Recomposition: Maintaining weight while losing fat

ghudson92 wrote: »

AdamAussie34 wrote: »

ghudson92 wrote: »

How is everyone getting on with their recomp? I was seeing good results October to early December of last year, but had to take time out due to injury and illness. During that time I simply focused on maintaining as couldn't be active. This week I am back to recomp and loving it! This time round I am focusing more on the quality of nutrition and upping my protein levels too.

Good luck with your recomp! Hope the injury is okay now..

Thank you. I very nearly broke my wrist so it was slow to get better, but I'd say it is 90% recovered now. Love your post upthread, congrats on the amazing progress!

Many 🙏 love the positive vibes

Bump

Akboudicae wrote: »

Hi, I am returning to weight lifting in my exercise regimen after taking a few years off. (Had elbow tendinitis, had to re-structure program, got busy with other activities like riding horses and barn chores.) I am 57, with arthritis and currently around 23-24% bodyfat at 5'5" and 127 pounds. I have been trying to lift every other (but sometimes every 3rd) day and follow kind of a "BodyPump" style of warm-up, squats, chest, deadlifts and rows, triceps, biceps, lunges, abs and stretching. The whole thing takes about 45-55 minutes, but I am slower and more focused on technique than the BodyPump "in-time-with-the-music-always" approach. I also do cardio 3-5x per week 20-40 minutes. I basically use this app to make sure I am hitting all of my nutrients on the pre-determined settings for my age and goal weight of 125. Any suggested tweaks? (I also work and have a family in addition to the horses so I cannot spend hours and hours on body-building.)

For your body to feel the need to grow more muscle and not just make it stronger, you have to overload it in some specific ways.

Which means anything that might make that not happen well will not help recomp.

That's great you aren't trying to match beat of music - you'd have to be light enough on the weight to accomplish that most likely.

But how many reps you end up doing, how many sets, how much rest time between sets?

You'll know the eating level is right when weight stays the same over about a month of fluctuations.

ghudson92 wrote: »

Recomp progress. Left picture was mid November 2019 - right picture was yesterday. Feeling quite happy with how it is going.

You should. Looking great.

Ok. Been recomping for a fair while. Both fat may 22%? Or what?

Bookmarked, lots to go through.

Can anyone link me to how this work if you have changeable exercise patterns please? For example, I don't go to the gym and follow a weights program as such, I run and do differing distances and intensity some days, others I'll do a T25 type HIIT/weights type program, others I'll do body weight training.

Is it a case of setting your activity levels as a week view, rather than a day view? I work on my backside around 8 hours a day, I do get up and walk a bit but most of the time it is early exercise and then later walking, cycling or running.

Nacho_Daddy wrote: »

richiechowns wrote: »

Bookmarked, lots to go through.

Can anyone link me to how this work if you have changeable exercise patterns please? For example, I don't go to the gym and follow a weights program as such, I run and do differing distances and intensity some days, others I'll do a T25 type HIIT/weights type program, others I'll do body weight training.

Is it a case of setting your activity levels as a week view, rather than a day view? I work on my backside around 8 hours a day, I do get up and walk a bit but most of the time it is early exercise and then later walking, cycling or running.

What works for me is to not use MFP's somewhat arbitrary "Active / Inactive" type of activity setting, and instead work directly with actual logged activity. By setting your MFP Activity Level to Sedentary, MFP won't load caloric expenditure into your days unless YOU log calories burned. To me, this keeps the whole thing 'honest' and then your caloric burns will guide the "Calories out" portion of your CI=CO equation, rather than having MFP pre-load some calorie number into that equation for me so my daily energy output (logged) is calculated into the "eat these calories" calculation displayed here on MFP.

Again, that's how I make it work, but as @usmcmp says " The only way to know for sure is to monitor your weight and calories over time while adjusting calories when you have an up or down trend. " (emphasis on trend)

Just so I understand this, you set your calories to maintenance based on estimated TDEE, then set activity to Sedentary, then (I use Garmin) log everything you do, such as walking and running, lifting etc to get the proper adjustments?

richiechowns wrote: »

Nacho_Daddy wrote: »

richiechowns wrote: »

Bookmarked, lots to go through.

Can anyone link me to how this work if you have changeable exercise patterns please? For example, I don't go to the gym and follow a weights program as such, I run and do differing distances and intensity some days, others I'll do a T25 type HIIT/weights type program, others I'll do body weight training.

Is it a case of setting your activity levels as a week view, rather than a day view? I work on my backside around 8 hours a day, I do get up and walk a bit but most of the time it is early exercise and then later walking, cycling or running.

What works for me is to not use MFP's somewhat arbitrary "Active / Inactive" type of activity setting, and instead work directly with actual logged activity. By setting your MFP Activity Level to Sedentary, MFP won't load caloric expenditure into your days unless YOU log calories burned. To me, this keeps the whole thing 'honest' and then your caloric burns will guide the "Calories out" portion of your CI=CO equation, rather than having MFP pre-load some calorie number into that equation for me so my daily energy output (logged) is calculated into the "eat these calories" calculation displayed here on MFP.

Again, that's how I make it work, but as @usmcmp says " The only way to know for sure is to monitor your weight and calories over time while adjusting calories when you have an up or down trend. " (emphasis on trend)

Just so I understand this, you set your calories to maintenance based on estimated TDEE, then set activity to Sedentary, then (I use Garmin) log everything you do, such as walking and running, lifting etc to get the proper adjustments?

You don't have to log anything though since the Garmin is already picking it up.

And if syncing an activity tracker - it's reporting TDEE to MFP already, MFP corrects itself to that figure, and then figures your eating goal.
So no need to manually adjust anything on MFP for eating goal.

Set MFP to maintain, activity level to Sedentary or Not active as app calls it now - and Garmin will send over workouts logged, and daily burn figure.

MFP will do the math, and you should be able to observe your eating goal at end of day is what Garmin said you burned TDEE.

Done.

Adjust as needed - Garmin will inflate calorie burn for some things like lifting possibly. But daily distance walking activity is likely fine - unless you do a ton of steps and the stride length is off decent amount.
Notice issues like correcting a workout on Garmin for calories doesn't seem to push the change through.
And even on Garmin it takes awhile for their TDEE value to change after you make a correction like that, anything correcting down especially.

richiechowns wrote: »

heybales wrote: »

richiechowns wrote: »

Nacho_Daddy wrote: »

richiechowns wrote: »

Bookmarked, lots to go through.

Can anyone link me to how this work if you have changeable exercise patterns please? For example, I don't go to the gym and follow a weights program as such, I run and do differing distances and intensity some days, others I'll do a T25 type HIIT/weights type program, others I'll do body weight training.

Is it a case of setting your activity levels as a week view, rather than a day view? I work on my backside around 8 hours a day, I do get up and walk a bit but most of the time it is early exercise and then later walking, cycling or running.

What works for me is to not use MFP's somewhat arbitrary "Active / Inactive" type of activity setting, and instead work directly with actual logged activity. By setting your MFP Activity Level to Sedentary, MFP won't load caloric expenditure into your days unless YOU log calories burned. To me, this keeps the whole thing 'honest' and then your caloric burns will guide the "Calories out" portion of your CI=CO equation, rather than having MFP pre-load some calorie number into that equation for me so my daily energy output (logged) is calculated into the "eat these calories" calculation displayed here on MFP.

Again, that's how I make it work, but as @usmcmp says " The only way to know for sure is to monitor your weight and calories over time while adjusting calories when you have an up or down trend. " (emphasis on trend)

Just so I understand this, you set your calories to maintenance based on estimated TDEE, then set activity to Sedentary, then (I use Garmin) log everything you do, such as walking and running, lifting etc to get the proper adjustments?

You don't have to log anything though since the Garmin is already picking it up.

And if syncing an activity tracker - it's reporting TDEE to MFP already, MFP corrects itself to that figure, and then figures your eating goal.
So no need to manually adjust anything on MFP for eating goal.

Set MFP to maintain, activity level to Sedentary or Not active as app calls it now - and Garmin will send over workouts logged, and daily burn figure.

MFP will do the math, and you should be able to observe your eating goal at end of day is what Garmin said you burned TDEE.

Done.

Adjust as needed - Garmin will inflate calorie burn for some things like lifting possibly. But daily distance walking activity is likely fine - unless you do a ton of steps and the stride length is off decent amount.
Notice issues like correcting a workout on Garmin for calories doesn't seem to push the change through.
And even on Garmin it takes awhile for their TDEE value to change after you make a correction like that, anything correcting down especially.

So just to throw something else into the mix, Garmin has 8 levels of activity I think, what do I set that to?

I did do a mile counting strides, I may have lost count a few times...

That is used in calculating calorie burn from workouts when HR is used.
So be honest with it.

That's all that is used for. And some devices don't even use the FirstBeat technology as Garmin has to pay them for use.

As to steps - if you start a workout on the device, it'll count the steps. But you have to walk a trustworthy 1 mile to confirm it's right or wrong.
And for it to dynamically adjust up or down the distance of each stride impact correctly - walk 2 mph, which is usually mid-point grocery store shuffle to exercise pace.

So if you can find that past workout where you walked a track or such @ 2 mph, maybe a treadmill though they aren't always calibrated as often as they should be - you should be able to get a step count for that workout.

Now that I think about it - Garmin has made some changes - I'm hoping you can look or make a walking workout and display the steps they saw.

Then from there, the device user settings for steps in the 5280 ft.

heybales wrote: »

richiechowns wrote: »

heybales wrote: »

richiechowns wrote: »

Nacho_Daddy wrote: »

richiechowns wrote: »

Bookmarked, lots to go through.

Can anyone link me to how this work if you have changeable exercise patterns please? For example, I don't go to the gym and follow a weights program as such, I run and do differing distances and intensity some days, others I'll do a T25 type HIIT/weights type program, others I'll do body weight training.

Is it a case of setting your activity levels as a week view, rather than a day view? I work on my backside around 8 hours a day, I do get up and walk a bit but most of the time it is early exercise and then later walking, cycling or running.

What works for me is to not use MFP's somewhat arbitrary "Active / Inactive" type of activity setting, and instead work directly with actual logged activity. By setting your MFP Activity Level to Sedentary, MFP won't load caloric expenditure into your days unless YOU log calories burned. To me, this keeps the whole thing 'honest' and then your caloric burns will guide the "Calories out" portion of your CI=CO equation, rather than having MFP pre-load some calorie number into that equation for me so my daily energy output (logged) is calculated into the "eat these calories" calculation displayed here on MFP.

Again, that's how I make it work, but as @usmcmp says " The only way to know for sure is to monitor your weight and calories over time while adjusting calories when you have an up or down trend. " (emphasis on trend)

Just so I understand this, you set your calories to maintenance based on estimated TDEE, then set activity to Sedentary, then (I use Garmin) log everything you do, such as walking and running, lifting etc to get the proper adjustments?

You don't have to log anything though since the Garmin is already picking it up.

And if syncing an activity tracker - it's reporting TDEE to MFP already, MFP corrects itself to that figure, and then figures your eating goal.
So no need to manually adjust anything on MFP for eating goal.

Set MFP to maintain, activity level to Sedentary or Not active as app calls it now - and Garmin will send over workouts logged, and daily burn figure.

MFP will do the math, and you should be able to observe your eating goal at end of day is what Garmin said you burned TDEE.

Done.

Adjust as needed - Garmin will inflate calorie burn for some things like lifting possibly. But daily distance walking activity is likely fine - unless you do a ton of steps and the stride length is off decent amount.
Notice issues like correcting a workout on Garmin for calories doesn't seem to push the change through.
And even on Garmin it takes awhile for their TDEE value to change after you make a correction like that, anything correcting down especially.

So just to throw something else into the mix, Garmin has 8 levels of activity I think, what do I set that to?

I did do a mile counting strides, I may have lost count a few times...

That is used in calculating calorie burn from workouts when HR is used.
So be honest with it.

That's all that is used for. And some devices don't even use the FirstBeat technology as Garmin has to pay them for use.

As to steps - if you start a workout on the device, it'll count the steps. But you have to walk a trustworthy 1 mile to confirm it's right or wrong.
And for it to dynamically adjust up or down the distance of each stride impact correctly - walk 2 mph, which is usually mid-point grocery store shuffle to exercise pace.

So if you can find that past workout where you walked a track or such @ 2 mph, maybe a treadmill though they aren't always calibrated as often as they should be - you should be able to get a step count for that workout.

Now that I think about it - Garmin has made some changes - I'm hoping you can look or make a walking workout and display the steps they saw.

Then from there, the device user settings for steps in the 5280 ft.

It was a race mile, so it was marked start to finish and a straight line, I'm pretty sure I was okay and didn't lost count but next time I attempt it I'll use a 400m track. The only issue I had was the 2mph bit, I cannot naturally walk that slow, but then it only wanted me to input number of strides and distance anyway and time/speed was captured for the workout.

richiechowns wrote: »

heybales wrote: »

richiechowns wrote: »

heybales wrote: »

richiechowns wrote: »

Nacho_Daddy wrote: »

richiechowns wrote: »

Bookmarked, lots to go through.

Can anyone link me to how this work if you have changeable exercise patterns please? For example, I don't go to the gym and follow a weights program as such, I run and do differing distances and intensity some days, others I'll do a T25 type HIIT/weights type program, others I'll do body weight training.

Is it a case of setting your activity levels as a week view, rather than a day view? I work on my backside around 8 hours a day, I do get up and walk a bit but most of the time it is early exercise and then later walking, cycling or running.

What works for me is to not use MFP's somewhat arbitrary "Active / Inactive" type of activity setting, and instead work directly with actual logged activity. By setting your MFP Activity Level to Sedentary, MFP won't load caloric expenditure into your days unless YOU log calories burned. To me, this keeps the whole thing 'honest' and then your caloric burns will guide the "Calories out" portion of your CI=CO equation, rather than having MFP pre-load some calorie number into that equation for me so my daily energy output (logged) is calculated into the "eat these calories" calculation displayed here on MFP.

Again, that's how I make it work, but as @usmcmp says " The only way to know for sure is to monitor your weight and calories over time while adjusting calories when you have an up or down trend. " (emphasis on trend)

Just so I understand this, you set your calories to maintenance based on estimated TDEE, then set activity to Sedentary, then (I use Garmin) log everything you do, such as walking and running, lifting etc to get the proper adjustments?

You don't have to log anything though since the Garmin is already picking it up.

And if syncing an activity tracker - it's reporting TDEE to MFP already, MFP corrects itself to that figure, and then figures your eating goal.
So no need to manually adjust anything on MFP for eating goal.

Set MFP to maintain, activity level to Sedentary or Not active as app calls it now - and Garmin will send over workouts logged, and daily burn figure.

MFP will do the math, and you should be able to observe your eating goal at end of day is what Garmin said you burned TDEE.

Done.

Adjust as needed - Garmin will inflate calorie burn for some things like lifting possibly. But daily distance walking activity is likely fine - unless you do a ton of steps and the stride length is off decent amount.
Notice issues like correcting a workout on Garmin for calories doesn't seem to push the change through.
And even on Garmin it takes awhile for their TDEE value to change after you make a correction like that, anything correcting down especially.

So just to throw something else into the mix, Garmin has 8 levels of activity I think, what do I set that to?

I did do a mile counting strides, I may have lost count a few times...

That is used in calculating calorie burn from workouts when HR is used.
So be honest with it.

That's all that is used for. And some devices don't even use the FirstBeat technology as Garmin has to pay them for use.

As to steps - if you start a workout on the device, it'll count the steps. But you have to walk a trustworthy 1 mile to confirm it's right or wrong.
And for it to dynamically adjust up or down the distance of each stride impact correctly - walk 2 mph, which is usually mid-point grocery store shuffle to exercise pace.

So if you can find that past workout where you walked a track or such @ 2 mph, maybe a treadmill though they aren't always calibrated as often as they should be - you should be able to get a step count for that workout.

Now that I think about it - Garmin has made some changes - I'm hoping you can look or make a walking workout and display the steps they saw.

Then from there, the device user settings for steps in the 5280 ft.

It was a race mile, so it was marked start to finish and a straight line, I'm pretty sure I was okay and didn't lost count but next time I attempt it I'll use a 400m track. The only issue I had was the 2mph bit, I cannot naturally walk that slow, but then it only wanted me to input number of strides and distance anyway and time/speed was captured for the workout.

So into the weeds here.
These step tracking devices are looking at impacts compared to known weight and stride length to dynamically adjust what the current stride distance must have been.
The farther it has to adjust - the less accurate. From good distance and time come very accurate calorie burn.
If stride length is set for race pace - then it's good for how much distance in your day, how much of your daily calorie burn?
Whereas everything on other side of range is most likely inflated, that side that is usually the majority of the day and calorie burn is least accurate.
It's a simple tweak, but if you get lots of daily steps can be meaningful. You probably walk 2 mph more often then you know, doing daily stuff, it's just we don't do many steps at that pace.

richiechowns wrote: »

Bookmarked, lots to go through.

Can anyone link me to how this work if you have changeable exercise patterns please? For example, I don't go to the gym and follow a weights program as such, I run and do differing distances and intensity some days, others I'll do a T25 type HIIT/weights type program, others I'll do body weight training.

Is it a case of setting your activity levels as a week view, rather than a day view? I work on my backside around 8 hours a day, I do get up and walk a bit but most of the time it is early exercise and then later walking, cycling or running.

I don't use a Fitbit or Garmin. I just listen to my body. I set it at seditary. Aim just above my BMR and pay close attention to muscle soreness and increase protein and calories until I lose fat and maintain muscle at the same time. calipers showing bf reduction and tape showing same size. scale may stay the same or slightly drop.

Worked for me

GregInORL wrote: »

I've recently turned off exercise calories and I'm working on getting my calorie goal through MFP to match my actual maintenance by modifying activity level. I was just finding planning my meals so tough when I was seeing sometimes half of my calories added through activity through out the day.

That's a decent plan if you already know your numbers, trying to find which of 4 levels makes the same number.
At that point, likely only 2 levels are high enough.

You could also just manually create an eating goal that is exactly the number you found for avg maintenance.

Is there a reason why you want to only use the activity level to adjust the eating level?

richiechowns wrote: »

Sorry for all the questions, early days.

Reference lifting, I don't lift as such, other than my body weight, is that detrimental to recomp.

And I'm also vegan, so just need to work out the best way to set my macros for protein then eat enough without relying on shakes abs blocks of tempeh.

The concept of recomp is to build muscle while reducing body fat. Building muscle requires some kind of progressive resistance. Some people are able to achieve that with body weight exercise, although I wouldn't call it optimum.

As I understand you goals, you want to to lean down, be generally fit with a focus more on cardio exercises, yes? You are doing some body weight stuff for general fitness? Do you still have about 20(?) lbs of body fat that you want to reduce?