Fat percentage increasing, muscle mass decreasing and weight loss.
nathashasingh90
Posts: 7 Member
How accurate is a smart scale? I am losing weight, Strenght training 3 times a week and cardio 2 times a week. Following a 1200 calories diet.
But I noticed In my last weigh in my muscle mass has decreased and my fat has increased?
Frustrated.
Are smart scales accurate? How accurate is this?
But I noticed In my last weigh in my muscle mass has decreased and my fat has increased?
Frustrated.
Are smart scales accurate? How accurate is this?
0
Replies
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Not sure about those scales, BUT true story....I ate a low cal and worked out and gained lots of weight. Found that I was eating too low, ....might be worth looking in to.
Check out the calculator...
www.eatmore2loseweight.com
32 -
Not sure about those scales, BUT true story....I ate a low cal and worked out and gained lots of weight. Found that I was eating too low, ....might be worth looking in to.
Check out the calculator...
www.eatmore2loseweight.com
If you mean you gained weight because you ate too few calories - no. If you eat fewer calories than you expend you will lose weight. That's just math.7 -
nathashasingh90 wrote: »How accurate is a smart scale? I am losing weight, Strenght training 3 times a week and cardio 2 times a week. Following a 1200 calories diet.
But I noticed In my last weigh in my muscle mass has decreased and my fat has increased?
Frustrated.
Are smart scales accurate? How accurate is this?
Not accurate at all. Have a read through this: https://weightology.net/the-pitfalls-of-bodyfat-measurement-part-4-bioelectrical-impedance-bia/8 -
Not very accurate. And they're not estimating muscle mass, it's lean mass, which includes things that you need less of as you get smaller (blood volume, for example). Think about the percentages in terms of weight, too. This isn't strictly likely/possible, but just as an example, imagine that I went from 25% body fat at 150 pounds to 25% body fat at 120 pounds. Same body fat? No, less, because 0.25 x 150 = 37.5 pounds of fat, but 0.25 x 120 = 30 pounds.
Three things help you maintain as much existing muscle as possible while losing weight:
1. Avoid losing weight too fast. (Useful rule of thumb: Maximum 1% of body weight per week, less than that when within 50 pounds of goal.)
2. Eat enough protein. (I'd vote for 0.6-0.8g per pound of healthy goal weight.)
3. Exercise, especially strength exercise. (Sounds like you've got this one covered!
).
After you've controlled all the factors you can, there's no real point in worrying too much about it. You're gonna be fine.
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@mph323 Although that is true...doesn’t always work that way. Some bodies will hang on to what little calories have been given as if in starvation mode. Wreck the metabolism during this too. So, yes, I gained weight with too low of calories.
Just a suggestion for other ways to lose the weight without wrecking the metabolism.31 -
@mph323 Although that is true...doesn’t always work that way. Some bodies will hang on to what little calories have been given as if in starvation mode. Wreck the metabolism during this too. So, yes, I gained weight with too low of calories.
Just a suggestion for other ways to lose the weight without wrecking the metabolism.
You can not and will not gain weight by eating too fewer a calories. That is not possible. Otherwise people would not be able to starve to death. When eating too low your metabolism slows down to try and conserve as much energy as possible. The outcome of this is that your weight loss will slow down. It will not stop and it certainly won't go up. It just slows down.7 -
Oh goodness me...
Let me clarify...I’m not suggesting to eat more than such and such calories a body needs to maintain, because yes, that will cause weight gain.
And believe me or NOT, I did gain weight eating TOO LOW calories. Maybe had I just did a deficit of 10 or 15%, which is what I believe y’all are implying, then it would have been a different outcome. But it wasn’t, it was TOO LOW. So yes, a deficit will cause a weight loss, but also a deficit that is way too high, will cause weight gain.
Clear?29 -
Oh goodness me...
Let me clarify...I’m not suggesting to eat more than such and such calories a body needs to maintain, because yes, that will cause weight gain.
And believe me or NOT, I did gain weight eating TOO LOW calories. Maybe had I just did a deficit of 10 or 15%, which is what I believe y’all are implying, then it would have been a different outcome. But it wasn’t, it was TOO LOW. So yes, a deficit will cause a weight loss, but also a deficit that is way too high, will cause weight gain.
Clear?
What you are trying to say is very clear, but very wrong. It is physically impossible to gain weight by eating too little. That is not how science works.14 -
Oh goodness me...
Let me clarify...I’m not suggesting to eat more than such and such calories a body needs to maintain, because yes, that will cause weight gain.
And believe me or NOT, I did gain weight eating TOO LOW calories. Maybe had I just did a deficit of 10 or 15%, which is what I believe y’all are implying, then it would have been a different outcome. But it wasn’t, it was TOO LOW. So yes, a deficit will cause a weight loss, but also a deficit that is way too high, will cause weight gain.
Clear?
If what you are saying was true than anorexics would all be over weight. They aren’t.18 -
Oh goodness me...
Let me clarify...I’m not suggesting to eat more than such and such calories a body needs to maintain, because yes, that will cause weight gain.
And believe me or NOT, I did gain weight eating TOO LOW calories. Maybe had I just did a deficit of 10 or 15%, which is what I believe y’all are implying, then it would have been a different outcome. But it wasn’t, it was TOO LOW. So yes, a deficit will cause a weight loss, but also a deficit that is way too high, will cause weight gain.
Clear?
All the thousands of people worldwide who sadly starve to death every day will be relieved when they realize they're not only still alive, but actually fat.13 -
Wow, so you all know my story and my body better than myself then.12
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@mph323 Although that is true...doesn’t always work that way. Some bodies will hang on to what little calories have been given as if in starvation mode. Wreck the metabolism during this too. So, yes, I gained weight with too low of calories.
Just a suggestion for other ways to lose the weight without wrecking the metabolism.
Wait - you're saying that its true you can't gain weight in a deficit except you can gain weight in a deficit? How does that work exactly? You maintain at 2000 calories, eat 1200 calories and gain weight? Did you think this through?2 -
Wow, so you all know my story and my body better than myself then.
It’s math. Unless you have a medical condition you were not tracking as closely as you thought because what you’re saying is impossible for a healthy adult. Don’t take it personally. It’s not an attack and lots of people struggle to figure out logging accuracy1 -
What sometimes happens is that with a deficit that is too large, is that non-exercise activity decreases significantly. So a person's "calories-out" side of the equation is significantly smaller but might not be perceived by the person as significantly smaller - so that person's conclusion is that "eating too little causes weight gain." The actual mechanisms is more like "eating too little results in vastly curtailed activity which can result in weight gain if calories-out is less than calories-in."9
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There is a difference between weight and fat.
I am coming in at the tail end of a conversation but are we talking starvation or famine induced edema?
Other than that you take in less energy than you spend... you lose energy reserves.
Oh, and BMI scales are useless pieces of **baby feline**0 -
Wow, so you all know my story and my body better than myself then.
No. We understand the laws of energy balance, which apply to everybody regardless of whether you (the general 'you') believe them or not.
You (the general 'you') cannot gain weight (fat) while in a caloric deficit. There can be fluctuations from water retention, hormonal issues, etc., but you cannot gain actual weight while consuming less calories than you expend. It is a physical impossibility.2 -
Wow, so you all know my story and my body better than myself then.
Yep. I can guarantee that if you tell us a story that is impossible, everyone who thinks the opposite knows better.
There are a couple of reasons you might be legitimately mistaken about this - one is that stress hormones cause a gain in water weight, which might have misled you into thinking you were gaining weight. But 99.9% of the time people who come here and make this claim are mistaken about either the number of calories they are eating or the number they are expending through exercise, and when they learn to accurately measure, they see they were gaining weight by eating too much.
If you truly have managed to break the 2nd law of thermodynamics and create fat out of thin air, then you should be in a lab being studied, because you could power the world.5 -
nathashasingh90 wrote: »Are smart scales accurate? How accurate is this?
And back to the OP.....
BIA scales vary enormously from pretty accurate if used in a regimented and consistent way and would probably be commercial grade and have four point sensors.
Some can provide a reasonable trend over time and multiple readings but with odd spikes mostly caused by variations in hydration levels.
Some are completely and utterly useless.
Summary - not accurate enough to make you believe a single data point is a reflection of your progress, or lack of progress.3 -
Wow, so you all know my story and my body better than myself then.
It's physics 101.
You probably don't know your body as well as you think. For starters, you probably weren't logging consistently and meticulously at a deficit for at least 6 months. Second, because of the first, you probably overlooked "minor cheats" or slipups.3 -
Op those scales are not accurate, don't let it upset you.3
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I figure they're not accurate at all, I never pay attention to mine. I looked this morning and apparently my BF% is 17%, which is very unlikely because I'm 145lbs at 5'3. Oh how I wish it were true!
I'd say pay no attention to what the scale says here and use other measurements and how your clothes fit.3 -
Oh goodness me...
Let me clarify...I’m not suggesting to eat more than such and such calories a body needs to maintain, because yes, that will cause weight gain.
And believe me or NOT, I did gain weight eating TOO LOW calories. Maybe had I just did a deficit of 10 or 15%, which is what I believe y’all are implying, then it would have been a different outcome. But it wasn’t, it was TOO LOW. So yes, a deficit will cause a weight loss, but also a deficit that is way too high, will cause weight gain.
Clear?
Clear, but wrong. The Laws of Thermodynamics disagree with you. And there are PLENTY of people that know your body better than you; that would include medical doctors and those with a degree in biology, such as myself.7
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