stuck at 13% bf
whitetail417
Posts: 21
Hey all,
I'm 5'6, weigh in at about 168 lbs and I've been stuck since December at 13% body fat. I was doing a hardcore cardio routine to drop a lot of weight (was 215 lbs) and dropped down to 153. In that loss was a lot of muscle so I switched gears to gain muscle. Losing all the weight I was eating around 1600/cal a day, now I upped it to 2500/cal a day. I use a body media fit on my arm and on average it says I burn between 2900-3700 calories a day depending on my work load and exercise. Is it possible I'm still not eating enough? I stick to a 40/40/20 diet and still can't lose any fat around my mid section and my back. I do weights 4 days a week and cardio 3 days a week, one day being a straight cardio day. Any help would be greatly appreciated! My journal is open so feel free to criticize me and tell me what I should switch up! Thanks in advance.
I'm 5'6, weigh in at about 168 lbs and I've been stuck since December at 13% body fat. I was doing a hardcore cardio routine to drop a lot of weight (was 215 lbs) and dropped down to 153. In that loss was a lot of muscle so I switched gears to gain muscle. Losing all the weight I was eating around 1600/cal a day, now I upped it to 2500/cal a day. I use a body media fit on my arm and on average it says I burn between 2900-3700 calories a day depending on my work load and exercise. Is it possible I'm still not eating enough? I stick to a 40/40/20 diet and still can't lose any fat around my mid section and my back. I do weights 4 days a week and cardio 3 days a week, one day being a straight cardio day. Any help would be greatly appreciated! My journal is open so feel free to criticize me and tell me what I should switch up! Thanks in advance.
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You have pictures?0
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Sorry, no pictures.0
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I'll get darker as I drop body fat? La-w-dy!! Thanks Lis. . . . .0
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According to the pictures I'm right between 10-15% chest and abdomen region, except the love handles those look more like the 25% picture and there's no way my body fat is that high. Legs, arms, chest, and abdomen are all lean.0
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When I startedi was worse then the 40% picture, so that's a good thing at least
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_Terrapin_ wrote: »I'll get darker as I drop body fat? La-w-dy!! Thanks Lis. . . . .
This is why I love you!0 -
What was your BF at 153 pounds?0
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It was still at the 13 13.5% ish area.....I lost more muscle when I was down that low.0
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What kind of cardio are you performing?0
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I try to change it up, today I did 20 minutes of stair master followed by about 10-15 minutes of bike riding. I'll do interval training on the treadmill, bike, stair master mostly.0
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My own opinion, take it as you will. I saw my bf% drop the most with a HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) after every weight training session for 20-30 minutes. I was on a 4 day split at the time. The steady state cardio of the treadmill, bike, or stair master never worked for me. Pure cardio days also didn't seem to work and I always felt I got more accomplished after a weight training day.
Combine that with some fat burner supplements and I got down to 10% from 19% in about 6 weeks.0 -
My own opinion, take it as you will. I saw my bf% drop the most with a HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) after every weight training session for 20-30 minutes. I was on a 4 day split at the time. The steady state cardio of the treadmill, bike, or stair master never worked for me. Pure cardio days also didn't seem to work and I always felt I got more accomplished after a weight training day.
Combine that with some fat burner supplements and I got down to 10% from 19% in about 6 weeks.
So basically HIIT is if I'm on a treadmill run full speed 2 minutes 1 minute recovery correct? Can do the same thing on the bike?
Any recommendations on fat burners? I'm taking hydroxycut non stimulant formula haven't seen any results as of yet.0 -
My own opinion, take it as you will. I saw my bf% drop the most with a HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) after every weight training session for 20-30 minutes. I was on a 4 day split at the time. The steady state cardio of the treadmill, bike, or stair master never worked for me. Pure cardio days also didn't seem to work and I always felt I got more accomplished after a weight training day.
Combine that with some fat burner supplements and I got down to 10% from 19% in about 6 weeks.
So you had magic pills?0 -
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Another question is do you guys eat back your exercise calories? I don't which is why I'm wondering if I'm still not eating enough. I eat 2500/day gross, not net.0
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whitetail: ask yourself- - -could I be at 13% BF at 153 and 168? Congrats on the weight loss but 13% is fairly low, not that you aren't there, but I doubt you gained muscle mass as you went up in weight to 168. At best when you go back up in weight you'll be at a 50:50 ratio of fat/muscle. The numbers you are providing aren't working in my simple head. If you go to Eat, Train, and Progress there are some folks in the group who will have you provide 3 pics and they will provide their opinion of BF percentage.0
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whitetail417 wrote: »According to the pictures I'm right between 10-15% chest and abdomen region, except the love handles those look more like the 25% picture and there's no way my body fat is that high. Legs, arms, chest, and abdomen are all lean.whitetail417 wrote: »When I startedi was worse then the 40% picture, so that's a good thing at least
You didn't say how you measured your BF%, but with a shift from 40% to around 13%, could some of what you are seeing in the abdominal region be loose skin?0 -
Close...I would shoot for something closer to 30 secs "all-out" then recover for 1-3 minutes and do it again 5-10x if you are on the treadmill. The reason being you can't really go "all out" if you do it for 2 minutes, you will naturally slow down. You want to get your heart rate up as much as possible, recover, then do it again.
Another technique I used was in-between sets of weights instead of sitting and recovering for one minute, do jumping jacks, run in place, or high knees, for that one minute then go back to the weights. It combines the cardio and the weights to keep your heart rate up.
I haven't used hydrocut and can't say whether it works or not. I used Shred JYM as it wasn't a proprietary blend and I knew all the ingredients in the capsules. I've provided a link below. It does have caffeine in it though, not sure if that is a deal breaker for you or not.
http://www.bodybuilding.com/store/jym/shred-jym.html0 -
Burning 2900-3700 a day seems awfully high. Not to mention that an 800 calorie range is very wide. Have you worked out what your TDEE should supposedly be?
How many calories per day are you actually eating a day?
Are you weighing and logging everything, every day?
To answer your question, do you think you are not eating enough, the answer is that if you're not losing weight you're eating too much.
5'6" 168" means you still have at least a good 15 lbs to lose especially considering you didn't lift weights during your initial cut. Also, 10-15% bf is a big range. You need more accuracy with all your numbers.
I'm an HVAC technician, so the range between the 2900-3700 is because depending on the day what I'm doing I guess, again that's an average from what body media is telling me. Average day can be going up and down stairs in apartment buildings servicing furnaces to lugging equipment across rooftops all day so I guess that's where the difference is coming in.
I'm eating 2500/day total, I don't eat back any calories. Everything is weighed and logged. I brown bag everything to work and I prepare my meals either the night before or morning of.
I can't see that I'm eating too much because in December I weighed the same thing and was only eating 1600 calories a day. So by that theory if I wasn't losing any weight then I should have decreased my calories even further.0 -
Close...I would shoot for something closer to 30 secs "all-out" then recover for 1-3 minutes and do it again 5-10x if you are on the treadmill. The reason being you can't really go "all out" if you do it for 2 minutes, you will naturally slow down. You want to get your heart rate up as much as possible, recover, then do it again.
Another technique I used was in-between sets of weights instead of sitting and recovering for one minute, do jumping jacks, run in place, or high knees, for that one minute then go back to the weights. It combines the cardio and the weights to keep your heart rate up.
I haven't used hydrocut and can't say whether it works or not. I used Shred JYM as it wasn't a proprietary blend and I knew all the ingredients in the capsules. I've provided a link below. It does have caffeine in it though, not sure if that is a deal breaker for you or not.
http://www.bodybuilding.com/store/jym/shred-jym.html
Awesome! Thanks for the info, I'm going to try that out starting tomorrow, no time like the present right?0 -
I know as a guy this can be a tough place to shift weight from.
After reading your comments, (mainly where you mentioned that you started around the 40% bf mark) I'm assuming that your diet hasnt been the best up until the point that you decided to sort it out?
There is a difference between subcutaneous fat vs visceral fat. Adipose tissue, where subcutaneous fat resides is the superficial layer that sits under the skin, that we generally lose 1st when becoming fit. Visceral fat sits inside the belly and around your internal organs. If you have had a poor diet for a long time then you could have a build up of the latter. Unfortunately thats a lot harder to metabolise.
I'd suggest going to the old google god and search about ways to shift "visceral fat"
I think you'll find it's mainly going to be about your diet from this point forward.
Not saying not to keep up the great work with cardio and weights tho!
You could also go and get a DEXA scan to see if where you're at regarding your visceral fat.
Heres a nice explanation of what thats all about:
http://www.dangerandplay.com/2014/07/18/dexa-dxa-scans-gold-standard-measure-bodyfat-percentage/
The best way to track your progress at this point will be a combination of your waist measurement and bf%.
Good luck, hope this helps.
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whitetail417 wrote: »According to the pictures I'm right between 10-15% chest and abdomen region, except the love handles those look more like the 25% picture and there's no way my body fat is that high. Legs, arms, chest, and abdomen are all lean.whitetail417 wrote: »When I startedi was worse then the 40% picture, so that's a good thing at least
You didn't say how you measured your BF%, but with a shift from 40% to around 13%, could some of what you are seeing in the abdominal region be loose skin?
I've done both the 3 point and 4 point skin fold test with a body caliper. I know its not going to be 100% accurate, my wife helps me being as I only have two hands lol 0 -
Liftng4Lis wrote: »My own opinion, take it as you will. I saw my bf% drop the most with a HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) after every weight training session for 20-30 minutes. I was on a 4 day split at the time. The steady state cardio of the treadmill, bike, or stair master never worked for me. Pure cardio days also didn't seem to work and I always felt I got more accomplished after a weight training day.
Combine that with some fat burner supplements and I got down to 10% from 19% in about 6 weeks.
So you had magic pills?
Science based magic...indeed0 -
I know as a guy this can be a tough place to shift weight from.
After reading your comments, (mainly where you mentioned that you started around the 40% bf mark) I'm assuming that your diet hasnt been the best up until the point that you decided to sort it out?
There is a difference between subcutaneous fat vs visceral fat. Adipose tissue, where subcutaneous fat resides is the superficial layer that sits under the skin, that we generally lose 1st when becoming fit. Visceral fat sits inside the belly and around your internal organs. If you have had a poor diet for a long time then you could have a build up of the latter. Unfortunately thats a lot harder to metabolise.
I'd suggest going to the old google god and search about ways to shift "visceral fat"
I think you'll find it's mainly going to be about your diet from this point forward.
Not saying not to keep up the great work with cardio and weights tho!
You could also go and get a DEXA scan to see if where you're at regarding your visceral fat.
Heres a nice explanation of what thats all about:
http://www.dangerandplay.com/2014/07/18/dexa-dxa-scans-gold-standard-measure-bodyfat-percentage/
The best way to track your progress at this point will be a combination of your waist measurement and bf%.
Good luck, hope this helps.
I'll be the first to admit my diet straight up sucked. Monday night football consisted of 50 wings, half dozen beers and a steak tidbit sandwich. Not to mention cookies and milk on a daily basis. Thanks for the info I'm going to look up the differences in the fat and whatnot and see what they recommend.0 -
whitetail417 wrote: »Close...I would shoot for something closer to 30 secs "all-out" then recover for 1-3 minutes and do it again 5-10x if you are on the treadmill. The reason being you can't really go "all out" if you do it for 2 minutes, you will naturally slow down. You want to get your heart rate up as much as possible, recover, then do it again.
Another technique I used was in-between sets of weights instead of sitting and recovering for one minute, do jumping jacks, run in place, or high knees, for that one minute then go back to the weights. It combines the cardio and the weights to keep your heart rate up.
I haven't used hydrocut and can't say whether it works or not. I used Shred JYM as it wasn't a proprietary blend and I knew all the ingredients in the capsules. I've provided a link below. It does have caffeine in it though, not sure if that is a deal breaker for you or not.
http://www.bodybuilding.com/store/jym/shred-jym.html
Awesome! Thanks for the info, I'm going to try that out starting tomorrow, no time like the present right?
Good luck...hope it helps!
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I'm sorry but at your height and weight coupled with the fact that you probably have a lower amount of lbm due to your lack of lifting time that 2500 calorie daily intake sounds high. The fact is that if you're not losing weight then you're not in a deficit.
But with everything that has been said so far in this thread I think you need to take pictures and post them because the variation in weights along with the bf% marks you provided just don't add up.
You're saying in December you were eating 1700 and now are eating 2500 but your weight hasn't moved at all? Are you weighing all solids and measuring all liquids?
I don't have much more to add to whats already been said in bold...
Post pics first...
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Lifting weights like that is a good way to not allow yourself recovery time between sets and if you're lifting heavy 75%+ then it's also a good way to set yourself up for failure on finishing sets.Close...I would shoot for something closer to 30 secs "all-out" then recover for 1-3 minutes and do it again 5-10x if you are on the treadmill. The reason being you can't really go "all out" if you do it for 2 minutes, you will naturally slow down. You want to get your heart rate up as much as possible, recover, then do it again.
Another technique I used was in-between sets of weights instead of sitting and recovering for one minute, do jumping jacks, run in place, or high knees, for that one minute then go back to the weights. It combines the cardio and the weights to keep your heart rate up.
I haven't used hydrocut and can't say whether it works or not. I used Shred JYM as it wasn't a proprietary blend and I knew all the ingredients in the capsules. I've provided a link below. It does have caffeine in it though, not sure if that is a deal breaker for you or not.
http://www.bodybuilding.com/store/jym/shred-jym.html
In fact, the recovery time is the same as if you sat down and did nothing. You are still not performing the targeted muscle group for the 1-2 minutes. Instead of sitting down though you replace it with a short burst of cardio. It will add about 20-30 minutes of high intensity cardio for the workout. You may even recover better than just sitting doing nothing because of the increased blood flow. The cardio will elevate your heart rate, which means more blood pumps to your working muscles throughout your workout.
If your new to working out, it may be difficult at first to maintain the high intensity cardio for the entire rest period. If that's the case then start with 30 secs or so and work your way up to the full minute when you are more comfortable with the exercises.
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