Losing fat% vs actual pounds lost

Kbriner0223
Kbriner0223 Posts: 41
in Health and Weight Loss
So i weighed myself on one of those body composition scales on 2/11 and it read weight:167.4-fat %-33.6%-fat mass:56.2lb. I just got back on the scale today and its readings were weight:166.8-fat%:31.7%-fat mass 52.8lb.

I guess my question/consern is...i am wanting to lose 10lbs by the end of march. That would put me at about 156 but how can i do that??!! Ive been busting my butt the past couple of weeks and didnt even lose a full pound!!! I know that fat% is more important but will the scale ever tip lower if i continue to lose more fat %?? Does this make sense?

Replies

  • michellel313
    michellel313 Posts: 19 Member
    I know what you mean! Im having the same issue...I'm interested to see what people say! I know that I've read a lot about bumping up your calories a little bit. I was eating about 1200 daily but for the past 3 days I've been eating 1600 and i have actually lost .5lbs. So, I'm going to continue doing that and see if it helps!
  • lovelylela415
    lovelylela415 Posts: 91 Member
    having the same issue. I've lost 2% body fat and have 2% more to go to reach my goal, but my weight hasn't budged. i feel discouraged. and yes, i've read the posts on the forum saying this is normal. I still feel like i should be losing weight.
  • Kbriner0223
    Kbriner0223 Posts: 41
    I have been reading an aweful lot about eating back your exercise calories and upping your calories but it scares me! Ive come so far and it just seems pointless to exercise if your just eating back the calories...hmm i dont know what ill do yet. I dont want to eat more and i dont want to work out less but i might have to try it for a week or so and see where it gets me. I really think im at a major platuo and maybe upping my calories will kick things back into gear!
  • SStrauss79
    SStrauss79 Posts: 124 Member
    It's not about the number on the scale it is the inches lost. Even though your weight isn't changing you are losing fat and building muscle. Toning up will look way better than losing 10 lbs any day. Trust me.
  • Sunka1
    Sunka1 Posts: 217 Member
    I have been reading an aweful lot about eating back your exercise calories and upping your calories but it scares me! Ive come so far and it just seems pointless to exercise if your just eating back the calories...hmm i dont know what ill do yet. I dont want to eat more and i dont want to work out less but i might have to try it for a week or so and see where it gets me. I really think im at a major platuo and maybe upping my calories will kick things back into gear!

    i just started eating more this week. It is scary but I wasn't losing weight eating less and I work out 6 days a week.
  • obwize
    obwize Posts: 102
    It is difficult to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time. Working out muscles in order to keep them, eating enough protein to fuel them, while still getting a deficit (though not starving at all) is how you lose fat while retaining muscle. There are a whole lot of nuances to what you eat to be healthiest, and I'm sure others will give more opinions and views on it. Good luck!!!

    And yes, you WILL lose the 10 pounds.
  • darkguardian419
    darkguardian419 Posts: 1,302 Member
    Why would the number be so vital to you? Would you rather the scale read a specific thing, or would you rather have your clothes fit better? I'd rather be 230lbs and 20%BF than 200lbs and 25%bf (but that's just me, and my numbers)
  • sofielein
    sofielein Posts: 539 Member
    Isn't losing 10 lb in 4 weeks a bit too much? I mean 220+ people can do it but starting at your weight I'm not sure...
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    Diet is for weight and hopefully just fat loss, hopefully not muscle loss.

    Exercise is for heart health and body improvement, which usually does not have weight loss as side effect, usually weight gain. Hopefully it help only fat loss though, but done wrong, muscle too.

    So stop busting your butt, you are just asking your body to make improvements and weight gain - if that scale is even to be trusted.

    Now, to the question.

    How are you going to wear the scale so others can see it - on your back or on your front?
    And will you have a sign that says what the weight used to be and what it is now, or have it actually displaying what the new weight is, with only sticker of the old weight, so all can see how much you lost, just in case it doesn't actually look like you did?
  • paulperryman
    paulperryman Posts: 839 Member
    feel the same way. Seems backwards to eat your calories + what you exercise off, when to lose weight you need to be at a deficit in calories not a net. Though if you are working out you are likely building muscles which will burn fat more efficiently.

    For instance the MFP guide tells me (at 110kg wanting to lose 2lbs a week) i need to eat 1900 calories a day, exercise to 3200 calories a 6x60min week, but i burn 1000 calories an hour working out not 533 if i was doing 533 that'd be barely a crawl atleast at my weight and body fat level. I burn a third of that just walking to the gym :)

    Anyway so lets take that 1900 which MFP recommends accounts for BMR and an average for TDEE i assume.
    I'd need to be consuming around 2900 calories a day on an average day til my BMR and body fat drops which seems impossible unless it's unhealthy food, i was probably eating that much b4 which got me to the current 110kg's (well that and being depressed and lazy for so many years)
  • JamesChargerWolf
    JamesChargerWolf Posts: 83 Member
    For a full month I barely lost anything. Looked into the TDEE numbers and saw I wasn't even eating the bare minimum to run my organs (BMR) after exercise. Switched to doing TDEE - 20%, which is A LOT of food. Lost .8lbs the first week. My 2nd week at TDEE-20% will end Friday but I'm already down another full lb.

    It is completely scary at first but I am very happy with it.

    Read this.
    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/654536-in-place-of-a-road-map-2-0-revised-7-2-12
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    feel the same way. Seems backwards to eat your calories + what you exercise off, when to lose weight you need to be at a deficit in calories not a net. Tho if you are working out you are building muscles which will burn fat more efficiently.

    For instance the MFP guide tells me (at 110kg wanting to lose 2lbs a week) i need to eat 1900 calories a day, exercise to 3200 calories a 6 day week, but i burn 1000 calories an hour working out not 533 if i was doing 533 that'd be barely a crawl atleast at my weight and body fat level. I burn a third of that just walking to the gym :) so confusing.

    Not confusing - you just don't understand how MFP works.

    You need to eat less than what you burn - IN TOTAL, for the day.

    So how much less is reasonable you think, any clue at all?

    Are you aware that MFP already has a deficit in your daily goal - with no exercise accounted for or expected?

    So is your thinking 1000 is good, 2000 is better?

    In which case, why eat at all? Why not just don't eat for about a month and exercise?

    Go look at your Goals page and see what the deal is. When you exercise, you raised that daily maintenance figure, which you subtract the deficit from.

    On days you don't exercise, it's lower, on days you do exercise, it's higher. Guess what stays the same? The goal deficit amount.

    Slow metabolism is usually a persons own fault, burned off muscle by undereating, and by undereating slowed things down more than that even. When you undereat and exercise, you ain't building no muscle, even if your strength does go up. Your body has barely enough to do the basic functions of life - forget actually improving things.
  • juicemoogan
    juicemoogan Posts: 994 Member
    would you rather physically look smaller? or have a number change that no one in the world sees but you?

    We all know its about how we look, but we just cant get over the importance of the scale # that has been ingrained in us as the most important thing in life.

    Get past it.. its about how you feel, and how you look in your clothes, not about the number on the scale!

    Good luck!
  • Kbriner0223
    Kbriner0223 Posts: 41
    Isn't losing 10 lb in 4 weeks a bit too much? I mean 220+ people can do it but starting at your weight I'm not sure...

    I started at 212lbs back in august. I have noticed a chain of every other month losing 7-12lbs, just depends on what i do and dont do. Honestly any loss more than 1lb would be great right now! lol
  • sofielein
    sofielein Posts: 539 Member
    Oh ok, ever since I am under 160 it does not go that fast but to be honest I don't mind (my greatest fear: saggy skin)...

    So what if you just keep up what you have been doing if you have such good results?
  • Kbriner0223
    Kbriner0223 Posts: 41
    I am okay with having less fat % and weighing more but it was just odd to have lost under a pound and have lost 3% fat% i was just curious if that would show up after a few weeks on the scale. But i must admit that i am a slave to the scale :/
  • sofielein
    sofielein Posts: 539 Member
    I am not too sure about the whole body fat concept. I was expecting mine to sort of not go down very much as I'm a "fatty" type with not much firm meat, but after 27 lb it went down to from some kindof 38% to now 27%. Maybe I have more muscles than I thought and maybe same is true for you.
  • Kbriner0223
    Kbriner0223 Posts: 41
    I am not too sure about the whole body fat concept. I was expecting mine to sort of not go down very much as I'm a "fatty" type with not much firm meat, but after 27 lb it went down to from some kindof 38% to now 27%. Maybe I have more muscles than I thought and maybe same is true for you.

    I have a goal for my Body fat to be at about 25%. It started at 40% so im doing okay. I do think i have more muscles, especially since the workouts ive been doing are a sort of shock to my body lol, i have been running on nice days and doing weights and DVDs so maybe this is the calm before the storm ;)
  • Sunflowergirl1
    Sunflowergirl1 Posts: 33 Member
    After being confused as to why my weight loss had stalled out a bit, i was thrilled to see my body composition is changing for the better today. I am not bothered at all now that my overall weight didn't decrease by much in the past two weeks. I am confident I will reach critical mass (pun intended) at some point and my increasing muscle mass will take charge and take a can of whoop**s to my excess fat. :) Feels great.
  • MercenaryNoetic26
    MercenaryNoetic26 Posts: 2,747 Member
    I personally care more about dropping body fat than weight. I'm currently 123lbs and 28% body fat. I have a 6 month old and a 10 yr old. I like to be around 20% or lower. That's the point where I know I look good. Otherwise I'm skinny fat and have cellulite. Yuck. I achieve my goals through weight training and cardio. Lean is my goal.
  • Kbriner0223
    Kbriner0223 Posts: 41
    I think i am torn between the fat% and actual scale weight :/. Dont get me wrong, fat% is awesome! Especially because it does tone and get all of the lose skin tight again and helps lose inches. But the scale weight(someone mentioned this before and it is true) is something that is advertised and kind of bored into some peoples minds(mine) and when you dont see progress on the scale it is a little upsetting :( but as long as i am still losing SOMETHING then it is worth it :)

    I do think that i might try upping my calories to 1600 for two weeks and then to 1400 for two weeks and back down to 1200 and see if i get results from that
  • Dcioby73
    Dcioby73 Posts: 18 Member
    Sometimes it takes a while to reverse a slow metabolism. The reality is that most people are 20-30-100 lbs overweight as a result of a prolonged state in which the metabolism (the rate at which your body burns calories) has been continuously slowed down.

    We dont want to hear it, but it's a fact of life: we did the crime, now we gotta do the time. I just stole that quote from Joe Cross of Fat, sick and nearly dead;) But it's true, the calories we ate 2-3 months ago are stored in our problem area, and it will take 2-3 months to take them off.
  • michellel313
    michellel313 Posts: 19 Member
    I think i am torn between the fat% and actual scale weight :/. Dont get me wrong, fat% is awesome! Especially because it does tone and get all of the lose skin tight again and helps lose inches. But the scale weight(someone mentioned this before and it is true) is something that is advertised and kind of bored into some peoples minds(mine) and when you dont see progress on the scale it is a little upsetting :( but as long as i am still losing SOMETHING then it is worth it :)

    I do think that i might try upping my calories to 1600 for two weeks and then to 1400 for two weeks and back down to 1200 and see if i get results from that


    So I commented on your post yesterday saying that I've bumped up my calories to 1600 a day from 1200. I just checked by diary, I've been doing this for 4 days and when i weighed in this morning I lost 2lbs!! You should definitely give it a try! I hadn't lost anything in like 6 months! I'm interested to see how it works out for you!
  • gym_king_carlie
    gym_king_carlie Posts: 528 Member
    Im having the oppisite problem, Im dropping lbs but not bodyfat, I retain muscle and look better but the BodyFat reading gives me a different opinion :(
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    Im having the oppisite problem, Im dropping lbs but not bodyfat, I retain muscle and look better but the BodyFat reading gives me a different opinion :(

    If it ain't fat dropping, got bad news for ya.

    How do you know you are retaining muscle, had a DEXA scan, which is only valid weigh to know (that and 1RM on lifts)?
  • lbdeblois
    lbdeblois Posts: 2 Member
    Ok, so I think my problem too, is.. that I need to go up from 1200 calories to more. But geesh! What do you do when you're just not hungry?
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    Ok, so I think my problem too, is.. that I need to go up from 1200 calories to more. But geesh! What do you do when you're just not hungry?

    Eat higher fat stuff. Good fats in addition.

    Your hormones can bounce back and you'll start feeling appropriately hungry again.
    And once your body can actually make good improvements to your exercise done, workouts get better so you get hungrier there too.

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