I have been frustrated a bit over the last couple of weeks that my weight loss on the scale has slowed down. I've lost only 2.8 lbs for the month of February, which is a lot less than I had been losing. I have been doing some more research and have pretty much come to the conclusion that my slow down is a direct result of the increased exercise I‘ve been doing, and more specifically, the resistance training.

I had not been tracking %bf before, but took measurements in January and again in mid February. I did lose some fat, but gained some lbm too. So this explains the lack of movement on the scale.

ValerieL suggested to me that I might want to forego the increasing resistance training and just maintain my current lbm (127). (Thanks Valerie!) If I maintain my current lbm until I hit goal (160), I would have 127 pounds of lean body mass and 33 pounds of fat. That comes out to be 21%bf, which is pretty good. I was planning to be happy with a 25% bf, so 21% sounds even better! So maintaining, rather than increasing, lbm makes sense to me. Would you agree with this?

I did a bit of sleuthing on the net and found a great link for BFL info. On the Q&A page, I found the following:

Q I am 5'6" and weigh 193 lbs. Since beginning BFL I have gone from 41%BF to 30%BF. When the figures were broken down I ended up at 135lb lean and 58lbs fat. I am small boned. I am very proud of that muscle. At 57 years of age I never had any muscle before. However, I really think I need to lose the extra body fat and I don't believe I need to gain more muscle. What modifications should I make to my program to reach my goal? I am diabetic, now controlled by diet and exercise most of the time. I have doctors approval for this program. My doctor is supportive but not knowledgeable about the program. He is just delighted that after 2 years of working hard with me to change my body things are finally happening again. Before that I would get someone to drive me to the Y and they would lower me into the pool with a sling. Now I can do the BFL program. So what do I do? How can I dump the fat without increasing the muscle? Thanks, this old lady appreciates your input.

A Here's my take. First of all, it's GREAT that you've been doing this program. I have another section in my Q&A page on diabetes & BFL too. Now, as far as the muscle gain is concerned, I think it's still essential that you get part of your intensity from weight training, as it will accelerate the fat loss even if you think of it purely as an exercise (not to mention the metabolic requirements of the muscle). But since you don't want to add significantly more mass, we want to shift your training toward higher repetition and lower weight, so you're training your "aerobic" slow-twitch muscle fibers, rather than causing hypertrophy (excessive growth) in the "fast-twitch" ones. So when you weight train, I want you to change those sets of 8 and 6 into sets of 10 repetitions. And rather than focusing on maximal contraction and "burn", I want you just to focus on breathing deeply and aerobically while you do those sets. That will emphasize the fat loss more than the fiber growth. Finally, remember that pound-for-pound, muscle is about 5 times more compact than fat, and rather than being a weight that your body has to carry around, muscle helps to support and strengthen your posture and bone density. So don't be scared of muscle growth, but we can attenuate it by focusing on higher repetitions and lower weights. Hope that helps! Good luck - John [Back to Q&A Index]

So based on the above, I think I should continue doing the resistance training, but not necessarily increase the weights. At least not until I lose some more of this excessive weight. I don’t like weighing quite this much as I think it’s hard on my joints.

As I was working through this, I took at look at some of the other TDC'ers %bf to get an idea of where other people are. I guess I just wanted to see if Valerie's idea and the above response made logical sense. If I were to apply the same calculation using some of the TDC members %bf, there are some folks who, if they maintain current lbm, would have a really low %bf, for example 12% or 15%. I've read on the boards that to get to a 12%bf you have to be ripped, which means you are working really hard on the resistance/strength training.

So, I'm wondering for those of us who are stalling, if our bodies recognize that in order to lose more overall weight, we would need to lose lbm and they are fighting really hard to keep us from doing that. I can’t seem to find much on the net that addresses this and wanted to see if you all might know. Any thoughts on this?

Also, one more question. I tried to find this on the net, but couldn’t. How much % of lbm do you lose if you are not doing the resistance training at all? If I’m at 127 lbm now, how can I calculate where I’d be after losing another 25 lbs of scale weight if I didn't exercise?

Thanks for your feedback on this!