Losing lbs but body fat increasing? HELP

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laketa8482
laketa8482 Posts: 11 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I have totally changed my eating and I have been trying to stay active and workout more. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong now. I love the fact that the numbers on the scale are decreasing but I am a little worried about the body fat increasing. Can someone please help me?

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  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
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    Is this a "body fat" number off a scale or device you hold or similar ?
  • vespiquenn
    vespiquenn Posts: 1,455 Member
    edited May 2016
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    Where are you getting this body fat % from? If it is just a scale or caliper at the gym, both are highly inaccurate because there is a ton of room for error. The only truly accurate method of body fat measurement is a DEXA scan if you're willing to fork over money for it.
  • laketa8482
    laketa8482 Posts: 11 Member
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    I have the scale that tell you lbs, body fat,water weight, and BMI. So are you saying I shouldn't go by the scale?
  • laketa8482
    laketa8482 Posts: 11 Member
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    yarwell wrote: »
    Is this a "body fat" number off a scale or device you hold or similar ?

    It's the body fat from a scale.
  • DancingMoosie
    DancingMoosie Posts: 8,613 Member
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    The scales can be very wrong. However, if you are not doing any type of resistance training, it is possible to lose weight and not lower your BF% because you are losing muscle.
  • vespiquenn
    vespiquenn Posts: 1,455 Member
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    Yes, those scales are highly inaccurate. Things like water retention can change the reading, and the room for error can be as much as 10%.
  • richardgavel
    richardgavel Posts: 1,001 Member
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    Over what time frame are you seeing an increase? A day or 2, or weeks or a month? While BF measurements from scales are inaccurate, they are useful for determining trends over time. I also found that I got less severe fluctuations on day to day measures when I didn't go directly from bed to scale, but had a few minutes of activity.
  • frannyupnorth
    frannyupnorth Posts: 56 Member
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    The scales give your fat as a percentage of body weight, say you had 30% body fat at 200lbs and at 180lbs, that would mean you initially had ~60lbs fat and it reduced to ~54lbs, so even though you had the same body fat percentage you had still lost 6lbs of fat - unfortunately the other 14lbs would be lean mass lost.

    As others have said, the body fat is useful to trend over long time frames but shouldn't be taken as an absolute number. There was about 10% difference when I had my body fat calculated from callipers to my Tanita scales on the same day. I also find that you need to pick the same time of day/week to log and I still get fairly big fluctuations (1-2%) which match my monthly cycle ovulation & around period and that are hydration level related (exercise/alcohol the previous day for example).

    I personally saw from trending that I was losing lean mass as well as body fat when I was eating less. Since I've been eating more, aiming for a calorie intake between BMR & TDEE, I've seen less lean mass loss according to my scales but continued with a similar rate of fat loss and a slower rate of overall weight loss. Obviously weight and fat loss are not linear but you can see a trend over the months.

  • ise311
    ise311 Posts: 107 Member
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    You probably did all cardio and no strength training, losing the muscle mass.

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