Body Fat..

[Chargrintoacti]

So its interesting but I have figured out something very interesting... July 7th I had 310 lbs, with 39.9% body fat.

Today I have come back up to 310lbs, but only have 38.2% body fat... I am curious if that is good, I know its not good that I have gained the ten lbs back, although it changes up and down all the time and today I didn't exercise nearly as much as I normally did but just ate a lot all day, but I am wondering about the %, I dont know much about it, if i understand it correctly I have replaced the 1.7% body fat with muscel or water mass is that right? Also how does my scale know that? Thats crazy...

[I-train-hard]

How did you measure your body fat?    

[ArchieMIA]

I have lost 26 pounds since I bought my Fitbit surge. I go to the gym in "fasting" (not eating anything) almost every day and do cardio; the only thing I take (1/2 a hour before) are two tea spoons of L-Carnitine, and a coffee. The L-Carnitine is a amino acid that takes you body fat and transform it into fuel. Don't  do more than 40 mins of cardio, since you will start burning muscles. You can buy L-Carnitine in GNC or Amazon (preferable Liquid). I still have 30 lbs to go and I will do it. 

[I-train-hard]

After 20 min of exercise your muscle is used as a fuel. If I were you I would drink one protein mix with 20 oz of water b4 exercise.  Stop using L-Carnitine, all you need is in the protein shake.

[emili]

@ArchieMIA, I am by no means an expert, but everything I have read, been told by my trainer and doctor points against consistently doing cardio on a fast. If you go run a mile before breakfast- terrific. Anything more than that you are running the risk of losing muscle. Straight cardio does that anyhow, when you aren't fueling properly it happens faster. So you may look lean and for sure you are losing weight, but your muscle ratio will more than likely be very low. Please talk to an expert before continuing and if an "expert" recommended this- I am pretty sure they were trying to sell you the supplement.

[emili]

@Chargrintoacti there are several really good tutorials on various health sites on how to measure body fat. It also gives you the ranges of what's considered good. If you do a good mix of cardio (lose fat) and strength (gain muscle) then you are on your way to a healthy ratio. In my experience, scales are not as accurate as measuring it yourself. Keep us posted on your progress!

[divedragon]

Folks, the body doesn't burn skeletal muscle whether you exercise 20 mininutes or 2 hours.  If it did, our ancestors would never have survived.   Just imagine a hunter/gatherer who didn't eat for two days and then needed to hunt and kill an animal with a spear, drag it back to 'home' and then eat it.  If their bodies consumed their muscle, they would soon lose the strength to do it.  I don't eat for 20 hours every day.  I do cardio in the morning and weight lifting in the evening.  My strength in weights continues to increase.  I don't eat until after I lift.  I just went up again this week on my volume during a 40 minute exercise. 

When you need energy, your body burns fat.  Ketones replace the glycogen and your body works just fine on those.  If you do need glycogen, the liver can produce it from the ketones.  The only thing you can't make are the amino acids your muscles need which is where the idea that your body eats your muscles comes from.  If your diet is high enough in protein (for me that's about 65g per day), you have all the amino acids you need.  There is even a study done for intermittent fast in which weight was maintained within 2kg, but body composition changed to a leaner ratio when practicing intermittent fasting.

Its really time to let the myth of our bodies consuming muscle go!

[divedragon]

Let me clairfy a couple of things from my previous post.  The body will breakdown muscle for amino acids in order to produce glycogen in the liver IF THERE are NO amino acids available.  A diet high in protein  will maintain levels of amino acids sufficently to avoid muscle break down.  There is a medical study on this, but you have to have a subscribtion to read it, so I can link it out, but this study showed that metabolic rate didn’t decline until 60 hours of fasting…and the reduction was a mere 8%. In fact, research has demonstrated that the metabolism actually speeds up after 36 to 48 hours of fasting: http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/46/4/557.long

[I-train-hard]

I will reply from home. 

[I-train-hard]

You just getting out of the bad, it is always time to breakfast.

Just look at the words break-fast. Coincidence?

In my opinion you should always eat something before exercising so your body has enough fuel to power through your workout. Some people always say…I have no energy….well did you eat something? Our body needs a certain amount of sugar for fuel when training. When that blood sugar is not there, our body will convert our own muscle tissue into energy especially in the morning when we exercise on empty stomach. If you ask why answer is simple – your body is extremely save efficient and don’t want to loose so much energy b/c always thinks – I need to save the energy for later. It thinks of our survival, very smart!

When you doing 30 min jog, easy run it’s not a big deal. You will regenerate. You might be missing some calcium or some other vitamins etc. but simply fat would be the last option that is allowed to be use for energy in that type of exercise.

When you doing 30 min HIIT I strongly suggest you eat something b4 you exercise.

Your muscle will become fuel immediately when you have no glycogen in your blood.

Well, as I always say, there is more than one way to skin a cat.

[Addason]

Actuall that is good what u did  was swap that body fat for muscle mass and the scale can read that by sending tiny electrical currents to your body and will read the feed back it gets from your body

[Mukluk4]

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@divedragon wrote:

  I do cardio in the morning and weight lifting in the evening.  My strength in weights continues to increase.  I don't eat until after I lift.  I just went up again this week on my volume during a 40 minute exercise. 

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Just reviewing your activity level in your profile and based on that alone you can probably get away with not eating during your cardio and weight lifting as it isn't all that intense.  If you were to increase your fairly and very active levels, your body wouldn't be able to handle the load without the fuel.

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[Mukluk4]

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@Chargrintoacti wrote:

So its interesting but I have figured out something very interesting... July 7th I had 310 lbs, with 39.9% body fat.

Today I have come back up to 310lbs, but only have 38.2% body fat... I am curious if that is good, I know its not good that I have gained the ten lbs back, although it changes up and down all the time and today I didn't exercise nearly as much as I normally did but just ate a lot all day, but I am wondering about the %, I dont know much about it, if i understand it correctly I have replaced the 1.7% body fat with muscel or water mass is that right? Also how does my scale know that? Thats crazy...

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Assuming your scale in consistent in weight, there can be up to an 8% error variation in measure/accuracy of body fat at any given time (at 38% that can be up to 3% change) on your scale due to various factors such as water retention, clothing, cleanliness of your feet, etc.