Hi,

Any help greatly appreciated!

I've been LCing for 3 months now - I initially lost 15 lbs. Then when I started some new medications & wasn't as diligent with my carbs, I gain some back - 7 lbs. I now weigh 223 . . . and for the past 4 weeks I've been working out at a gym nearly every day. The program they set up for me consists of 20-30 minutes cardio, and 15-20 minutes on the weight machines.

Lately I've kept my cardio at 25 minutes and my weight lifting (weight machines) at 25-30 minutes. I've increased my reps. & weights. I haven't changed in weight at all for the past 4 weeks. I've been diligently LCing, typically eating around 2000 calories, 55-65% fat, 5-10% carbs., and 25-35% proteins (130-170g protein.)

I have lost inches - around my hips and waist, and my face and neck area have thinned out.

The trainer at my gym finally explained yesterday why my BF% increased - she says I've lost lean muscle mass, from 39% to 33% YIKES

So all my hard work & effort has resulted in a negative effect on my body!

I feel and look better & I have more energy, so how could this be true? I'm so confused now. Why am I not burning fat & losing weight or at least fat inches coming off?

TIA

This is only an opinion, but I don't see how you could have gained any fat, and think the readings must have been inaccurate.

HOW could you have more body fat and less muscle if
-you're smaller
-you're stronger
-you feel good
-you weigh the same?

You could weigh the same, adding as much fat as you've lost muscle but then you'd be much thicker and quite a but weaker.
It's not logical.
I think if all of your progress is positive ie: smaller, stronger, feel good etc. then try not to worry about lost muscle because it's not happening. It also seems that the inches lost have been fat inches. However, if you feel tired and your performance stalling or decreasing you should start to worry and seek to remedy the cause.

Take care,
Meg

I think a mistake in measuring your bady fat was made, either at the beginning or now. Be advised though, that unless you are doing a hydrostatic test......ie under water, results are wildly inaccurate and lack repeatibility.

I appreciate any thoughts that will help me figure this all out.

When I think about it - shouldn't I weigh less if I lost lean muscle? And only gained .5% BF. True the measurements could be way off - I've heard Nat say in several posts that there can be a 3-5% margin of error.

So how do I measure my success? Yes, feeling good and losing 1.5 inches off my waist is great, but will it continue?

I signed up to meet with a personal trainer - my first session will be tomorrow. I really hope she can help me find the formula that will work best for me, with my diet and exercise.

Fingers crossed

I agree with the others here, this drop in lbm sounds like a goof. Keep going. You are getting stronger, healthier. Keep shooting for the longer term goal. Here's some different ideas to consider -
Don't weigh at all.
Take four measurements once a month, chest waist, upper arm, thigh.
Track your training
Spot check the diet on fitday - it's still about calories.
Get in about 1g/lb in protein per day to support muscle recovery.
If you get tired, take in 25g of carbs right before a workout to keep up your stamina. It'll burn off during the session.
Relax into your routine. It will work - over time.

I appreciate the tips Doug

Keeping my protein at/around 1g per lb of weight is pretty hard for me . . . the highest I've ever gotten with my proteins is 169g - and I weigh 221 now, so 221g of protein is A TON to consume, IMO. I keep trying to keep my protein grams higher than everything else - carbs, fat, etc. Thats about the best I can do right now.

I am starting (slowly) to lose weight again. I know we shouldn't weigh right after a rest day, but I couldn't resist today & I'm down to 221.

I've weaned myself off one of my medications that causes increased weight gain, and that might be helping some now. Also, I've been keeping my calories around 1800, as my trainer thinks that if I eat around 2000, and only work out 50 minutes a day, I won't lose fat or inches. She has started me out on some exercises that are really working my muscles over - wow are they hard to do! She says that these exercises will work to reduce fat and trim up my muscles . . . and I bet they work.

Anyhoo - thanks again for the suggestions and support. I think I'm on the right track now . . .

When I did Body For Life last year, I had never done any strength training. The book said that for the first few weeks, I might show a weight gain, because I was building muscle and muscle is heavier than fat. But not to worry about it, because even though I might be heavier in pounds, I would be losing inches. And they were right! I did gain about 4 pounds and was really discouraged even though I knew that was okay. After about 4 weeks, I was down a pant size and only about 5-6 pounds.

So keep up the weight training--I do a combination of with aerobic exercise also and I feel great.

Now if I can just lose the weight!

HappyMomma,
I have lost 50lbs of fat doing Protein Power and BFL. When I started the PP diet I used the measuring tape method to track my BF% and I too seemed to be losing lean muscle. At the time I was not doing any weight training, just cardio so it is possible that I did lose some LM. As others have said measuring BF% is a very error prone process and the tape measure method is not as good as say the caliper method. Currently I have three ways of checking my BF%. One is the tape measure; I also purchased a caliper made by Accu-Measure. It was very inexpensive and seems to be relatively accurate, here is the link the there site http://www.accumeasurefitness.com/ . I also have a Tanita Body Fat scale that seems to work most of the time. The problem is that if I do the tape method, caliper method and the scale at the same time they will all read differently. For instance today I measured my waist and neck and used an online calculator and it says my BF% is 13%. I used the calipers and the on line calculator says I’m 9.4% and the scale says I’m 10.8%. Personally I like the caliper method J. So the moral of the story is used one method consistently and It will show your progress. Since getting the calipers I believe it is the most reliable of the methods with the tape measure and scale tied for second best.

If your waist, hips, face and neck are thinner then you're losing fat! Someone is telling you rubbish.
The advice about use one method of body fat measurement is good, since although its strictly speaking inaccurate, its the same inaccurate each time, so it still shows the trends.
Personally I use measurements, which I plug into www.linear-software.com which is a free, online body fat calculator.

If you knew your starting waist and hip measurements (assume your neck was the same as now unless you actually know what that was too), you'll be able to see how your body fat has changed.

If you're eating enough protein and lifting, its very hard to see how you'd be losing muscle - you'd have to be doing hours of cardio too.

Keep up the good work! Jay

Thanks for the info. At this point I've decided not to worry about BF% - initially it seemed like the best way to track my progress, but I think seeing the pounds coming off & my body toning up are the best indicators & easiest to track for me.

I did do an update at my gym a week ago - and with using tape measurements I've lost 12 inches! Also, the scale has been nice to me - I'm down to 213. I was actually down to 211 before Thanksgiving, but ate a few more calories than 1800 per day while we were on vacation in California, and so a couple pounds creeped back on . . . I'm sick with a cold right now, and so I haven't worked out in a few days and I am itching to get back on the treadmill!

Currently I've settled into a workout plan of MWF doing 30 minutes cardio + strength building exercises and weight machines for another 20 minutes, and T,Th & Sat doing 40 minutes of cardio. Also, I'm sticking with keeping my calories under 1800 (most days ) and I'm very happy with the results.

Thanks again for the suggestions, thoughts and encouragement!

Whilst LC you should only do light cardio, without carbs your body cant handle it and will use lean muscle and fat to fuel it’s self. So aim for something like 70% of max heart rate.

Also whilst LC you should do heavy weights and few reps (8-10 max) so in increasing your reps you could in-fact be loosing muscle instead of gaining it.