Body Recomposition - Going Crazy.. Help !

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vinootg
vinootg Posts: 5 Member
edited September 2021 in Health and Weight Loss
Hi Fitness Buddies !

Need your help and advice regarding body recomposition.

Age 32
Height 5ft'5
weight 127 lbs
Body Fat 16.4%
Muscle mass % - 79.1%
Activity Level - 4 Days a week (2 days strength, 2 days HIIT)

As per the many blogs I've read to do a body recomposition. I need to be eating at my maintenance calories to bulk and be at a deficit to shred. As per that, my maintenance calories is at 2000 and deficit (20%) 1600 calories. (Tracking through food scale) and following macros from this site http://fitcal.me/macros

I have been strict and trying to follow this. However I am noticing the below:
  • Slight weight loss 127 (starting) --> 126.5lbs; in a week
  • Body Fat % went up --> 16.4% (starting)--> 17.1% --> 17.3%
  • Muscle mass % went down --> 79.1% (starting) --> 78.6% --> 78.4% (eating more than the required proteins as well)

Workout schedule is:
  • Strength Day : Maintenance calories
  • HIIT : Deficit calories

This is not making any sense to me as my body fat % is going up and muscle going down ! its driving me nuts ! Any suggestions / guidance would be helpful. I know its a slow process.

Replies

  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
    edited September 2021
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    Lots of questions.....

    How are you estimating those changes in body composition?

    How long have you been trying to recomp?

    You do know you don't have to alternative deficit and maintenance or surplus days I hope? (Entirely optional and I would be suspicious of any information source that doesn't make that clear.)

    What are you actually doing that you describe as HIIT? (And why are you training like that?)
    (HIIT is a specialised pacing strategy rather than an exercise.)
  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,521 Member
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    If you are tracking this with a fitness scale, then be aware that the BF% is a very crude estimate that will vary considerably day-to-day. The best way to track BF is to go to a clinic that offers DEXA. However, I don't think that's really necessary or all that useful. I've used a caliper in the past, which is a cheap way to measure your fat layer thickness. This is at least a good relative measurement that gives you some sense of accomplishment, if that motivates you.

    But, I found at your age that the real winner for adding muscle mass was to eat at or very slightly above maintenance while doing significant resistance training, meaning at least 5 days a week, ~1 hr per session. At the time, I had two lifting buddies who both had significant background in weight training. Even better is to work with a trainer. In addition, I did at least 3 cardio workouts a week (jogging is probably the best).
  • vinootg
    vinootg Posts: 5 Member
    edited September 2021
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    @sijomial , thanks for your reply.

    I am tracking those changes using the Fitbit charge and a Body Scale.

    The program I am following is through the Freelectics app (https://www.freeletics.com/) and hybrid program; hence the 2 days strength and 2 days HIIT, 30 - 60 sec break in between sets).

    I've been trying to recomp for a month now, just mental game when I see the body fat going up and muscle going down.

    Dint know I din't have to alternative. Will try just doing maintenance then.

    What do you suggest ?
  • vinootg
    vinootg Posts: 5 Member
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    @Jthanmyfitnesspal , thanks for replying

    Yup I am using a body scale for measuring. I do see the fluctuations happening, but just going up :disappointed: on the body fat.

    Guessing maybe will just have to stick to the strength training and drop the HIIT to see gains. Cause when I used to jog / run before I dint see the gain in body fat nor muscle mass drop.
  • cupcakesandproteinshakes
    cupcakesandproteinshakes Posts: 1,092 Member
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    Get on an established lifting programme. I’m not familiar with the one you are following. You may be leaving potential gains on the table by only doing 2 days of strength training a week. My recommendation would be barbell medicine’s beginner prescription. There are others as good.
    Put your patient pants on. It takes years to recomp. One month is no time at all.

    I’d ignore the body fat measurements and go by pictures taken over time.
  • vinootg
    vinootg Posts: 5 Member
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    cupcakesandproteinshakes wrote: »
    Get on an established lifting programme. I’m not familiar with the one you are following. You may be leaving potential gains on the table by only doing 2 days of strength training a week. My recommendation would be barbell medicine’s beginner prescription. There are others as good.
    Put your patient pants on. It takes years to recomp. One month is no time at all.

    I’d ignore the body fat measurements and go by pictures taken over time.

    Hey thanks for your message, yeah will ditch the HIIT and focus more on strength days.

    Yep do definitely need to put the patient pants on ! :smile: getting distracted by the numbers.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    Your scale is nowhere near accurate enough to judge progress with the degree of accuracy you seem to think. Have a big glass of water before your reading and you will get a different result.

    A month is nothing. Unreasonable expectations lead to disappointment. Suggest you take monthly tape measurements and progress photos.

    Your HIIT isn't really HIIT from your very short description and unless you are doing fast paced circuit training for some other reason it's an odd choice if you are trying to build muscle.

    Suggestion is to eat at or around maintenance calories in a way that personally suits you the best and look into a more recognised hypertrophy routine which seems to be your main goal.
  • vinootg
    vinootg Posts: 5 Member
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    sijomial wrote: »
    Your scale is nowhere near accurate enough to judge progress with the degree of accuracy you seem to think. Have a big glass of water before your reading and you will get a different result.

    A month is nothing. Unreasonable expectations lead to disappointment. Suggest you take monthly tape measurements and progress photos.

    Your HIIT isn't really HIIT from your very short description and unless you are doing fast paced circuit training for some other reason it's an odd choice if you are trying to build muscle.

    Suggestion is to eat at or around maintenance calories in a way that personally suits you the best and look into a more recognised hypertrophy routine which seems to be your main goal.

    Will definitely start measuring and photos to begin with. I was just doing the HIIT, based on what the program was showing me. No other particular reason.

    Thanks for your suggestion sijomial regarding the calories. I am going to stick to maintenance cals and see how it goes.
  • sgt1372
    sgt1372 Posts: 3,982 Member
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    Recomp is good in theory but unrealistic in practice. The body just does work well trying to both loss wt/fat and gain muscle at the same time

    i tried doing it for a yr and measured my
    progress quarterly w/DEXA and hydro with minimal results.

    I previously did 2 cycles of bulk/cut over several yrs which was easier to implement, and much more eeffective in increasing my muscle massand reducing my BF.

    Lots of "advice" online about how to do it.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    There is a long running recomp thread in the maintaining weight forum.
    This is a link to the latest page (but worth reading the earlier pages too) which contains links to videos on the subject by Jeff Nippard and Bret Contreras, well worth watching.

    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10177803/recomposition-maintaining-weight-while-losing-fat#latest
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,432 Member
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    Yes to what others have said about getting a more appropriate strength program, reading the recomp thread sijomial linked, not trusting a BIA scale for body comp (for anything other than a very long term trend line), not expecting to see changes in anything as short as a month, and probably some other good advice I'm forgetting.

    Adding this: I'm your height, 5'5". I'm around your weight, maintaining +/- a couple of pounds around 125 pounds these days.

    From that perspective, 127 to 126.5 pounds in a week is 100% meaningless. You could be losing bodyfat, gaining bodyfat, or staying the same bodyfat, there's no way to tell. Water weight fluctuations, even in men, are at least a small number of pounds day to day. Within a week, that can mask a meaningful amount of fat loss, if fat is happening.

    Weight changes in a day or few (unless doing something *dramatic* with eating or exercise, which you aren't) tend to be mostly water fluctuations. Fat level changes tend to show up in trends over a small number of weeks, up to a small number of months (the months if on a slow fat loss or gain calorie intake). Muscle mass changes tend to show up in trends over months to years.

    I'd suggest reading this, if you haven't, for (I hope) a calming effect:

    https://physiqonomics.com/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-weight-and-fluctuations

    A week is just too short to know anything useful about anything.

    That said: While I'm around your size, I'm female, age 65, sedentary outside of intentional exercise, and would loose fat at quite a good clip at 1600 calories *plus* all my exercise calories (so 1850-2200 gross calorie intake).

    I admit, I'm mysteriously a good li'l ol' calorie burner for unknown reasons, atypical for my demographic, but you're younger, your profile says you're 100% male-er, if we believe your BIA scale is even remotely within spitting distance of reasonable you have more muscle mass (I figure I'm in the lower 20s BF%, maybe 22-24%) and we'd expect you as a younger man to have more muscle mass than a li'l ol' lady (even an active one).

    If you're accurately logging and eating 1600 calories, I'd put money on the idea that you're losing fat. Personally, at our size, I wouldn't do anything as big as a 20% TDEE cut, if it were my goal to recomp. I'd either eat around maintenance, or do a super small deficit, no more than 250 calories, and possibly even less than that. Well, if it were literally me, I'd eat at maintenance, because I'm pretty happy weighing in the mid-120s. YMMV.

  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,521 Member
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    sgt1372 wrote: »
    Recomp is good in theory but unrealistic in practice. The body just does work well trying to both loss wt/fat and gain muscle at the same time

    I think it depends on where you start and what you are expecting. If you are in reasonable shape (as may apply to the OP) I imagine it would be hard (but maybe not impossible?) to gain significant muscle without gaining weight. I imagine it's much more feasible to recomp when you start at a higher BF%.

    And: I've only lowered BF% by actually losing weight, as far as I can tell. Resistance and other training while your weight reduces is the best way to retain muscle, it seems.
  • snake_man_32
    snake_man_32 Posts: 31 Member
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    IMO recomp is tough. I tried doing it the past year and gained a bit of muscle but dropped only a smidgen of body fat. Granted COVID made it hard to go to the gym for a while there.

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