Strange weight loss results - Aria

[JohnRi]

I was wondering if anyone had seen similar results.  I've kind of puzzled by the last 4 weeks.

First of all, I'm 49 years old, 6'0" tall, and I've been around 222-218 lbs the last 4 weeks...

I eat a diet of around 1800 calories a day, around 18-20% protein, 25-30% fat, and 45-55% carbs.  That's just my natural diet, I'm not eating anything special really.  Lots of vegetables, a lot less fat. 

For the last three weeks I've been walking a lot more than I had recently.  I was hurt about 6 weeks ago when I strained my calf muscles on my right leg, and was uanble to walk for three weeks. I was able to ride my bike while the muscles healed.

So I've only been exercising hard for the last two weeks, and slow to moderate the week before that.  The last two weeks I've been walking 4-6 miles everyday.  Yesterday I had my best 6 mile time ever, 1 hour 51 minutes. I've in fact walked 6 miles 4 times in the last 8 days. I've never done that before.  At best 6 miles twice a week.  The rest of the walks were usually been 4-5 miles.  But the last two weeks I've been walking 5-6 miles a day.  I even hit 6.48 miles last week, a personal record for me.

I will admit, my legs have been sometimes sore after walking or the next day.  They are sore today.  Which is strange, as my legs have not been sore after a walk or the next day since December.

I did get off my beta blocker, so I've noticed my intensity has gone up after getting off that last of my blood pressure meds.

I've connected my Fitbit account with Trendweight.com, and confirms the trends I've seen on my Fitbit app.

This is what I've done in the last 4 weeks.

Weight loss around 4 lbs.

Fat percentage fallen about 3-4%.  From aound 31% to around 27%

Fat body mass lost around 9 lbs.

Lean body mass increased 5 lbs.

Since I got my Aria in February, I've lost around 30 lbs.  Up until last month, I had lost about 10 lbs of lean muscle mass. 

So how the devil did I add 5 lbs of muscle in 4 weeks, on a 1800 calorie diet, with only a 18% protein diet?

Has anyone else seen similar results?  I'm trying to get down under 183 lbs.  My body fat% is down to 27%.  My original goal was to get that under 19%.  I've lowered that goal to 14%. 

I mean I'll enjoy this while it lasts.  But to me something doesn't add up...

[SunsetRunner]

Sometimes muscle mass is like that.  When muscles are stressed, they rebuild stronger.  That soreness in your legs is most likely Lactic Acid, from the walking.

Muscle is twice as heavy as Fat.  So not so sure how that correlates to the lean muscle indicated, but I have noticed that I weigh less after a shower.  If I weigh myself on my aria right before and right after a shower.  I weigh less after the shower, but my body fat is at times 2 percentage points higher.  So, while I love the Aria, it's information is not totally accurate.  But a good gauge of where you are.

Lastly, I was in a similar boat, and lost 30 pounds and down to 15% body fat.  Even my Doctor suggested that was too low.  I kind of like your original target of 19%.  I'm currently at 17% and can see the blood vessels in my calfs.  Never was able to do that before.

[SunsetRunner]

I don't have an Aria, but I presume it will be the same as the scale that I have, it has metal plates that you stand on and conduct electric currents

I find that where I stand makes a diffference, but then again, the scale I have is a cheapo compared to the Aria

[GershonSurge]

I've had similar results in the past few weeks. I gained 9 pounds of lean and lost 15 pounds of fat. These numbers are supposed to be impossible, but they were similar on three types of scales.

Generally, I eat about 80% carbs, 10% fat and 10% protein plus or minus about 5%.

I've been doing lots of slow running in the Maffetone range which is 180 minus your age or up to 10 beats below. This is the fat burning range where about 70% fats are burned and 30% carbs. This explains the fat loss as I'm running a large calorie deficit. 

[FitBeforeFifty]

I have a bioimpedance handheld device and not the Aria scale but the bottom line is these devices aren't that accurate. The readings are highly subject to hydration and other factors. They can be useful but don't expect high level of accuracy.

Adding muscle is really hard and is a slow process. Adding muscle when you are older like we are is even harder and slower. Adding muscle while eating at a deficit is even harder and almost impossible.

Even in the most optimal of natural circumstances (proper strength training and a caloric surplus), you can't add muscle at that rate. Generally speaking, I've heard that a 2 lb per month increase is the maximum possible gains under ideal and natural circumstances. I don't know how accurate that max is because unfortunately that number is based on body building literature and not a scientific study. There doesn't appear to be much medical research in this area.

[JohnRi]

@FitBeforeFifty I've got some pretty go idea that the fat loss is accurate to some degree. 

My Aria has consistently shown fat loss since I got the device.  The numbers are erratic though.  If I get on the scale 10 times in a row, I'll get a few matches, but most will be +/- 1%. So I know it's not 100% accurate.  In the ball park right, but dead on accurate no.

But if you look at trends over weeks, and months, which is what I do, I see the decline to be accurate.

I can back that up by my clothes.  I've lost about a inch on my waist line.  I went down a pants size.  I can see my stomach getting smaller too, and measurement wise also getting smaller.  So I know I've lost a lot weight in the last month.  HOWEVER, the scale is showing next to nothing lost. 

I know also that my walking times have increased, pace times have gone done, distance and endurance have gone up.  3 weeks ago when I started walking again, I was barely able to walk 2 miles the first day.  A week later I hit 4-5 miles.  Last week I hit 6 miles again.  And I've never walked 6 miles 4 times in 8 days.  I hit 6.48 miles one day, mostly by accident.  So I wonder if I can do 7 miles. 

And yesterday's time was my best time ever walking 6 miles.  And my 5th mile was my fastest of the six miles walked at 17:16, overall pace was 18:27.    In fact miles 4-6 were a lot faster than miles 1-3.  About 45 second faster each mile.

So I know I've gotten stronger.  It's a trend I've seen for the last 4 weeks.  So I found it odd and unexpected the muscle gain.  Frankly I find it impossible...   Hence the confusion... 

I'll just ride it out, and see what happens.  On top of my walking, I just added weight training yesterday.  My upper body is weak.  And with the fat gone, my arms look puny.  I've great defination of my biceps.  Just small and puny muscles!  Plus without the 63 lbs I've lost so far, there have been a few doors I was unable to just push through without stopping and really pushing.  Something I'm not used to.  When I was 281 lbs, I had enough force to just walk up to a door, hold my arm out, and 99% of all doors would fly open.  I've walked into a few doors that didn't budge.  My mind things I'm still a big fat guy! 

So time to bulk up the upper body strength...

I'll be the first to say, what the scale and fat % says, doesn't make sense.

Then I'll throw in I've been burning a lot more calories than I normally do.  Normally 3000 calories is my typical max burned.  But the last 2 weeks, I've been burning closer to 3500, and one 4000 calorie day.

So muscle gain completely doesn't make any sense at all..

[GershonSurge]

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@FitBeforeFifty wrote:

I have a bioimpedance handheld device and not the Aria scale but the bottom line is these devices aren't that accurate. The readings are highly subject to hydration and other factors. They can be useful but don't expect high level of accuracy.

Adding muscle is really hard and is a slow process. Adding muscle when you are older like we are is even harder and slower. Adding muscle while eating at a deficit is even harder and almost impossible.

Even in the most optimal of natural circumstances (proper strength training and a caloric surplus), you can't add muscle at that rate. Generally speaking, I've heard that a 2 lb per month increase is the maximum possible gains under ideal and natural circumstances. I don't know how accurate that max is because unfortunately that number is based on body building literature and not a scientific study. There doesn't appear to be much medical research in this area.

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Speak for yourself about getting older. 😛

I'm not so sure my body is at a deficit even though I've been averaging an 1800 calorie deficit. Now I'm eating about 2,000-2300 calories a day. Virtually all of my exercise is in the fat burn zone with 70% of the energy coming from fat and 30% from carbohydrates. If I eat 2,000 calories with 80% coming from carbs, I've added 1,600 calories carbs to my system. I added about 200 calories of fat to my system,  but my abdominal famine reserve has plenty to spare.

To say it differently, 1,600 calories of carbs adds about 3,733 calories usable energy. Given some error in the Surge, this is approximately what I'm burning.

Although what I stated is hypothetical, my lack of physical hunger signs gives it support. 

As for building muscles, I know nothing about it. My interest has always been in the aerobic camp.

[FitBeforeFifty]

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@GershonSurge wrote:

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Speak for yourself about getting older. 😛

 ...

As for building muscles, I know nothing about it. My interest has always been in the aerobic camp.

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I'm in better shape how at 49 than I was at 29 ... in fact I weigh the same as I did as a senior in high school but have more muscle.

None of that changes the fact that it is more difficult for someone over 40 to add muscle than it is for someone 25. It also doesn't change the fact that at 30, given the same training, I would be considerably faster in an endurance race. Once again, that doesn't mean I can't be faster than a 30 year old -- I've raced and beat lots of 20 and 30 year olds ... it just means that the 30 year old with my DNA and training is faster than the 49 year old with the same training.

The bottom line is no one gains 1 lb per week of muscle while losing weight.

[GershonSurge]

I doubt if I gained any muscles with what I've done. It was probably a scale idiosyncracy.

[JohnRi]

I completely agree that it's not possible to gain as much muscle as all of the charts are showing.  See for yourself.  Chances are the attached pictures won't show up on your email.  So you'll have to see the pictures of the charts at the fitbit.com website.  Most of these are from Trendweight.  But Trendweight averages out the numbers to remove daily flucations due to water gain/loss.  To me their numbers look conserative as they show data points are from scale numbers from fitbit. 

On the first one the weight chart shows 4 weeks of loss.  The next chart shows 4 weeks of fat % drop.  The third chart shows 4 week of fat mass loss.  The fourth chart shows 4 weeks of muscle gain.  And the last one is just my current week of intake/calories burned and you can see the deficit.  

These charts show a "total" of weight loss, fat % lost, fat mass lost, and lean mass lost since I got my Aria in February.  For example on the Lean mass, it shows 158.3 lbs a 4.6 lbs loss.  That's how much lean mass I've lost since February. 

What I'm seeing doesn't make any sense at all to me.  It should not be possible.  Everything I've read, researched, and learned about weight loss says what these charts show is wrong....  impossible even... 

[JohnRi]

Latest numbers continue to show Weight loss (.1 lbs), Fat % loss(.1%), Fat Mass loss(.3 lbs), and Lean mass gain(.1 lbs)... 

I have a theory.  I was on a Beta Blocker Atenolol.  With my doctor's permission, I reduce the dose about 4 weeks ago.  3 weeks ago I stopped taking it all together.  Since then my walking speed, and distance have both increased.  Yesterday's walk was my personal best times for walking 5 miles and 6 miles.  Miles 5 and 6 were 16:30 each.  I was able to get my heart rate into the cardio range during miles 5 and 6.  Hitting a max of 133.  I haven't been able to hit the cardio zone much at all for months.  Most of my walks have had a average 106 bpm.

One side effect of the atenolol is weight gain.  It's only a few pounds for most people. 

Could it be now that I'm off the atenolol, with the boast in performance from the higher heart rate also be related to the drop in fat % and increased lean mass? 

I know when I got off lisinopril, a Alpha blocker, back in January, I got a huge boast in performance.  And my doctor said the atenolol was keeping my heart rate lower during exercise.

Just a theory...  All I can think of to explain this...