Increasing Fat With Minimal Weight Gain
dlmciver
Posts: 149 Member
I am 5'5", 128 pounds, 61 year old post menopausal woman. I had a BOD POD body analysis done in January at 141 pounds and was at 22.3% fat. I just had a repeat analysis done yesterday, and my body fat is 14.3%. This is evidently WAY too low for a 61 year old woman. Next week, I have to meet with my PCP and a nutritionist. I am eating 1500-1600 calories per day, protein usually 110-120 range, carbs 90-100 range and fat is the rest. I am using almond butter, full fat dairy, nuts, flax/chia to boost healthy fats. I swim a mile 2 X a week, and walk 45 minutes to an hour 3 times per week. I do resistance bands and hand weights intermittently. I know I need to gain fat, but I do not want to gain weight. I am concerned my health care team will have me cut back on exercise and/or gain weight. How could I add body fat without doing either ? There HAS to be a way !
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Replies
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At the top of my head, the only thing to do would be to lose muscle mass but any gain, fat or muscle is going to make the scale go up.1
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You must be a fairly muscular woman. I am 5'7" and 122 pounds, and my bf % measured in most recently at about 19% (and I actively weight train). If you truly did lose nearly 8% body fat in 4 months perhaps its best you listen to your health care team, gaining another few pounds of body fat shouldn't be too noticeable, if that's what you are worried about.1
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You could:
1) Remove some of your bones. Do you really need them all anyway?
2) The body is known to carry excess blood. Drain it out!
3) Not all organs are needed for survival. I would recommend removing the non essentials.
4) You can still live without all of your extremities. Figure out which ones you use the least and remove them.
Other than that I can't really think of anything.3 -
It would be a paradoxical world where you could increase without gaining0
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The only way to gain fat and not gain weight is to lose muscle. I'm not sure that's a good way to go. If you want to back up on the protein and up the carbs, that should do the trick.0
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Consider the inaccuracies of the measurement method and how you can throw it off.
Since it's dealing with body volume and attempting to measure that - even the difference of hair can skew the results. Breathing isn't supposed to be an issues - but did you take a big breath and hold on one test?
Both tests could have been off, and in opposite directions to make the figures appear like more movement.
Shoot - them not calibrating the system as they should could give a false figure also.
141 - 128 lbs = 13 lbs.
22.3 = 31.4 lbs of fat.
14.3 = 18.3 lbs of fat.
31.4 - 18.3 = 13.1 lbs of fat.
To have lost ONLY fat weight would indeed be rare - though not impossible.
Normally you'd lose some LBM due to some water volume not being needed, blood volume going down, ect.
But that could have been offset if you started exercising during that time too and body increased some of those things because of the exercise.
The body should have been fighting to lose fat there near the end, since normally it would like a higher BF%.
But to get up to say 20% BF keeping same LBM - that would be about 137 lbs total, BF 27.4 lbs.
So a gain of only 9 lbs.
Why is the 128 number so important not to increase?
What if you couldn't tell from the measurements?
No one is likely to see you on the scale - unless weigh-in for MMA fights.0 -
Thanks to those of you who took my question seriously. I have been obese or morbidly obese all of my life. I think I was in a healthy BMI range for about a month in 4th grade, after I got a chicken bone stuck in my throat. I lost 145 pounds over the past two years, and this is the first time I have ever been successful maintaining. (I have lost and regained 100+ pounds three times previously.) I am scared to death to put back on weight. I am trying to integrate what I know intellectually with my old disordered eating tapes. Posing questions to help me clarify my thinking and focus on what I need to do was helpful. I do not want to give up muscle to make room for fat. I am coming to grips with having to regain some of the weight to get my fat level up. I have no frame of reference for intentionally gaining weight, so that is why I came here for support.0
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The other thing is this - this could be normal for you, especially after losing the weight (congrats by the way!). Or your body could adjust its composition as you maintain the loss. There isn't enough data on people who lose weight and keep it off, because most of us gain it back.
When I had lost all my weight years ago, my doctor kept telling me I was too thin. These days I am heavy again, and while it certainly isn't her fault, a little more support would have been great.
Are your other health indicators good? Cholesterol, etc? If so, I'd be tempted to just mellow out - work on core strength which is crucial for aging gracefully, and retest after 6 months to a year. Just my opinion.
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Thanks to those of you who took my question seriously. I have been obese or morbidly obese all of my life. I think I was in a healthy BMI range for about a month in 4th grade, after I got a chicken bone stuck in my throat. I lost 145 pounds over the past two years, and this is the first time I have ever been successful maintaining. (I have lost and regained 100+ pounds three times previously.) I am scared to death to put back on weight. I am trying to integrate what I know intellectually with my old disordered eating tapes. Posing questions to help me clarify my thinking and focus on what I need to do was helpful. I do not want to give up muscle to make room for fat. I am coming to grips with having to regain some of the weight to get my fat level up. I have no frame of reference for intentionally gaining weight, so that is why I came here for support.
can I ask what a chicken bone getting stuck in your throat did to you to give you a healthy BMI? and why was it not removed?0 -
Thanks to those of you who took my question seriously. I have been obese or morbidly obese all of my life. I think I was in a healthy BMI range for about a month in 4th grade, after I got a chicken bone stuck in my throat. I lost 145 pounds over the past two years, and this is the first time I have ever been successful maintaining. (I have lost and regained 100+ pounds three times previously.) I am scared to death to put back on weight. I am trying to integrate what I know intellectually with my old disordered eating tapes. Posing questions to help me clarify my thinking and focus on what I need to do was helpful. I do not want to give up muscle to make room for fat. I am coming to grips with having to regain some of the weight to get my fat level up. I have no frame of reference for intentionally gaining weight, so that is why I came here for support.
There you go
Yes the key is not to lose muscle, clearly that's not a good idea.
Are you sure your analysis is correct, first? Maybe the results are not accurate. At 128 and 5'5" it seems really unlikely that you would be at 16% bodyfat, that's 108lb of lean mass! I'm 5'9" and 48 and lean and that's about how much I have. So realize you may have really strong, dense bones for your age because you were fat. That would skew the percentages some. Or, as previously noted, the analysis may simply be inaccurate, that's the most likely answer.
You aren't underweight, and your exercise and activity seems healthy, and you eat fat in your diet. If your hair and skin are doing OK and you feel good, I truly see no reason to panic. Do you look good? Do you feel healthy? Is your thinking clear? Are you being obsessively restrictive about exercise or diet, or eating a varied diet and exercising as a part of your life, not as your life?
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I am 5'5", 128 pounds, 61 year old post menopausal woman. I had a BOD POD body analysis done in January at 141 pounds and was at 22.3% fat. I just had a repeat analysis done yesterday, and my body fat is 14.3%. This is evidently WAY too low for a 61 year old woman. Next week, I have to meet with my PCP and a nutritionist. I am eating 1500-1600 calories per day, protein usually 110-120 range, carbs 90-100 range and fat is the rest. I am using almond butter, full fat dairy, nuts, flax/chia to boost healthy fats. I swim a mile 2 X a week, and walk 45 minutes to an hour 3 times per week. I do resistance bands and hand weights intermittently. I know I need to gain fat, but I do not want to gain weight. I am concerned my health care team will have me cut back on exercise and/or gain weight. How could I add body fat without doing either ? There HAS to be a way !
Did the same person measure the 22.3% then 14.3% 5 months later?0 -
The stuck chicken bone ripped my esophagus when it was removed, causing swelling, and I refused to eat anything for a month. The same person did both BOD PODS. I look very thin and am losing hair.0
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The stuck chicken bone ripped my esophagus when it was removed, causing swelling, and I refused to eat anything for a month. The same person did both BOD PODS. I look very thin and am losing hair.
If you are losing hair and skin is in bad shape, that is a sign that you are not eating enough healthy fats in your diet. Work with your team to get your diet in shape. Maybe you do need to weigh more, even though your pounds sound quite healthy and adequate for your height - again, if your bones are phenomenal for your age because you were heavy for so long, maybe you are not carrying enough fat and muscle now, so basically you should "bulk".
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145 lbs in 144 weeks - basically an average 1 lb weekly - which obviously at the start was likely more - and at the end likely less.
What might help to know to go along with losing hair - were the final lbs a real fight - like you had to eat awhole lot less than you thought you would need to finally get them off? Or there were some long plateau times in there of a month or longer?
Because you purposely going slower on weight loss near the end is good job.
Your body forcing that on you despite you attempting other efforts is not a good job, and could explain some things.
But it doesn't seem to match with low BF%, except for the great idea of bone density - already being high and your workouts kept it high.
Because normally that would not be the effect for PM woman, unless taking estrogen.0
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