Body fat % lost but weight not shifting

[LosingTheChub]

Hi all. I’m 38 (39 next week) female... 159cm and I weight 162lbs / 5foot3 and 72kg. My BMI is 29, visceral fat 7, body fat % 40. So I used to be 47-49kg before I had kids and it’s slowly increased to what I am now over the last 10 years. Past 3 weeks I’ve been walking fast pace and running at intervals and my scales show I’m now 36% body fat (4% loss) and visceral fat has come down to 6.5. Muscle mass has increased by 3.44lbs. But I’ve not lost any weight. I don’t look any slimmer. I Know it’s early days but how much do I realistically need to lose before I notice anything visually? I’m over the moon with the good start to my health so please don’t say I’m being impatient... I’m just curious how much body fat % it takes to visually notice a change. First time I’m exercising on a regular basis and I love it! Thank you 

[JohnnyRow]

Curious how you are measuring visceral fat?

[LosingTheChub]

I have Tanita body composition scales and also stood on scales at the gym. Same readings 

[Heybales]

Some models with great accuracy can get to within 5% accuracy of the BF reading.

Either side.

The other "readings" are totally calculated - it's only measuring impedance to calculate BF%, the others forget it - they are not accurate enough except to log and see if they change over long periods of time.

Some scales aren't even that accurate, but they can at least be inaccurately consistent over time to give you direction of change.

For instance - you drink 16 oz's of water you just gained a lb of LBM, possibly shown on the scale as muscle.

So you'd have to be really good about presenting the exact same hydrated body to the scale.

Probably will want 3 month comparisons for direction of anything meaningful, and measurements which can tell a better story.

As to how low for your desired goal - if your body genetics will even allow it - less than you have now.

Forgot to add:

Outside water weight fluctuations (which is why you need to wait 4 weeks with hormonal changes to determine anything) which could be bad if body badly stressed and increased cortisol is increasing water weight slowly - if you have not lost weight then you are not in a diet eating less than you burn.

You would be doing recomp - burning a little fat while you are building a little muscle.

And for a woman it is slow, especially if a progressive weight lifting routine isn't part of it.

With walking and jogging routine, I'd suggest increased blood volume to handle cooling needs is increase, and losing a bit of fat.

So maybe you are in a diet.

[LosingTheChub]

Ah ok, thanks. Well I’ll keep trying my best and see what happens over the next few months. I’ve gone from zero exercise to walking and running 5-7k 4-5 times a week... plus doing weights in gym. People always say those with lots of fat to lose see fast results and I was wondering why mine isn’t showing. Thank you for your advice 😔

[Heybales]

Well, you do want to examine - if your purpose is to lose some fat weight to get to a healthy weight - then you need to be eating less than you burn.

And that isn't happening yet based on your comment that you have not lost any weight.

Even though as a woman your metabolism literally changes through the month - it's not by that much and if you had a deficit for weight loss you'd have something lost.

And even if stress caused some water weight gain, you'd initially lose some water weight in a diet.

Exercise is for heart health and body shaping. So that's great you are doing some good stuff there.

Diet is for fat loss - if done right just fat loss.

Only thing exercise does for diet, is allow you to eat more than if you did none.

Would you rather eat 2000 calories while burning 2500 because of exercise?

Or eat 1500 burning 2000 being sedentary?

At least with kids and household you aren't likely to be sedentary, so at least you'll always be able to eat more than someone that is sedentary.

But you never mentioned anything about the eating side of the equation, just seeing what exercise can cause. By itself nothing for weight loss. Side effect is usually water weight gain actually.

Are you logging everything you eat, and weighing that for accuracy?

What do you have Fitbit (or other site for food logging) set to for weekly weight loss?

[LosingTheChub]

Hi again. Sorry I have left some important info out... so I’m an type 1 diabetic since I was 6... yes I’m logging everything with great accuracy and I’m a calorie deficit by about 300-500 everyday. Some days I run longer and others etc. But I ensure I’m always in the green zone on Fitbit; although I’m finding I’m often in blue (undereating). The scales so tell me that my body water % is low... usually 42% and I just can’t seem to get this to go higher. So it was interesting that I was told drinking more water would contributes to the muscle mass calculation. Despite staying on 42% water, the muscle mass seems to me raising weekly. 

[LosingTheChub]

I have my Fitbit set to lose 500 calories a day... with my goal lose if 30lbs, it says I’ll reach this in March 2021. 

[Heybales]

So a woman in a heavy progressive lifting routine eating in surplus to help with adding muscle and gaining some fat, could expect to hit 10-15 lbs of muscle mass in a year. So about 1 lb a month along with some fat weight.

I don't think you said you are doing a heavy for you progressive lifting routine. And you are in a diet.

So you can do the % to lb your scale is giving you, and realize if it's anywhere near true - which it's not.

The scale is again only measuring impedance to an electrical signal passed through the body.

Through stats and calculations is coming up with a ONLY a bodyfat %, whatever is not BF is LBM - Lean Body Mass. Those are the only 2 categories the scale can do. Everything not fat is LBM - meaning muscle, water, bone, organs.

That's why you drink 16 oz of water, which is 1 lb, you just gained 1 lb LBM.

You get sore and retain 2 lbs of water - scale thrown off.

Those other measurements are based on variations in the electrical signal and population stats, and have even worse, much worse, accuracy. There's a reason why it wants your height and age and gender, some include neck circumference, or thigh or waist to attempt to improve the stats.

That's a good deficit.

Now, I've found through experience that if someone doesn't say they weigh everything when asked about that - then great accuracy in logging means everything they eat is logged - which is great. The accuracy of the logging may not actually be there. Since calories is per gram - not cup or spoonfuls.

Maybe you did mean you weigh everything you eat for logging purposes.

Since already decently active so that you don't have to force yourself to eat to some small amount that is hard to sustain - I'd suggest giving a little more time to the lifting with a good program.

That way as fat is lost there is actually something there to see.

And only at the start here with some fat to lose can you see great improvement when in a diet.

That will be much harder to obtain near the end of the weight with less fat to lose.

So great job getting that in there.

You won't win many step challenges with lifting - but sometimes what's better for the body and the end goal you want to see is not going to be obtained through more steps anyway.

[LosingTheChub]

Thank you so much for explaining it. I do weight my food and I’ve cut my carbs by half and increased my protein as I was eating more carbs than protein before. I don’t eat fried foods or junk. Due to diabetes, I stay away from sweets and chocolates. I just assumed that if body fat % was coming down gradually, I would notice something about myself since I’m 72kg. I carry my weight around my midriff and have lean legs... hence I invested in the scales to check my actual body composition. 

im not lifting every day and only just joined the gym this week. I’ll keep at it and fingers crossed, the body fat comes down (even if slow). Thank you so much for taking the time to reply. I really appreciate it. 😊