But...

I guess where my mind goes with this is that if the physical size is what matters, I still don't think I'd be happy with keeping my current 150 lbs of LBM even if my BF% is only 20% - which would mean a weight of 188lbs. I'd be very fit and mostly muscle, yes, but won't I still be a larger size than I want? I won't be a size six or eight at 188 lbs even if my BF% is only 20%.

I played with some numbers in Excel, I've put a link to the spreadsheet if you want to see it.

I've used my sister as sort of a baseline, she's 130 lbs, 5'7" (same as me) and 20% BF and she wears a size 4-6 usually.

Then I made up an arbitrary way to measure her size to mine. I call it Valerie's Mass Index! The formula I use is LBM (in lbs) + Fat (in lbs)/5. This follows the assumption that fat (by weight) is 5 times bigger volume than the same weight in muscle - I read that in an article yesterday, if that figures is wrong, let me know. So my VMI takes all the weight (in LBM and fat) and converts it to an index of volume (size) measured in equal units.

Then I've compared the VMI of various different scenarios.

At my starting weight from last September, 297 lbs, 40% BF, I was 85% bigger than my sister (by volume).

Right now, at 234, 36% BF, I'm still 53% bigger than my sister (by volume), but 18% smaller than I was when I started. (That's almost 1/5 of my original size I've reduced! Yay!)

If I were to keep my current LBM of 150 lbs and just lose fat only until I get to 20% BF, that would make my new goal 188 lbs (not 135). But at that point I'd still be 45% bigger than my sister. That's still really big! There is no way I'd ever get to her size that way. I'd still be in size 12s or 14s.

I agree it's the size that matters, not the number on the scale. But, I want the size, I want to be a size 6 or 8. And I really think I have to lose LBM to get there.

Now, having said that, I'm seeing that I really should be losing the fat first! I should probably be resistance training now and losing fat first so that I am losing sizes quicker! That is my mistake, I'm not as small today as I would be if I'd concentrated on losing 60 lbs of fat over the last 6 months instead of just 60 lbs of weight. Since I lost 28 lbs of LBM mass too, I could theoretically be alot smaller today than I am now if I'd lost all fat.


http://home.cogeco.ca/~vliberty/vmi_bf.xls


I'd really like anyone's thoughts on this if they are inclined. Do I have logic flaws that I haven't seen that disproves or mitigates my theory?

In spite of my theory, I think Crysania and Dianne are right that the resistance training is the way to go at this point though. I'd like to get as small as I can as quickly as I can, so I think I'm missing the boat when I lose LBM this early in the game. I do think I'll need to lose LBM eventually though.

Next question though. Is it harder to lose LBM than fat? When I get to my interim goal of 188 (current LBM & BF% of 20%), will it be really hard to lose the LBM to keep going down in size? Does anyone know anything about this?

Valerie