How do I decrease my body fat percentage?

[scogem]

I am a 34 year old male who did very little exercise till the past 6 months. I lost about 4 stone in 5 months (16st 6lbs to 12st 6lbs) by doing a lot of cardio, completely changing my diet and very little weight or resistance training. I was doing the same mix of rowing, running and cycling regularly.

I reached a bit of a plateau and I was not reducing my belly fat much. I was advised to mix things up and try more weight training. I also do some Build, Pump and Core group gym classes. I do very little cardio.

Nutritionally, I have tried eating a deficit and a surplus throughout the week and I still do not decrease my body fat percentage. I have started going to the gym in the morning and afternoon most days to try and make some gains but I am getting nowhere. My body fat percentage stays around the 22% to 24%.

Does anyone have some tips for reducing body fat? 

How quickly should I be making gains? Are Fitbit Aria scales good at measuring body fat percentages?

Thanks for any help

[Dominique]

What method did you use to establish your body fat is at 22-24%? Asking since you’re considering the Aria scale, and BIA scales are what people commonly use in a home environment for that purpose.

As to how "good" the Aria is: first of all, it doesn’t measure body fat. It rather estimates it, comparing the impedance value returned when you step on it to a database of people who have had their body fat determined with a reliable method. If there’s someone in the database close enough (sex, age, weight, height) to you with a similar impedance value, the body fat % will be extrapolated from that. In my experience of using the Aria for close to three years, it has returned pretty consistent values. When my weight comes down, the body fat % normally follows (and vice-versa). You can see this with my weight for the past three months (courtesy of TrendWeight, which can be linked to your Fitbit account):

 I’ve been coming down from about 66.5 to about 64.5 kg right now. This is my body fat % during the same period:

It has come down from sub-18 to sub-17 levels. 

As I mentioned in another post, I haven’t managed to break through 16% so far. I probably need to lose another 2-3 kg for that.

I believe the advice to include resistance training is good. You should also make sure you’re eating enough protein (0.8 to 1.2 grams per pound of body weight is a common recommendation). The purpose of this (resistance training + protein intake) is to minimize muscle loss during your diet. HIIT is also commonly recommended as an efficient way to lose fat.  

[scogem]

Sorry, I already own a Fitbit Aria. I was just wondering how reliable the body fat percentage reading was.

While I was doing cardio my body fat percentage certainly decreased alongside my weight loss. I was under the impression that my body fat percentage would decrease while doing weight training but my weight should increase. I am puting on weight but my body fat percentage is increasing. Which is not good. I am not seeing the benefits to weight training.

I plan to keep trying for another few months. If I am not make any gains, I will have to consider going back to cardio.

[Dominique]

Gaining muscle and losing fat at the same time is very difficult. This is because you need to be in a caloric deficit in order to lose fat, while you need to be in a caloric surplus in order to gain muscle. This is why bodybuilders alternate "bulking" (in the off-season) and "cutting" (before contest) phases. For us non-bodybuillders, the main purpose of lifting weight while in a deficit is to prevent muscle loss, or minimize it.

If you want to know how reliable the body fat % estimated by the Aria is, you would need to have it determined with a reliable method, eg. a DXA scan or BodPod. You can also compare yourself to the photos found in this link. 

[scogem]

Oh I was thinking my body fat percentage would decrease as I was adding more muscle to my body. I must have some extra muscles as every other day some body part feels a bit tender. 

Thanks for your replies, I will take a look at TrendWeight. Based on the photos in your URL, my BFP may be lower than it should be. 😞

[Dominique]

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@scogem wrote:

Oh I was thinking my body fat percentage would decrease as I was adding more muscle to my body. I must have some extra muscles as every other day some body part feels a bit tender.

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Gaining muscle is a lot slower/harder than losing fat. You can relatively easily lose 1 kg of fat in two weeks. Very few people would be able to gain 1 kg of muscle in the same time. And fast muscle gains almost always means some fat gains as well, because you need to be in a caloric surplus for maximum muscle gain. For amounts of muscle various people (men vs. women, newbies vs. experienced lifters etc.) can gain, see this article. 

[scogem]

I have been eating a lot more since beginning Weight Training. However, Im not overdoing it and I do have quite a few light meals when I see my weight getting near 13 stone (82kg) again.

If my body fat percentage is 24% do I need to be bulking to get muscle? 

[Dominique]

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@scogem wrote:

If my body fat percentage is 24% do I need to be bulking to get muscle? 

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If you are "skinny fat", or consider you should both lose fat and add muscle mass, and are not sure which to do first ("cut" to lose fat, or "bulk" to gain muscle), the consensus seems to be the priority should be to get leaner first. This is the approach I have chosen. Dropping fat is painfully slow and muscle gains minimal (on the positive side, I’m still making strength gains, even while in a deficit), but I believe in "slow and steady wins the race" and I also have realistic expectations about what a guy my age can achieve.

[emili]

I did the same. I worked on losing fat first and when I was at the weight I wanted to be, I started boxing and lifting weight. I still did cardio but I worked with a trainer alternating between lifting heavy and lifting light ( I wanted toned not bulk). Try this:http://www.aworkoutroutine.com/.. he is not for everyone but he offers really good advice on losing fat and building muscle. You will read a lot of what Dominique offered but just with more details..

[Dominique]

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@emili wrote:

Try this:http://www.aworkoutroutine.com/.. he is not for everyone but he offers really good advice on losing fat and building muscle.

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@emili: did you hire him as an online personal trainer, or was your trainer from your local gym?  

[emili]

No, my trainer was from my gym. This guy I found when I was researching weight loss and he talks straight which I love. He also makes sense and backs his stuff up with science.. Which I realize can be disputed with different studies in science.

[scogem]

So I completed 30 mins on a treadmill today for the first time in months. I have lost 3% body fat in a  day! I have never made that much progress on BFP ever. I think this must be an erroneous reading. Still, I will be mixing in some cardio over the next month and see how things go. I will probably try and do half cardio and half weight training.

Thanks emili, that looks like a great resource for many work out routines. 

[Dominique]

One pound of fat is 3500 calories. If you are 174 pounds, 3% would be 5.2 pounds, ie. about 18,000 calories. No way half-an-hour on the treadmill could have burn that!

For your Aria to return meaningful values, you must use it in the same conditions, ideally first thing in the morning. Use TrendWeight to even out daily fluctuations and better see the trend.

[Corney]

To decrease your body fat percentage, burn fat and increase your lean body mass, or muscle mass.  Since I don't advocate fasting. I recommend 30 minutes of aerobic exericise in your training zone at least 4 days per week and add weight lifting 3 days per week to maintain or increase your muscle tone, since muscle is active tissue and burns calories 24 hour a day

[scogem]

I have been doing a gym class (Pump, Build, Circuits, etc) each day, sometimes twice a day. As well as some weight lifting but getting nowhere. 

Unfortunately, I had to travel for work this week so I had a couple of days of no gym and unhealthy food with colleagues and it will take a week to get back to where I was. Previously, I spent about 2 months eating good nutritious food, attending gym classes and weight lifting. My BFP was not getting much better. Should I expect my body fat percentage to change much in a month? While only trying to lose weight I was able to lose  couple of pounds a week fairly easily and it was easy to track progress.

[Dominique]

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@scogem wrote:

Should I expect my body fat percentage to change much in a month? 

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FWIW, the sharpest drop I’ve experienced in the close to three years I’ve had my Aria was between end of July 2015 (all-time high of about 20.5) to mid-October (all-time low of about 16.5):

So -4% in 2.5 months.

During the past three months, the drop has been much smaller (about -1%):

[scogem]

Thanks Dominique, thats helped a lot. I was expecting quicker results.

I think I will return to concentratring on losing weight on a daily basis. I no longer believe I need calories to build muscle as my BFP is pretty high. I will check my body fat percentage every month. 

I suppose I could start recording my 1 rep max for various lifts in order to track muscle/strength gains.

[Dominique]

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@scogem wrote:

I no longer believe I need calories to build muscle as my BFP is pretty high. I will check my body fat percentage every month.

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Yes, you would probably be a good candidate for a "recomp", as explained by @SunsetRunner in this post.

As to BF%, I assume (since you have an Aria scale) you would still be logging it on a daily basis, right? As I said, I found TrendWeight does a good job of evening out daily fluctations.

For tracking strength gains, I believe checking what you can lift for 5 sets of 5 reps would be more convenient than 1 rep max, which requires you to prepare like you were setting a personal record. 5 x 5 is probably what you are doing already (if not, use 4 x 8, 3 x 12 or whatever you are doing), so it’s just a question of checking your log (see what I wrote on logging here). If the program you are following is based on progressive overload, these should go up over time.

[SunsetRunner · Accepted solution]

I won't address nutrition as it has been covered in the linked thread.

If you want to build muscle, while losing bodyfat, and are relatively untrained with weights I would recommend for training a full body workout 3 times per week (Mon-Wed-Fri) such as Stronglifts 5x5,Starting Strength or ice cream fitness (google them).

You need progressive overload and compound movements programmed intelligently.  Don't just do some curls and bench a few times a week and expect to build lean muscle mass.

The routines above were designed to give the exact movement and increased weights every workout to build a good beginner foundation.  I personally did SL 5x5 for a year and put on about 15 pounds of lean muscle while shaving 70 pounds of body fat.  Cardio is good but in moderation (walking, eliptical etc on rest days).  You want the priority to be the resistance based training to build muscle.

Cheers.

[Cushman68]

I know this post is a little old but to mimic the guy above, the Strong Lifts 5x5 program is the **ahem**! I've been doing it on and off for about a year and a half and I've built muscle and have gotten leaner as a result. I do eat more than I did when I was just cardio but I've lost inches. My body fat % has not increased at all.