My Meal Plan and Exercise aren’t Working!
Have you ever cried the above statement out. You have almost stopped eating, you are running six days a week but you are not losing weight. Your body fat is expanding. But … are you getting fitter?
Using weight to measure your gains is an ineffective method of tracking your progress. Our body weight fluctuates throughout the day and things such as eating or drinking affects the weight. Did you know that a 500 ml bottle of water weighs around 1 lb? So how do I and how should you monitor your progress? Through testing your % body fat!
After my first week my body fat went from 20.1 to 19.51% … whoopee!! Everything is working and I am on track to get to my desired weight and % body fat. Wait a second! How about the other factors? My weight went from 227.2 to 226.6, a measly 0.6 loss.
Here are the lean mass and fat numbers for the last two weeks:
Sept 1 / Sept 8
Weight: 227.2 Weight: 226.6
% BF: 20.1 % BF: 19.51
Lean mass: 181.52 Lean Mass: 182.38
Fat: 45.68 Fat: 44.22
In this case, my lean mass went up and my fat went down and this is good. Notice how my weight is only down 0.6 lbs. Usually in the first couple of weeks on a reduced calorie food plan, the weight loss is partially due to losing water weight. I purposely reduced my starchy carbohydrates so I should have lost some water weigh. Carbs use water to break down. However, I also started using creatine monohydrate which adds water to the body. I didn’t lose as much water as I expected. (I also cheated as I am a sugar adduct and … well … you know!!)
Four Possible % Body Fat Scenarios
There are four scenarios that the % BF will expose. The above scenario with me shows a decrease in fat and an increase in lean mass. (the lean mass is muscle, bone, connective tissue etc) Let’s go through the four scenarios or possibilities.
First Scenario – Lean Mass increases or stays the same and Fat goes down.
This is the ideal scenario and it means the meal plan is working
Second Scenario – Lean Mass increases and Fat increases
Too many calories are being eaten in this scenario
Scenario Three – Lean Mass goes down and Fat goes up
This tells you that you that not enough calories are being eaten. More than that, it tells you that the body … yours or mine … is starting to cannibalize itself and is breaking down muscle to feed itself … not good!
Scenario Four – Lean Mass goes down and Fat goes down
This scenario tells you that your body is not getting enough protein.
Weight and Body Measurements
weight
As mentioned previously is not necessarily a good measurement. Yes, you want to measure weight and watch how it reacts to your exercise and meal plan but this should not be the top statistic to determine how you are doing. Increasing or decreasing water content … affects your weight but it won’t affect your % BF. However if you are using a scale or other similar method then your hydration level will really affect your readings.
Muscle and Body Fat compared
Muscle and Body Fat compared
If you took five pounds of muscle and compared it to five pounds of fat, they would both weigh the same. Fat is almost three times the size of the muscle. Therefore, if you are in a weight lifting program and gaining muscle while also losing fat, your weight may not change or even increase. Your body should start showing changes.
Body Measurements and % body fat
Body measurements do tell you how your program is going to some degree. If you noticed in my measurements, my waist size last week was 42 inches and it was the same this week. This by itself could be discouraging but as I stick to my plan, I will see that waist size start to go down, even if my weight stays the same. Yet without the % BF measurements, I won’t know if I am losing fat or fat and muscle.
Calories
I use a scale that give me my Basic Metabolic Rate (BMR). BMR is the minimal amount of calories needed to maintain the weight I was when I weighed myself. On September 8 the scale told me I need 2178 calories a day to maintain my weight. It doesn’t take into count the extra calories I would need if I was exercising regularly or the calories I would expend just being myself … such as being excited or mellow.
Many diets restrict calories, which will cause a weight lose but if the body needs 2178 calories just to maintain and I am only eating 1800 – 2000 calories then the other calories need to come from somewhere. Some will be from fat but it is highly likely that some would also come from muscle.
metabolism
Our bodies are a very fine tuned machine and work to keep all things in equilibrium. The food we take in, along with the air we breath, keeps us alive. We disrupt the bodies equilibrium when we eat the wrong foods, or too much food, or not enough food. If we are not eating enough calories to maintain the bodies metabolism then the body cannibalize the muscles in order to get the food (glycogen) that it needs.
If we are eating too many calories the body will use what it needs as fuel and then store the rest for later, in the form of fat. The body doesn’t want to give up the fat as it may need it for those days when the food supply is low and it may have to call on it’s reserves. But it is not just over eating that causes fat storage.
Stress
Stress will produce a hormone called cortisol. That puts a body into a fight or flight mode and also causes the body to want to store fat. These stressors can come from many directions; from work, to finances to exercising too much or too hard.
insulin
Insulin is another hormone that is secreted so the receptors on your cells will take in the glycogen from your blood, which is produced from the glucose from the food we eat. Food affects the amount of insulin in our system with carbohydrates influencing the release of insulin the most. If we are constantly eating too much starchy carbs or sweets or cookies or muffins or donuts etc then extra glycogen will be transported from the cells and stored as fat. The cells get inundated the glucose and the receptors get overwhelmed and start to shut off and diabetes and other diseases take hold.
Weight alone is not the answer
Using weight or body measurements alone will not tell you if you are losing fat and gaining muscle as above hormones and others may be causing you to store fat and lose muscle, even though the scale or measurement makes it seem that you are losing weight and getting trimmer.
% body fat needs to be measured
Skinfold Caliper
The best way to know if your food plan and exercise program is working is to monitor your % body fat. You can measure % BF easily at home either using skin calipers and plugging the numbers into a program you can find on your computer (search Jackson Pollock 3 skinfold ) or even with a tape measure using the Navy Method, again easily found on your computer. Both will give approximations but when used consistently, will give a viable method of measuring your progress.