Losing weight, but increasing fat.

[Shedding]

I know there has been many post before about this.  I have done the reading, but haven't quite found the answer.  Most people will account this for scales reading fat by electro impedance to be awfully inadequate.  In this case, this is a bit different.  Most post I read about beginners and hydration levels and sodium being lost.  This is not the case for me.  I've been training with weights for almost two years now. .  I know it works because the muscle group I worked that day will feel sore after two days like clock work.  I however, was did not know much about nutrition for the first year.  I thought if I worked out I would eventually gain enough muscle to take care of the calories being consumed (Since a pound of muscle burns about 50 calories at rest) - Needless to say I was wrong.  WAY WRONG.  What most people consider beautiful is a lean person with a good amount of muscle.  This is when I decided I would get down to 10% body fat.  I had the Airia tell me I was at 24% body fat for a long time not knowing that I needed to change the setting to athlete level (I had to look at pictures to convince myself that I was not at 24% body fat).  I do look more like 17% or so.  However, over the past month and a half I have lost 8lbs but I have gained 3% body fat.  Going from 15.4% to 18% (from 197.6lbs to 190.9).  This is a bit concerning.  My food intake is very clean.  I eat around 200 grams of protein and keep my macros at 50% protein, 40% carbs, 10% fat (I am not super accurate with this yet, until I start getting closer to 13% body fat).  Sometimes the fat goes up to 20% or 30% but I always maintain the carbs very low and the protein high.  I am doing everything that needs to be done, and my weight loss is very consistent.  I am not a begining and yet my body fat keeps rising.  Any chance anyone can help me figure why this is happening?  The fat is not going down at all!

Here is my profile:

https://www.fitbit.com/user/2VJNWS

[Dominique]

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@Shedding wrote:

I had the Airia tell me I was at 24% body fat for a long time not knowing that I needed to change the setting to athlete level (I had to look at pictures to convince myself that I was not at 24% body fat).  I do look more like 17% or so. 

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There are two settings for the Aria: Regular and Lean

When they say "athletes and anyone else who has low body fat", I take it to mean body fat close to single-digit (for men). At least I’ve left mine at "Regular" and it has worked well for me.

If you would look somewhere between the 15% and the 20% guys in this link, I would definitely leave the setting to "Regular".

Anyway, the body fat % returned by the scale is just a number. If you’re interested in getting leaner, you can use other indicators as well: the mirror, a tape meter (measure your waistline and see how it evolves), pinching your skin (with your fingers or a caliper) etc. 

[Shedding]

Yes, I have seen the pictures on the internet.  My body looks somewhere between the 15-20% pictures.  Before the Aria was telling me I was close to 25%.  I don't look like the 25% guy at all.  Abs are actually starting to show up but I know I am not near single digit.  I have been training for almost two years now (weight training). This is why I changed the Aria mode.

[Dominique]

How tall and old are you? What has been your weight history during the last two years? If you’ve had the Aria during all that time, I recommend you link it to TrendWeight. This will let you see your weight history in a more useful way than Fitbit itself displays it, something like this (I’ve had my Aria since June 2013):

[Dominique]

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@Shedding wrote:

Here is my profile:

https://www.fitbit.com/user/2VJNWS 

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One more thing: Your step count seems very low, for someone willing to lose fat:

Your highest step count during the past 30 days is about 6600. I hope you’re not listening to the anti-cardio propaganda spread by some muscleheads ("cardio will eat out all your muscle gains"). Or you’re not wearing your Fitbit 24/7?

[Shedding]

I am not doing much cardio. I do take hikes, but much of my exercises come in the form of intensive weight training. I don't think the fitbit can figure out how much energy I am expending lifting these weights unless it somehow is able to extrapolate a number using my heart rate.

[Shedding]

By the way, I went to trendweight and it seems I am losing weight at a rate of 1.5 lbs per week.

[Dominique]

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@Shedding wrote:
I don't think the fitbit can figure out how much energy I am expending lifting these weights unless it somehow is able to extrapolate a number using my heart rate.

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Weight lifting is anaerobic, so heart rate wouldn’t be of much help figuring out energy expenditure during that activity. I have the Surge and the Charge 2: both have HR monitoring and both feature multi-sport tracking with weight lifting being one supported activity. However, the expenditure they report for weight lifting is just a guess: they have no way to know how much weight I’m lifting, for how many reps, how many sets and with what rest times. For that, you would need a specialized tracker like the Atlas, but even that may not be that much better than a Fitbit (for tracking calories).

Anyway, the main purpose of weight lifting isn’t to burn calories. And you shouldn’t put too much faith in your nice muscle burning calories at rest: although all things being equal (same size, same weight, same age etc.) a more muscular person will burn more calories at rest than a less muscular one, the difference is minimal. Merely walking one hour everyday will make a much bigger difference. Which was my point is saying you shouldn’t neglect cardio, even if your primary focus is on resistance training. Cardio doesn’t have to be boring treadmill or elliptical at the gym.

[Shedding]

I will give it a shot and increase cardio. I have nothing to lose but fat.

[A_Lurker]

@Shedding - when I used to lift (getting back to it) I would do 15-20 min cardio warm-up and would add some at the end as well.  The first would bring my heart rate up and kept it higher for my lifting routine in general.  Like you, I prefer weights to cardio.   Even now I look at overall calories burned instead of steps for how I've done for the day.

[devilsiq123]

Have your body fat measured manually with a clipper and compare. Alternativey try a different diet. I would cut a bit on the protein and the carbs and increase the fat intake.

[Shedding]

Thank you.  I am currently at about 200g of protein (I weigh 190lbs) - so it is about 50% of my total diet.  I eat about 40% carbs, and 10% fat.  I will change it up a bit to be 20% carbs, 30% fat.  How does that sound?  (it will be in the forms of nuts and avocado for the fat)  I will report back and see if that make a difference.  I just weighed myself today and sure enough I still went down in weight, but now my fat % is at 19%.  I look at myself in the mirror and I am looking great, so I think there is something off.

[devilsiq123]

Try not to weight yourself too often..Body composition does not change over night. I would definitely try manually measuring fat to compare. Also, if you look good don't get to obsessed with the fat %, different people look a bit differently with the same body fat%. You can try this way of eating, aldo depending on preference, health etx, keto diet combined with HIIT 2 times a weeks makes mirecles. Alternatively give it go with calorie/carb cycling if you haven't. You could have hit platoue and the weight change is water maybe?

[Dominique]

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@Shedding wrote:

I am currently at about 200g of protein (I weigh 190lbs) - so it is about 50% of my total diet.  I eat about 40% carbs, and 10% fat.  I will change it up a bit to be 20% carbs, 30% fat.

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Protein are at an adequate level (high/higher than the standard recommendation for the general population, which is very low) for minimising lean tissue loss when in a caloric deficit. You may hear doomsayers telling you this will kill your kidneys and cause all kind of nasty diseases, but you can safely ignore them.

How you split the rest of your macros between carbs and fat doesn’t really matter: total calories is what determines fat loss. Changing the ratio of carbs and fats will only have a short-term impact (typical initial weight loss observed when switching to a low-carb diet, since every gram of carbs get stored with three grams of water). If/when reintroducing more carbs, the water will come back. So if total calories are the same, it’s really a matter of personal preferences. I tend to favour carbs, because they’re the best fuel for me. Some people are happier with fattier food. It’s up to you.

[Dominique]

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@Dominique wrote:

Anyway, the body fat % returned by the scale is just a number. If you’re interested in getting leaner, you can use other indicators as well: the mirror 

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This is what I mean:

There is a visible difference for me in terms of vascularity (how apparent my veins are in certain parts of my body) between 18-20% and 15-16% (current level according to Aria). 

[josephz2va]

It depends on a couple aspects:

•  Diets: Is it enriched and balanced enough. Does it have enough quality in it. Is it really helping me lose fat and weight.
• Exercises in Cardio: Am I doing enough. Am I pushing myself enough.
• Exercises in Training: Am I following the right kind of training. What training is adequate for me.

I'm not going to mention supplements since I have decided to quit that yesterday. Even threw away the shake cups I bought. I'm giving away money and no wins here. It's now up to the three aspects. Diets, Cardio, and Training. The value of what is consumed, how many calories are consumed, how much effort (officially) put into it.

For me, I am on WW meals I can grab at the grocery store. Fitstar Personal Training's 10 minute daily conditioning for my Cardio and Training aspects. Sometimes I get 3 efforts put in (30 minutes total).

[Dominique]

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@josephz2va wrote:

For me, I am on WW meals I can grab at the grocery store.

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First, I was wondering what’s a "WW meal". Then I realized it must be Weight Watchers. Since I’m not familiar with their offering (I don’t think you can buy any food from them where I am), I’ll ask what kind of meals they offer.

I assume it must be mostly well-balanced and healthy, but it also sounds like it’s processed to some extent. For me, a successful diet is based on minimally processed food and on preparing your own meal yourself, whenever possible. It’s a bit more time-consuming, but it’s also cheaper and gives you full control over what goes into your food (things like sodium, sugar, additives etc.), so I think it’s worth the effort.

[A_Lurker]

The WW meals here in Canada are frozen, so I'm assuming it's the same things.  I know a lot of people like them for convenience.  I don't specifically count sodium, but the few I looked at were around 600mg.  They are probably decent alternatives if you don't have the time and/or kitchen skills, but as @Dominique said you can likely make better, cheaper alternatives.  My biggest issue with them as they are quite low calorie.  Maybe they are aimed at women eating 1200 calories in which case a sub-300 calorie dinner might be okay as long as you add a nice big tossed salad or veggies or something on the side.