Help: Weight Loss and body fat increasing !!

[ManuMeuh]

Hello!

I am French so sorry for my poor English level: i come here because i have a story and a little problem/question…

I hope this community will be more helpful than the French one 😉

First of all, a bit of “Storytelling”:

I have a FitBit One for more than 1 year. The main purpose was first only to discover my number of steps months after months (I like walks and statistics) and I had no “Weight Loss” goal…

Then, 5-6 months ago, quite stressfull moments got me to get bigger and bigger, then, few weeks ago I had a revelation: THIS MUST STOP!

So I began to really take care of my alimentation and I began to use the all Fitbit interface… And when I say all, it’s really all: daily weight, every aliments and calories eaten and weighted, every physical activity… And I also used the electronic coach included (the goal was to loose 5kg in 6 months: I wanted to discover my motivation before begin to be more ambitious).

And… it’s really working for the moment!! And faster than expected (I almost reached my goal 1 months and half after the beginning). But suddenly my old fashion scale broke up, and I decide to break my piggy-bank and invest in a FitBit Aria smart Scale (for me, the automatic filling of my every day weight to the dashboard by wifi was really a good way to keep de dynamic up !). This is how I discovered the % BODY FAT calculation.

And so, my problem: the more I lose weight, the more I gain body fat!!

And I don’t understand it (you can see the graphics below… In french, sorry!): I understand this figures that my efforts on my alimentation (I only took attention to the quantities first, I will check de kind of food eaten later) and on my physical activities (walk, swimming, bike… As never in my life) lead me to the good way on the weight, but in the very bad move on the body fat %!!

(In green, the body fat increasing. The blue sign is to point the date when I had the Aria scale.)

Does anyone understand and can explain me these figures? With all this sport, i can’t lose muscles right?

When I will have definitely reached my current goal, my real goal is to lose 5 more kilos till the end of the year… I would like to be sure that I go on the right way and that I don’t do any kind of wrong things…

Thanks for your help 

[RickyFitbit · Accepted solution]

@ManuMeuh We're happy to see that you're doing well on making your goals! 

I can understand how seeing increased body fat when you are losing weight can be a bit confusing. Here's a little information about why that's likely happening:

Body fat percentage often increases when one loses weight because of hydration levels. In the first week or so of eating better, most people tend to lose a lot of water weight, because their diet includes less salt and refined sugar.

Body fat percentage is calculated as fat mass divided by total mass, so if you significantly lower the total mass while fat mass stays the same, the body fat percentage will increase. Even if fat mass is indeed decreasing, the total mass is decreasing more, resulting in an increase of body fat percentage.

If you continue to weigh yourself daily, you'll probably see that your body fat percent goes down on days when your weight fluctuates up since you're retaining more water those days. Similarly, on days when your weight fluctuates down, the body fat percent goes up because you're retaining less water.

I hope this helps shed a bit of light on what you're seeing! 

[ManuMeuh]

Thanks alot for this answer!

[RickyFitbit]

Pas de problème! 

Let me know if you have any more questions; I'm here to help. 

[MattHenshon]

That was helpful

Thanks

Matt

[zybch]

Also make sure you eat more protein than before. The body will fight like crazy to keep hold of the fat (for potential starvation times ahead, even if there are none) and will 'eat' your muscles before the fast you still carry. Protein helps maintain your muscles which in turn burn more fat than they once did when you weren't using then as much.

[josephz2va]

- Check with your local nutritionist/dietitian on the proper foods to eat for building lean mass and shedding fat mass. Those are key factors to rid of fat.

- Plan a fitness program. Walking and running is fine, but you need to have a fitness regimen for building muscle and shedding fat.

For me, I have key things that have worked in the past and I dropped from 30% to 15% my lowest score before going laid back. It's best to maintain a daily schedule regimen.

• Elliptical machine, running, HIIT cardio - 60 to 99 minutes (10,000 steps or higher). My gym has an Octane Fitness Pro 3700 which has HR Interval Ratio training. Polar cardio watch compatible with the machine helps as handgrips don't always work too good.
• Weight Training Full Body Program using ActivTrax or Bodybuilding.com. ActivTrax is part of XSportFitness or other participating dealers like Gold's Gym.
• Optional fitness trainer with a nutritionist program.
• Home Fitness program depending on your health conditions. For me, I have Focus T25 which is low impact difficulty on my leg conditions. One thing that I always forget which is important is to do your stretches per week. It's also important to go back to the beginning and cycle all over again if you have stability and core improvements needed. I have lots of stability problems to work on.

[Pjoe]

  I recently came across an article, which made alot of sense to me, addressing 'fat skinny and healthy skinny'.  When exercising regularly, aerobicly, you can lose muscle mass, since fat is more difficult to metablize, your body will consume muscle for energy.  Take a look at long distance runners.  They are all thin.  With such an exercise program you will lose muscle but will retain fat.  Your weight may or may not go down but body fat may remain the same.  Therefore you are thinner but with the same % body fat (fat skinny).  In addition to aerobics, weight bearing exercises will increase muscle mass and you will lose body fat,  total weight may remain the same.  But you will look better, sexier, feel better. You will be strong. Your clothes will even fit better, (healthy skinny).

[Bobcat84]

I concur with the above around incorporating resistance training (weights, resistance bands or Calisthenics) into your activity routine. The only thing i would add is that by doing so will also increase your calorie burn after (although fitbit won't pick this up) but it has been found that metabolic rate increases for days after resistance training.

In your fitbit dashboard it shows a breakdown of the nutritional information for what you ate that day. As a base principal aim for 33% Protien (preferably lean), 33% fats (again good fats rather than sat or trans) and 33% carbs (again healthy carbs preferablly). This would be a good platform to start building/retaining muscle while burning fat.

[Heybales]

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@Pjoe wrote:

  I recently came across an article, which made alot of sense to me, addressing 'fat skinny and healthy skinny'.  When exercising regularly, aerobicly, you can lose muscle mass, since fat is more difficult to metablize, your body will consume muscle for energy.  Take a look at long distance runners.  They are all thin.  With such an exercise program you will lose muscle but will retain fat.  Your weight may or may not go down but body fat may remain the same.  Therefore you are thinner but with the same % body fat (fat skinny).  In addition to aerobics, weight bearing exercises will increase muscle mass and you will lose body fat,  total weight may remain the same.  But you will look better, sexier, feel better. You will be strong. Your clothes will even fit better, (healthy skinny).

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Wow, where was that article at - gotta remember to never recommend that site or wherever it came from.

What a bunch of bull.

If fat is more difficult to metabolize - why do we burn almost total fat at rest, except for our brain?

And when you start moving more, getting more intense, you keep burning more and more fat as energy source?

And if fat is difficult, are you aware of the gluconeogenesis process that must happen to protein for it even to be available as an energy source? Basically converted to carbs. Now that is difficult and time consuming process.

Hence the reason marathoner's that go out too quick hit the wall, they lost muscle carb stores, only fat is being burned, and that requires a MUCH slower effort, along with converted protein.

Pro distance runners are thin because it doesn't take much muscle to do endurance, and they don't want extra weight in upper body hindering their performance, so they do not work it out. Shoot, they don't even want extra weight in legs that isn't needed. Long distance don't need sprinter's legs.

Now look at triathletes who also run marathons - they have some meat upstairs, because they do indeed use it. Still thin, but more than just runners.

The only truthfulness it sounds like in that article was the fact you do indeed lose muscle mass in normal diet if you don't use the muscle as much.

Of course, if just starting to workout out - why exactly would you have had the muscle anyway. You didn't end up with flappy arms because you burned muscle off - you never had muscle there in the first place because you never used your triceps for much.

You don't really burn off muscle anyway, not as energy source, unless you setup a really bad scenario of intense cardio burning lots of carbs and eating little carbs, reaching that "hitting the wall".

Because muscle is torn down daily anyway. But in a diet you don't have the required protein to build it back up to the state it was at, unless you are using it enough. Body would rather use those amino acids for more required basic functions.

But none of that changes the fact you burn mostly fat all day, because as long as you got the oxygen, it'll metabolize.

[Dominique]

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@ManuMeuh wrote:

And so, my problem: the more I lose weight, the more I gain body fat!!

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One major issue here is the length of the period examined: two weeks is just too short to make any conclusions about variations of weight and body fat. The good thing is that 7 months have elapsed since the original poster asked his question. So, @ManuMeuh: how things have evolved since last June? have you continued to gain fat as you lost weight?

[ManuMeuh]

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@Dominique wrote:

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 So, @ManuMeuh: how things have evolved since last June? have you continued to gain fat as you lost weight?

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Hi,
First, thanks all for your advice ! Then, the results...

After almost 10 months, things went far above my previous expectations!!
I am currently losing my 2 last Kgs... After 30 Kg lost (66 lbs) : a loss of 9 BMI//IMC point! Yes, i still can't believe it 🙂

Here is an update of my figures, more about the body fat after :
(File in full resolution: https://community.fitbit.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/15782iEE4C80CE88960042/image-size/original...)

So now for the body fat, it finally began to slowly get down. Having this indicator was also a good help : some weeks, my weight weren't moving... But no deception, because my body fat was decreasing so i could still check that everything was going on a good way !
Such helpful and meaningful (after horrible fat meals, i could sometimes see the weight ok, but the body fat increasing... It helps to understand what is good or not).

(File in full resolution: https://community.fitbit.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/15783iB7D76059E40E80E9/image-size/original...)

Finally i will soon stop my weight loss, and i will start the most difficult step : stabilising !
Here the body fat indicator will be important. For now, i don't avoid any kind of food (i love the fat soooo much) i just reduce the quantity. Will it be enough to stabilize ?
Any advices ?

The battle for weight loss is over... The war for a good and healthy life only begins ! 🙂

[gxceb0t]

Wow, good job.  I'd love to see before and after pics.

[ManuMeuh]

Thank's !

I can at least show you two 2 jean pants bought before and after to see the difference... I lost 10 sizes: they are flattened here, one above the other and aligned on the left leg, so you have to double the gap 

When i see my old self, it is always a shock!

[Bitten]

Protein helps the body maintain muscle, but the body does not go into "starvation mode" unless a person eats extremely little for an extended period.

[Bitten]

If lowering body fat percentage while preserving muscle is your goal, consider a Protein Sparing Modified Fast. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_Sparing_Modified_Fast

http://www.reddit.com/r/psmf

[josephz2va]

or evaluate the quality of the food. Thing that many make a mistake on is not just the calorie consumption but the quality of the food. Many say eat whole foods online. Low sodiums. I know I said above to check with a nutritionist. But you also have to be sure you check the quality. McD's for example is very low quality.

Eating To Build Lean Muscle would impove the quality.

[kaelarenee7]

The body uses carbs for energy first, then fat, then protein. The body needs protein for different things besides building muscle. Fat is stored as a secondary energy source if the body doesn't have carbs to use.

[Heybales]

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@kaelarenee7 wrote:

The body uses carbs for energy first, then fat, then protein. The body needs protein for different things besides building muscle. Fat is stored as a secondary energy source if the body doesn't have carbs to use.

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Just gotta correct these misunderstandings when I see them, like adding muscle faster than losing fat.

There is no scenario where the body would use carbs first and then switch to fat second as energy source.

If you have just eaten and insulin rise has fat release from cells blocked, you burn what you ate basically, so if carbs and fat eaten, the normal ratio of carbs and fat is burned.

And at normal daily activity levels, you burn probably 80% fat as energy, 20% carbs. Resting is almost 100% fat.

During that window, carbs is stored in liver and muscle as well as burned, which causes insulin to drop and fat release for normal burning to start again.

While in a diet, that whole window is shorter than when eating at maintenance.

During exercise, if you are going hard enough that you are burning say 80% carbs as energy source, and 20% fat, if you do happen to run out of carbs the % of fat burn is NOT increasing, you will be slowing down rather fast ("the wall" of marathoners going out too fast), so that you are at the correct level to burn the fat that is available. And in that case you will also be burning the protein that is floating around from damaged muscles as carbs.

Starving, like actually no eating, is the only case where the body turns those normal processes around, but since starving usually means little activity, the fat burn is still major part, more carbs though, but more fat is stored when available, more muscle is actually broken down and burned as available.

But eating means that ain't happening. Even starvation mode, aka adaptive thermogenesis, doesn't cause those things from starving to happen.

Sorry, but these things just keep getting passed around and turned in to bad advice then regarding diets, when it's all based on non-fact.

[kaelarenee7]

I'd like to see information on fat being burned before carbs. I'm going to
school for biology and it's pretty basic information regarding the human
body that you burn carbs first, fat second, and protein last. I don't have
any specific sources at the moment to support that, but any biology
textbook that I've seen supports that.