Losing mainly fat while preserving muscle

acmac94
acmac94 Posts: 4 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi I am 25 years old, 69kg, body fat percentage is 19.4% and subcutaneous fat is 17.5%. Workout 5 times a week - mixture of 45 minute jogs, 20 min hiit workout, some weight lifting before either of these aerobic excericses (like: bicep curls, an crunches and pectoral flys with single dumbell)
My body fat is stuck at 19.4%. This is a comment percentage for lots of skinny fat guys. I don't want to lose too much weight but I do want to lose body fat. Have love handles, pectoral fat and belly fat. Pear shaped mainly.

Height is 178cm.
Body measurements are from renpho body fat weighing scale. Apparently it's very accurate.

Sorry I want to correct this: 1000 calories after the workouts, assuming each workout is around 500calories burnt according to my fitness pal.

So it's 1500 intake, and net 1000 calories. But on sedentary days intake will be around 1000 calories.

Do you guys think the method above is ok to lose body fat?
Do you reccoment fat burning supplements?
Specific type of workouts to help with reducing body fat but not muscle?
What's the key to lose fat and avoid losing muscle (in terms of food, calories, workout)

I think this discussion could help loads of people out there. This is so common I haven't found a good thread about good tips just yet. My goal is dropping body fat from around 20% to 15% - hopefully in 6 weeks time. The weighing scale tracs body fat to the 0.1%. I got to 18.9% from 20.4% over 4 weeks, then made banana bread and cookies (as u do during lockdown) and over the next 2 weeks it went back up to 19.8! Argh. Avoided sugary stuff and it's coming down each week by 0.1-0.2% but I'd like to lose it faster (now I'm doing Cardio before I was doing hiit 20 min workouts, I feel Cardio helps more with fat loss at this stage of body fat).

Replies

  • harper16
    harper16 Posts: 2,564 Member
    1500 is the minimum you should be eating. You can't spot reduce where you lose weight.
  • harper16
    harper16 Posts: 2,564 Member
    edited May 2020
    acmac94 wrote: »
    Hi height is 178cm.
    Body measurements are from renpho body fat weighing scale. Apparently it's very accurate.

    Sorry I want to correct this: 1000 calories after the workouts, assuming each workout is around 500calories burnt according to my fitness pal.

    So it's 1500 intake, and net 1000 calories. But on sedentary days intake will be around 1000 calories.

    Do you guys think the method above is ok to lose body fat?
    Do you reccoment fat burning supplements?
    Specific type of workouts to help with reducing body fat but not muscle?
    What's the key to lose fat and avoid losing muscle (in terms of food, calories, workout)

    I think this discussion could help loads of people out there. This is so common I haven't found a good thread about good tips just yet. My goal is dropping body fat from around 20% to 15% - hopefully in 6 weeks time. The weighing scale tracs body fat to the 0.1%. I got to 18.9% from 20.4% over 4 weeks, then made banana bread and cookies (as u do during lockdown) and over the next 2 weeks it went back up to 19.8! Argh. Avoided sugary stuff and it's coming down each week by 0.1-0.2% but I'd like to lose it faster (now I'm doing Cardio before I was doing hiit 20 min workouts, I feel Cardio helps more with fat loss at this stage of body fat).

    No. What you are doing is not okay to lose body fat.
    You should be eating back your exercise calories.
    Why are you starving yourself? It's not a healthy way to lose weight.
    Fat burning supplements are a waste of money, and don't do anything promised.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    So it's 1500 intake, and net 1000 calories. But on sedentary days intake will be around 1000 calories.
    Sorry but that's ludicrously low.

    Do you guys think the method above is ok to lose body fat?
    No. Let me rephrase that.... NO!

    Do you reccoment fat burning supplements?
    No

    Specific type of workouts to help with reducing body fat but not muscle?
    Until you fix your crazy starvation diet you are majoring in the minors.

    What's the key to lose fat and avoid losing muscle (in terms of food, calories, workout)
    • Moderate/sensible/conservative calorie deficit resulting in slow rate of weight loss.
    • Strength training, preferably a well designed program working all your body not just a few isolation lifts.
    • Keep protein high, 1g per lb of estimated lean mass is my prefered level.

  • briscogun
    briscogun Posts: 1,138 Member
    It sounds like what you want is to lose fat but not lose more weight? Correct? Read this thread:

    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10177803/recomposition-maintaining-weight-while-losing-fat#latest

    You need to eat very close to maintenance levels, maybe a small amount under, and work out using a progressive lifting program. Read the first post, its long but I think you will get a lot from it.
  • quiksylver296
    quiksylver296 Posts: 28,439 Member
    edited May 2020
    To lose fat and preserve muscle, eat at a slight deficit (250 calories under maintenance), maximize your protein intake, and lift weights using a proven progressive lifting program. It does not sound like you are doing this currently, so no, I don't think your method is ok.

    Oh, and fat burning supplements are all bull*kitten*.

  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    acmac94 wrote: »
    I think this discussion could help loads of people out there. This is so common I haven't found a good thread about good tips just yet. My goal is dropping body fat from around 20% to 15% - hopefully in 6 weeks time. The weighing scale tracs body fat to the 0.1%. I got to 18.9% from 20.4% over 4 weeks, then made banana bread and cookies (as u do during lockdown) and over the next 2 weeks it went back up to 19.8! Argh. Avoided sugary stuff and it's coming down each week by 0.1-0.2% but I'd like to lose it faster (now I'm doing Cardio before I was doing hiit 20 min workouts, I feel Cardio helps more with fat loss at this stage of body fat).

    I'd almost be bolding that whole section there to comment on - so just some points of knowledge.

    And yes, these type of posts - of which there are many actually - can help loads of people.
    Avoid doing what you are doing frankly - you have some bad misunderstandings about several things.

    5% body fat drop in 6 weeks - you haven't done the math on that as to what that means.
    You can't build muscle that fast even if you were doing a proper progressive weight training and eating enough - neither of which you are doing.
    And you should do the math just to have the numbers there as to what it means for weight loss.
    And time based goals are a recipe for failure.

    That scale does not in any possible way track down to that level of accuracy. Much more expensive studied and tested methods don't either.
    It happens to show a number to that level of accuracy. Shoot, even the weight function of the scale probably reports to the nearest 0.2 kg, but I'll bet a sticker or the box says it's level of accuracy is worse than that.
    If it has been tested as a very good model and you happen to present the exactly same hydrated body to it, it might get as close to 5% accuracy. Good luck on knowing you are exactly the same hydrated. It maybe can be consistent over time, but for accuracy count on 10%.

    You are pointing out exactly why it's useless with your description of movement along with eating types of foods. You lost water weight, that's it - but it changed your LBM, therefore it changed your BF%.

    I'll let someone else comment on the last sentence there.
  • creationscrown
    creationscrown Posts: 304 Member
    edited May 2020
    Ummmm, appreciate the info you're trying to obtain but isn't this the success stories feed? I popped in to read about your success and instead read a bunch of questions and statistics about what you're trying to achieve. I saw your title and thought, "Oh cool! Body fat percentage loss success! Let's check this out!" No offense, I get it, but please...can we stick to SUCCESS stories to make it easy for everyone to pop around and read them quickly and see the results?
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,091 Member
    creationscrown wrote: »
    Ummmm, appreciate the info you're trying to obtain but isn't this the success stories feed? I popped in to read about your success and instead read a bunch of questions and statistics about what you're trying to achieve. I saw your title and thought, "Oh cool! Body fat percentage loss success! Let's check this out!" No offense, I get it, but please...can we stick to SUCCESS stories to make it easy for everyone to pop around and read them quickly and see the results?

    Unless it's been moved without notice in the thread since you posted, no, it's not the success stories forum. It's the general health forum.
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,238 Member
    edited May 2020
    Most scales don't even make an accuracy claim for body fat. They do make some accuracy claim about weight.

    Measuring to a certain increment implies, but does not actually deliver, accuracy to that increment.

    Funny part is when body fat measurement systems discuss their accuracy to 5%, do you think they actually mean 5% of the actual measurement? ( i.e. if I say you're 20% body fat, you're 19% to 21%, which is what I used to think 5% meant)?

    NOPE.

    They mean you're somewhere between 15% and 25% body fat.

    Yup. You're right. Looking at yourself in the mirror would be more accurate!

    You can control the following:

    --how much of an energy imbalance you apply. The more negative the imbalance the less likely it is to build muscle.

    --how much protein you consume. At around 1g per lb of lean mass you're coming close to achieving most of the benefits from eating more protein than the basic RDA. Could you get away with a bit less or get some incremental muscle retention benefit with a bit more... possibly. But it is chump change compared to:

    --your strength training program and your implementation of the strength training program.

    The rest you can't control.

    But one thing is for sure: 1000 net calories and pectoral flies... ain't gonna do what you said you want to achieve.

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