Losing weight but not Body Fat %

Tilran

Anyone else running into this issue? Little background:

I'm a 5'8 Male and I started at 201 pounds. I am currently at 170 pounds with about 10 more pounds to go...or so I thought.

At 201 pounds I was about 30% BF according to a BodPod assesment.
At 190 pounds I was about 22% BF according to a Bioimpedence hand held at the gym.
At 180 pounds I was about 18.5% BF according to Bioimpedence hand held at the gym.
At 176 pounds I was about 24% BF according to a BodPod assesment.
Currently at 170 pounds I am 18% BF according to a Bioimpedence hand held at the gym.


I do the handheld everytime I go to the gym to track change or variations and its always within .5% up or down. I always do it right as I get to the gym to avoid mixing up variables in the test.
I go to the gym 5 days a week with a 3 day lift split for chest/arms, back/shoulder, legs/abs and then Yoga 1 day and Volleyball on the 5th day....If its an energetic week I may do a 6th day. I eat within 10% or so of my LBM (Or what I think is my LBM) in protein every day. I eat on average a net of 1700 calories and lose about .75 pounds per week.

Can anyone help me understand why I would drop weight but not BF%?

Could I really be losing muscle the same rate I'm losing fat even with all the work outs I'm doing? I find that hard to believe.

I was on pace to make 10% BF by 160, but now it looks like that might be around 150 if this BF% doesn't drop anymore while I continue to lose weight.

Tilran

bump

Greenrun99

Might need to up calories a bit, what are you eating before NET?

now_or_never13

If you are losing weight but not body fat you are losing muscle. It happens when you go on a deficit to try and lose weight.

It looks like you are relatively close to your goal. Do you do any heavy lifting or just cardio?

What can work best for lowering your body fat % would be to build some muscle. Eat at a slight surplus and lift heavy weights... as heavy as you can. Building muscle will burn more fat and lead to a lower body fat % and smaller body even if the scale doesn't agree.

Tilran

Might need to up calories a bit, what are you eating before NET?

I eat 2000-2100 calories with about 400 exercise calories bringing me down to avg of 1600-1700 net I'd say.

Tilran

If you are losing weight but not body fat you are losing muscle. It happens when you go on a deficit to try and lose weight.

It looks like you are relatively close to your goal. Do you do any heavy lifting or just cardio?

What can work best for lowering your body fat % would be to build some muscle. Eat at a slight surplus and lift heavy weights... as heavy as you can. Building muscle will burn more fat and lead to a lower body fat % and smaller body even if the scale doesn't agree.

I mentioned my workouts in the original post. I Lift, do Yoga and play Volleyball. I do Cardio prior to lifting each day for a warm up, usually around 15-20 minutes.

prattiger65

Im gonna take a swing at it and say you probably need to eat a little more.

Lizzy622

You may want to switch and up your calories to maintain and keep working out to see if that helps build muscle.

jonnythan

Get a set of calipers. Don't bother using them to calculate BF%, but use them to measure a couple of key sites and see how those numbers change.

Tilran

Im gonna take a swing at it and say you probably need to eat a little more.

Is there logic behind this statement? I'm not sure how eating more is going to help me drop body fat% while losing weight.

GauchoMark

ok, so I totally disregarded the BIA measurements since you have 2 bodpods in there.

Comparing the 2 bodpod results, you lose 25 lbs in that timeframe. 6.94 lbs was muscle and 18.06 was fat. That isn't too bad.

My suggestion is to bump up the calories just a little. Maybe increase to 1850/day. Also, it is good that you are getting about 1g protein/lb LBM (so about 134g/day right now), but I would make that a minimum for a while and see if that helps. If you are wanting to be 160 lbs at 10% BF, then you are going to need to have a LBM of 144 lbs. I would try to target about 150 g protein/day for about a month and re-evaluate to see if you slowed the muscle loss.

jonnythan

Im gonna take a swing at it and say you probably need to eat a little more.

Is there logic behind this statement? I'm not sure how eating more is going to help me drop body fat% while losing weight.

I think they might be saying that you're dropping too quickly and losing muscle mass as a result. If you lose weight but keep the same body fat ratio, you've lost both fat and muscle.

What was the time frame for 180 -> 170?

SideSteel

Haven't looked at your intake yet but the initial issue is likely inaccuracies with bioimpedence.

I agree with the below.

Get a set of calipers. Don't bother using them to calculate BF%, but use them to measure a couple of key sites and see how those numbers change.

NicholeElizabeth92

You can be close to your goal weight but if you arent building up muscle your body fat will still be high (1lb of muscle= 1lb of fat weight wise but not volume wise) I'd try lifting heavy and lose the fat but replace it with muscle.

heybales

Did you happen to do the BIA the day you did the Bodpod - to compare and see how off the handheld is.

And being handheld, it is using some massive tables to assume what the likely BF is when the majority of it isn't even in the path of the BIA, upper body.

Just throwing off the measuring device now.

Because really diet and lifting is great for retaining muscle mass.

I'd actually get some good 7 site skin calipers readings in the hands of someone skilled, and some measurement methods, and avg them all together.

As accuracy of any said measurement increases, you could even see movement in what appears to be the wrong direction - but that just means it was wrong in the first place.

Tilran

Im gonna take a swing at it and say you probably need to eat a little more.

Is there logic behind this statement? I'm not sure how eating more is going to help me drop body fat% while losing weight.

I think they might be saying that you're dropping too quickly and losing muscle mass as a result. If you lose weight but keep the same body fat ratio, you've lost both fat and muscle.

What was the time frame for 180 -> 170?

180 - 11-22-12
175 - 01-18-12
170 - 03-04-13

Tilran

Did you happen to do the BIA the day you did the Bodpod - to compare and see how off the handheld is.

And being handheld, it is using some massive tables to assume what the likely BF is when the majority of it isn't even in the path of the BIA, upper body.

Just throwing off the measuring device now.

Because really diet and lifting is great for retaining muscle mass.

I'd actually get some good 7 site skin calipers readings in the hands of someone skilled, and some measurement methods, and avg them all together.

As accuracy of any said measurement increases, you could even see movement in what appears to be the wrong direction - but that just means it was wrong in the first place.

The second Bodpod at 24%, I went straight to the gym and it showed 18.5%

I dont really know anyone who is skilled at caliper readings or I would try that.

heybales

Did you happen to do the BIA the day you did the Bodpod - to compare and see how off the handheld is.

And being handheld, it is using some massive tables to assume what the likely BF is when the majority of it isn't even in the path of the BIA, upper body.

Just throwing off the measuring device now.

Because really diet and lifting is great for retaining muscle mass.

I'd actually get some good 7 site skin calipers readings in the hands of someone skilled, and some measurement methods, and avg them all together.

As accuracy of any said measurement increases, you could even see movement in what appears to be the wrong direction - but that just means it was wrong in the first place.

The second Bodpod at 24%, I went straight to the gym and it showed 18.5%

I dont really know anyone who is skilled at caliper readings or I would try that.

Sometimes an older trainer at the gym, before they bought the handheld. If his/her hands aren't shaking. ;-)
Our county park services actually will do it at their offices.
Another gym may for a fee.

Other measurements you may already have for a time near the Bodpod measurement, to see how close they were.
2 different BF estimates here.

http://www.gymgoal.com/dtools.html

This close to goal weight, you may also want to set your goal to 1/2 lb weekly.
What was goal set to that caused your 3/4 lb weekly?

And there are people on lot worse deficit maintaining LBM with strength training and good enough protein, even though they may have a lot more to lose, you should be in the window for good margin of error.

chayleah

Comparing the 2 bodpod results, you lose 25 lbs in that timeframe. 6.94 lbs was muscle and 18.06 was fat. That isn't too bad.

This is not really accurate...lean body mass includes everything except for fat (water, bone, blood, organs, etc) so that 7 lbs of LBM lost is a combination of water and muscle and probably mostly water.

I would only go by the Bod Pod results. The handheld monitor really only sends pulses through your upper body, so your lower body isn't counted. Those things vary a lot based on hydration level (how mcuh water you're holding effects how the electric pulse is sent through your body.

GauchoMark

Comparing the 2 bodpod results, you lose 25 lbs in that timeframe. 6.94 lbs was muscle and 18.06 was fat. That isn't too bad.

This is not really accurate...lean body mass includes everything except for fat (water, bone, blood, organs, etc) so that 7 lbs of LBM lost is a combination of water and muscle and probably mostly water.

I would only go by the Bod Pod results. The handheld monitor really only sends pulses through your upper body, so your lower body isn't counted. Those things vary a lot based on hydration level (how mcuh water you're holding effects how the electric pulse is sent through your body.

well, technically, you are correct. My statement wasn't 100% accurate. However, neither was yours!

I said the loss came from muscle (which is pretty common during, in fact part of the definition of, catabolysis). You said the loss came from water. Neither one of us know for sure. It probably came from a combination of muscle, water, and maybe even changes in organ and bone mass.

However, for the purposes of discussion, I should have used LBM instead of "muscle"... It doesn't change what he should do you prevent more LBM loss.