Nat and Ladybelle,

Thank you both for your insights and your information! I wasn't shooting for high performance athlete just your average in shape not afraid to wear a bathing suit kind of person. I'll definately change focus to BF% rather than weight. Of course tracking that without a definitive means of measurement is tough. How do you guys feel about the scales that give bf% with electrical charges?

I guess I probably excercise more than the average over-weight person. It's just that untill I started lcing it didn't make any difference in my weight or my clothes.

Nat, I noticed in one of your postings on BFL that too much cardio can break down muscle. Is that just on a BFL regime or is that in general? Up untill recently I was doing the eliptical for 30 minutes on 8 for resistance at a fairly good clip then finishing my workout with a 20 minute run on the treadmill at a 12:30 minute mile (I'm fairly short so this is pretty fast for me). My calories run between 2500 to 3000 to compensate for the intensity of work out so I have a hard time thinking I'm in starvation.

Any thoughts on reworking my exercise plan. Most of my non-cardio is focused on abs (where I carry all my excess) and upper body. My legs are actully in good shape.

Thanks for your time

KRC

Check the best of forum - wbahn has a very informative post in there comparing the vardious methods of measuring BF. Frankly, I think as long as you pick one method and stick with it and use it as an overall indicator of progress you should be ok (remember they can all be off by a few percents, so a .5% drop in lean mass one month is not something to freak over!) I just use the trusty old tape measure these days, and an old pair of jeans to gauge progress.

This was my story as well. I was eating low fat / low calorie and exercising like mad - and getting fatter.

If you're eating enough - and I'd say you are - I would strongly suggest changing the workouts so that you make them an hour or under to keep cortisol from getting out of control (this happens after an hour of exercise) - a sign that coritsol is a problem is a tendancy to hold fat around the middle / abdomen. If you haven't had any time off from working out in a while I would also suggest a week of rest. This is also something you should incorporate into your workouts every 3 - 4 months, just to let the body recover and heal.

Too much cardio can be catabolic - it's a particular problem if you're doing the BFL style cardio and want to add in more w/o increasing protein, but in general it can also be a problem, especially if it goes on for periods of time longer than one hour. A little more about cortisol .

Keep in mind that change is good - reworking exercise plans, changing the reps, the exercises, the schemes are all ways to shock the body into responding. And also keep in mind that those lower body muscles are the big ones - they will burn more fat when they are active

Cheers,
-Nat