in 9 months through intense and extended cardiovascular exercises and with the help of MFP. Although I've shifted my focus to building muscle, MFP still helps me to keep the fat distribution in check.

Sometimes I wonder if this strategy is best, when I get in my head about my stomach. That's been the one thing that I can't get rid of through-out all of this, and I know I have abs underneath because I can feel them. I just wish I could shrink my stomach more, as it's been the only thing I haven't been able to make much progress on. I think when I first started, my waist-line was 48", and over a 50% reduction in body fat composition has only seen it drop to 43". I'm trying something different, now, and I've completely cut alcohol from my diet in hopes that my skin regains some elasticity and things start to shrink more. I read somewhere that alcohol calories (empty) deposit in your stomach because its the path of least resistance.

MFP continues to keep me in check by not wasting the extra calories I've gained back from sobriety.

GaryRuns

atrgemini wrote: »

I read somewhere that alcohol calories (empty) deposit in your stomach because its the path of least resistance.

I'm unaware of any scientific research that shows that your body cares where a calorie comes from and thus stores it differently. I find it hard to believe that would be the case. I'd definitely have to see some science showing that.

The scientific consensus is that where your body preferentially stores fat is determined by your genes. In general, men store it around their gut first and lose it there last.

I will say that it may surprise some people to know that alcohol is pretty calorie dense, 7 calories per gram. Anyone trying to lose fat and not including their alcohol consumption will likely be disappointed.