How do I tell if I need to lose weight or just recomp?

sparklefrogz

Quick background: was very active as a child, in fact was slightly underweight when I first left home (5'8" and 120 lb). Cooking for myself quickly changed that and I eventually got up to 220 lb and stayed there for close to a decade. Over the last 2 years I have got down to 155 lb simply by changing what I eat -- I haven't had to track calories or be concerned with exercise at all up to this point.

Various tape measure formulas put my body fat at ~26% right now. My progress pics show I clearly have some fat hanging around, which I'd like to get rid of and replace with some muscle for a more athletic, "toned" look. If I look at the visual estimator at www.builtlean.com/2012/09/24/body-fat-percentage-men-women/ I want to look somewhat like the woman pictured for 20-22% range. (The 15-17% one looks nice but I'm not really interested in amenorrhea...)

I'm just not sure if getting the look I'm after will actually require weight loss for me, since I'm only wanting to shave off about 10 lb of existing fat and build some stronger muscles.

How do I know if I should be aiming to lose weight, or just recomp? Did I miss a thread in the stickies that discusses this? (I tried to go through them all, but there is a lot of info.)

(P.S. Apologies for this being my very first post. The main MFP boards are rather intimidating and the advice given there is as varied as the posters...I prefer something a little more coherent.)

heybales

Here's a calculator that will show you a list of what is considered healthy weight ranges.
www.cordianet.com/calculator.htm

You can also do some research on common trusted medical sites regarding healthy weight ranges. Ones that use height, gender, and wrist size are nice.
Or base it on where you currently are at.
http://www.builtlean.com/2010/05/04/ideal-body-weight-formula-how-to-calculate-your-ideal-weight/

Sounds like you've kind of answered your question though as to actually losing weight, as opposed to just losing fat.
You felt 120 was underweight.
You know you want to lose fat.
You know you want to gain some muscle.

That's going to require a progressive overload weight lifting routine so body feels the need to build some muscle. If you keep eating at maintenance (no weight change), fat will be slowly burned to accomplish that.

That can work great at the start of lifting as newbie, and in fact the only time you'll get that great bang for your workout buck.
Later you'd need to actually do some bulk and cut if you didn't want it painfully slow of a change.

sparklefrogz

Thanks for the links heybales. I think ideally I want to be around 140-145 lb, especially when I compare the builtlean.com results with cordianet.com's.

When you say that eating at maintenance will "slowly burn fat", how slow are you talking? I'm not in any rush, but I am curious.

I have not lifted weights before (that's more my husband's thing), but I was very involved in gymnastics when I was younger and would find a progressive bodyweight routine enjoyable and sustainable, in addition to the regular walking and hiking I do.

Is there a consensus in this group about the pros and cons of free weight vs bodyweight exercises?

heybales

Since to gain muscle you have to overload it with weight, not endurance, weight must be high enough for short amount of reps, from 5 to 12, maybe 15 max, that you are close to failure in doing a set.

You'll soon find bodyweight doesn't accomplish that, though you could start out with it.

Here is study of males - so genetic and hormonal advantage. Eating at maintenance, and lifting in new areas compared to their existing athletics.
3.6 lbs in 16 weeks loss of fat, gain of LBM, and no weight change. They sadly didn't measure for muscle mass specifically, so some of that 3.6 was, just not known.

And that's why bulk and cut is preferred for efficiency of time, not that slow. With a full burning metabolism and still using the muscle, you can drop 4 lbs in 2 weeks. And then go back to maintenance so no problems going too long. And see how much more you think you need to cut.

But starting out lifting you would need to reach the max your muscle can do first, no need to do that eating in surplus since you can do it even in deficit.

sparklefrogz

Thanks for additional info heybales. I would be looking at a progressive bodyweight routine just like I would with weights -- something like Convict Conditioning, Mark Lauren's stuff, or startbodyweight.com. Personally I'd find 100 pushups boring. If you can do 15-20, it's clearly time to move up to decline, one handed, etc. etc. Obviously you still will hit a plateau eventually and need to add external weights. Given that I'm about 15-20 years out of practice, though, I suspect that would take me many months to accomplish.

What I'm gathering from the reading I've been doing here and elsewhere is that I should, first, keep my intake and exercise steady for the next couple weeks so I have a full month's worth of actual data to work with to determine my real TDEE. Then, do a cut on TDEE - 20% calories for about a month and monitor the results. Adjust calorie intake as needed based on actual lost weight, and see if I'm happy with how I look at the end of it (145 lb or so) and whether I want to do a bulk to gain muscle afterwards. Exercise wise I should be doing progressive strength training throughout to maintain my LBM. Does this sound about right?

Thanks again for your help.

CynthiaT60

Also thanks for the link, Heybales. The formula gives me an ideal weight just slightly below the BMI method. (Grr. )

heybales

With as little as you want to lose, and as much as you want from the workout, 20% would be too much deficit likely.

You get better changes from the lifting the closer to surplus you are in eating. Obviously you still want to lose though, so minor deficit is better. Besides which with little to lose should be attempt to lose little weekly.

You are correct though, a solid month for a woman is needed because your BMR does change through the month.
Just don't want any changes to program just prior to the valid weigh-in data points you are going to base the math on. A false 2 lb water weight gain could really throw the math off a decent amount.

Totally forgot link to study on males.
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/778012-potential-muscle-gain-lifting-and-metabolism-improvement

sparklefrogz

With as little as you want to lose, and as much as you want from the workout, 20% would be too much deficit likely.

You get better changes from the lifting the closer to surplus you are in eating. Obviously you still want to lose though, so minor deficit is better. Besides which with little to lose should be attempt to lose little weekly.

Ah, so maybe a 15% deficit would be better instead? Or even 10%? (FWIW I seem to be maintaining on about 2000 cal/day right now, but see caveat below in third paragraph.)

Coincidentally, I'm on hormonal BC which alters my cycle. It is not monthly. Will this affect how long I need to track before making changes, since I'm assuming the BMR changes you mention are a byproduct of the hormonal adjustments that normally occur throughout a woman's cycle?

I had slipped a bit in my eating before I came here (it was the impetus for my arrival -- I knew writing it all down would make me accountable to myself) and started a 1 month long HIIT calisthenics program about a week after that. Thus I am assuming I should discard at least my first two weeks of data, since I was getting my diet on track and starting a new exercise program. (I lost a bunch of water weight the first week of diet tracking, and some corresponding inches the next week from the exercise program, but really nothing on either front since.)

Edit for clarification - I have the following for data:
Apr 23-30: getting diet back on track. First proper weigh in since last October.
May 1-7: first week of HIIT program. End of week weigh in showed 10 lb lost which was quite clearly water weight; inches also lost but not as great as the weight.
May 8-14: second week of HIIT program. Weight stable and inches lost only minor (all either the same or -0.25").
May 31: HIIT program will be done. Intend to switch over to weight program such as NROLS or similar.

Thanks again for your patience with a newb.

heybales

Sorry, I did mean to suggest 10%.

But with less to lose means less margin for error, so gotta log food accurately, or just figure that when you have result based TDEE it may be higher in reality from sloppy logging. But you remove 200 calories from sloppy logging, it's still 200 calories less and will lead to weight loss.

Correct on BMR changes. I've heard ladies who have result based TDEE report that through the month they will lose during a week and gain during a week, so the reason a goal range is more realistic than goal weight number.

Correct on effects of starting a new program (normally water retained) but starting a diet too (normally water lost).
Considering it was HIIT, or at least something big carb burning, you likely lost a whole lot of glycogen stores and water weight, and with new diet probably watched sodium more too so lost water there.
That would have slowed your metabolism too for the lost carbs, since it is LBM and water management with that requires energy.

And so 1 week too short to know. But for SS or Sara, they'll want accurate food logging, and enough time past start of new program to discern something.

sparklefrogz

Thanks for the confirm. I know I kind of did things messy, by altering both diet and exercise recently and at the same time. My plan is to finish out the HIIT program I'm doing (I started it as a challenge to myself, just to get in the habit of regular exercise), then go to a 3x/wk strength program while eating consistently at a certain calorie level (best estimate of TDEE-10%). After I've done the *same thing consistently with no changes* for 4 to 6 weeks, I should have an idea of what's happening and can make a request thread if troubleshooting is needed.

I do have a food scale and am logging everything (including condiments), and by weight. I was previously doing measuring cups until I saw the Youtube link SideSteel posted under "You're Probably Eating More than You Think"; then I smartened up. :P