super confused! Please help/second opinion needed

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  • Jim_Barteck
    Jim_Barteck Posts: 274 Member
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    There's almost no way your LBM is 160 lbs.

    I'm not the bulkiest guy in the world by any means, but I'm currently 5'10" with an LBM of 158 lbs. I would sincerely doubt that you're carrying more muscle weight than I am.

    I would say that your trainer has no clue what he's talking about, and you should find someone else to measure it for you. You can even spend about $35 to get a basic scale which will estimate your body fat and lean body mass for you. It's clearly going to do a better job than your trainer did.

    Your goal is obviously to lose weight. That's going to mean:

    1) Maintaining a calorie deficit with your diet. I would recommend using the MFP goals with "1 lb/week" as an initial setting.
    2) Mostly cardio workouts. Your priority has to be burning calories at this point.
    3) Some resistance training. You'll want to avoid losing muscle mass in the process - which a combination of low protein, overly rapid weight loss, and lack of resistance training can cause.

    As you get closer to your goal weight, you'll switch from majority cardio to majority resistance training. But that time isn't today :)
  • Mr_Knight
    Mr_Knight Posts: 9,532 Member
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    I'm female, 5 feet 10. 231lb. Goal end weight range 145-160lb. Today my fitness trainer did my measurements for the first time and it turned out my Lean Body mass is already 156lb, and so he suggests that i should shoot for 190lb instead, which is honestly depressing and demotivating.

    He's doing it wrong. Very very wrong. That's more LBM than a 6'1 185 pound man at 15% body fat.

    Fire him and get somebody competent and with a bit of common sense.


    Yeah....unless shes a former IFBB pro I'd be skeptical about those numbers, lol.
    What i am saying is can you explain to me your skepticism about my numbers? Do you have a reliable formula i can u recrunchthe #s on my own for better accuracy.

    I gave an example of what 160-ish pounds of LBM generally looks like - 6'1" male, 185 pounds, 15% body fat. That ain't you. :smile:

    Your original goal of 160 is extremely reasonable - my suggestion is to stay on that track. Count your calories, do your cardio, get some resistance training into the mix.

    You can totally rock this! :drinker:
  • siddhartha0782
    siddhartha0782 Posts: 13 Member
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    Thanks to everyone who contributed to this discussion, helping me sort it out. I will have to learn to love cardio, gotcha, but stick with the weights too.
    Once i get to 190lb, i'll post a pic of me here to see if people think i'm still overweight-looking.
  • siddhartha0782
    siddhartha0782 Posts: 13 Member
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    Quick update: got caliper measurements #s from the trainer: bicep 6, tricep 14, subscapula 24, iliac 25. Recrunched the #s. Looks like his 156 LBM number was correct after all.
    A question arises: is it possible to drop significant lean body mass without losing too much strength? Can it be done in a healthy way?
  • deluxmary2000
    deluxmary2000 Posts: 981 Member
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    You might want to give this website a try:

    http://whatwillilooklike.com/#1rulb0

    You're tall. 5'10". At 190 lbs.... you're gonna look good.
    How do you know that? I'm taller and weigh less and I look fluffy.
  • LoneWolfRunner
    LoneWolfRunner Posts: 1,160 Member
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    I would ditch the trainer...losing some muscle mass and strength for a more svelte appearance seems to be a reasonable trade-off... but what do I know... I run ultras and do insane amounts of cardio
  • LoneWolfRunner
    LoneWolfRunner Posts: 1,160 Member
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    How do you know that? I'm taller and weigh less and I look fluffy.

    Lol.... you don't look fluffy to me....
  • Azdak
    Azdak Posts: 8,281 Member
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    I'm female, 5 feet 10. 231lb. Goal end weight range 145-160lb. Today my fitness trainer did my measurements for the first time and it turned out my Lean Body mass is already 156lb, and so he suggests that i should shoot for 190lb instead, which is honestly depressing and demotivating.

    He's doing it wrong. Very very wrong. That's more LBM than a 6'1 185 pound man at 15% body fat.

    Fire him and get somebody competent and with a bit of common sense.

    This. It's likely a totally bogus number. One of my pet peeves is fitness people and "trainers" just reading off numbers w/out actually looking at the person standing in front of them to see if they make sense, or who have such a shallow knowledge base that they don't even realize when a number is well outside the range of reality.
  • Azdak
    Azdak Posts: 8,281 Member
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    I'm female, 5 feet 10. 231lb. Goal end weight range 145-160lb. Today my fitness trainer did my measurements for the first time and it turned out my Lean Body mass is already 156lb, and so he suggests that i should shoot for 190lb instead, which is honestly depressing and demotivating.

    He's doing it wrong. Very very wrong. That's more LBM than a 6'1 185 pound man at 15% body fat.

    Fire him and get somebody competent and with a bit of common sense.


    Yeah....unless shes a former IFBB pro I'd be skeptical about those numbers, lol.
    What i am saying is can you explain to me your skepticism about my numbers? Do you have a reliable formula i can u recrunchthe #s on my own for better accuracy.

    There is no formula. I know it's BS because I've done over 10,000 body fat measurements over the past 30 years.

    Lean body mass is not measured directly unless you have very sophisticated equipment. What is being measured/estimated is body fat %. Scale weight is multiplied by BF % to calculate fat lbs. Then fat lbs are subtracted from scale weight to estimate LBM. So if have body fat measurement gets screwed up (which it did in your case), it throws off the other numbers as well. Any fitness professional with a modicum of training and ounce of common sense would have known instantly that something was way off and remeasured or asked addl ??? --like how did you look/feel when you weighed 190 or 167 before? Someone 5'10" tall is going to have a LBM in the 105-112 range for an average frame with average muscle. The only woman I ever saw even close to a LBM in the 140s was a 6'2" Div I volleyball player with legs like tree trunks.
  • Iron_Feline
    Iron_Feline Posts: 10,750 Member
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    Quick update: got caliper measurements #s from the trainer: bicep 6, tricep 14, subscapula 24, iliac 25. Recrunched the #s. Looks like his 156 LBM number was correct after all.
    A question arises: is it possible to drop significant lean body mass without losing too much strength? Can it be done in a healthy way?

    No - he wasn't correct. Seriously.

    Just because those are the calliper number's he got doesn't mean he took them correctly. 156lbs is an insane amount of LBM for a woman with no history of serious weight training. Did you use to be a body builder?

    Listen to the people on here - do a full body strength training routine to keep what muscle you actually do have, do some cardio, have a moderate deficit and decent protein. Re-assess when you get to 190lbs

    DO NOT try to lose LBM now - you do NOT know that you have 156lbs of it and if you don't losing some could mean even at 160lbs you look fluffy.

    Wait until you get closer to your goal weight before doing something so drastic. Odds are you'll lose a little LBM anyway - don't help, you want to keep as much as possible. :flowerforyou:
  • MeanderingMammal
    MeanderingMammal Posts: 7,866 Member
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    is it possible to drop significant lean body mass without losing too much strength? Can it be done in a healthy way?

    As you lose weight the loss will be from a combination of lean mass, fat and other tissue. Assuming no training then you have no control over how that'll balance out.

    Resistance training will help mitigate the loss of lean mass, and some forms of CV training will have an impact on retaining lean mass in some areas, although generally less efficienctly. contrary to the broscience, CV work doesn't eat your muscles, but it tends to be so targetted that you'll see disproportionate loss elsewhere.

    Eat at a reasonable deficit, do a combination of CV and resistance training, and keep track on your progress, pick some metrics that are meaningful to you. As you lose you can rebalance the volume of CV and resistance training that you do to meet your objectives.

    fwiw I agree with others, if you have no history of training I would be very surprised about the mass you think you're at.
  • WombatHat42
    WombatHat42 Posts: 192 Member
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    Quick update: got caliper measurements #s from the trainer: bicep 6, tricep 14, subscapula 24, iliac 25. Recrunched the #s. Looks like his 156 LBM number was correct after all.
    A question arises: is it possible to drop significant lean body mass without losing too much strength? Can it be done in a healthy way?

    The issue with calipers is they depend on your hydration plus they arent the most accurate form anyways. Check with a local university to see if their athletic department/sports science department has a bod pod test(one of the most accurate ways to test). Mine does and for the public it is $40, students 20 so it isnt terribly bad either way
  • MKEgal
    MKEgal Posts: 3,250 Member
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    Ditch that trainer, and if he claims to be certified by anyone I'd drop a line to that group, because he's giving you bad advice.
    If you want to find someone with good information, education, etc., try here:
    You can search for people in your area who are certified by the American College of Sports Medicine:
    http://members.acsm.org/source/custom/Online_locator/OnlineLocator.cfm


    According to BMI, at your height you should be between 130 and 170 to be in a healthy weight range.
    http://www.shapeup.org/bmi/bmi6.pdf

    For now, aim for 170. That means eating 1700 calories or less (no less than 1200!!) every day, because controlling calorie intake is the biggest part of losing weight.
    "Most weight loss occurs because of decreased caloric intake.
    However, evidence shows the only way to maintain weight loss is to be engaged in regular physical activity."
    http://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/physical_activity/index.html

    Since you're currently eating 2300 to maintain your weight, that means you'll have a deficit of about 700 cal, losing a bit over a pound a week just by controlling diet. As you keep eating the same amount & get closer to your weight goal, your rate of weight loss will slow, which is normal, fine, good, expected, etc.


    Think of exercise as an extra, a bonus toward losing weight. Don't eat back exercise calories.

    Cardio is the most effective way to burn calories. According to the CDC, you should do at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise a week... go for a brisk walk for 30 minutes after dinner every night. More would be better in terms of calorie burn, but don't go nuts & burn yourself out.

    Weightlifting will shape the muscles & preserve what muscle mass you have (probably not the 156 lb your trainer claims), so as you lose the fat your shapely firm muscles will start showing, and you'll look fabulous.
    Preserving or increasing muscle mass also helps your metabolism, because even at rest muscle is more metabolically active.

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