Weight and size conundrum

[Chiefzero]

So I’m a little confused. I understand that you can decreases you size (clothes size, inches, cm, etc) but stay the same weight by gaining muscle. 

My situation is that according to the scale my weight is fairly constant and my body fat precentage is as well but my my clothes feel looser, especially on my lower body. I don’t mean live I can’t wear them anymore but they are easier to move in. I have continued to excercise as normal but have been increasing wieght (suggesting muscle gain but not showing up on readings).I really don’t understand how this works. My guesses are:

1.My water retention has changed.( liquid drinking habits haven’t changed to my knowledge.)

2.My clothes and belt have gotten looser. As in the fibers stretched. (I didn’t wear because they were too tight for my work.)

3.My body has changed shapes/configuration (I’m thirty years old so I thought not.)

4.The scales are mistaken.

5.I simply forgot the actually tightness of the clothes and I just don’t care anymore about the tightness.

If Anyone has any ideals what’s up, that would be great.

[Angus1967]

Measure yourself using a clothes tape measure (round waist, hips, arms, legs etc) to give yourself a better idea of how your body shape is changing.

[Dominique]

If you are serious about assessing body recomposition via measurements, you should really use a tape meter (as suggested by @Angus1967, as well as by me back last September), rather than see whether your clothes "kinda feel looser". I’d personally focus on waist circumference, as I think it’s a good proxy for overall leanness/fatness, and measuring all the rest is rather tedious. Actually, if you were really putting on muscle, things like biceps, quads, calves etc. should grow rather than shrink, unless you have a lot of fat around them (in which case your body weight should decrease if/when shedding off fat).

As to the idea your body will/can not change shape because you’re now in your thirties, it is mistaken. It can change at any age, though gaining muscle is harder as you get older. Check this post of mine on changing your physique in your fifties.

[Baltoscott]

I agree with @Angus1967 and @Dominique about using a tape measure.  I prefer something that is designed for waist measurement like this, however.  That it locks in the measurement makes it easier to get consistent readings and not fool yourself by wrapping too tightly.

As for your weight, weigh in daily and pay attention to the weekly moving average.  That is a better measure of change than the occasional weigh in. See link for TrendWeight in my signature for an example.

[bikerhiker]

@Chiefzero 

Your water retention has increased due to increase in muscle mass and glycogen stores.  So let me explain why..

First of all, glucose is the main preferred fuel for the body.  Through ingestion and digestion, it converts carbs into glucose so it can be absorbed into the bloodstream and be ready to be used to fuel your body and your activities.  Any excess glucose that aren't used is then converted into glycogen through a process called glycogen synthesis.  Glycogen is reserved for emergencies, because 75% of stored glycogen is used by the brain and the central nervous systems just to clue you in to the significance of this.  There is a maximum level of glycogen storage for the human body, before it gets stored as fat.  Obviously the activity and intensity level of the exercise determines how much glycogen is stored in your body, but roughly around 1600-2800 calories of carbohydrates in a form of glycogen can be stored in your muscles, liver, red blood cells and kidneys before it gets converted and stored as body fat.  Glycogen can only be stored in the presence of water, so that ratio is about 2.7 to 1.  So 2.7gram of water per gram of glycogen.  When your exercise level and intensity and muscle mass increase to allow increase in glycogen storage, so will your water retention weight.  So yes, your body composition will also change depending upon which muscle group(s) that your focus of activities are hence the change in body composition to reflect glycogen/water retention.  Glycogen stored in your muscles are known as localized energy stores, which means that they are meant to be used for those muscle groups that you trained for to complete a certain activity.  These localized glycogen stores can not be transferred to other body parts.  Only glycogen in the liver can be used by the whole body and is released to help normalize blood sugar level.  Having said that; depleting glycogen storage depends on the activity and intensity level and the muscle group used for those activities.

For normal daily living, glycogen is depleted in about 12 to 22 hours.  For low to medium intensity workout, 90 to 120 minutes.  For HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training), it takes 20 mins to deplete your glycogen stores.  In fact, in my case, after a HIIT session, I sometimes can lose up to 5 lbs of water weight while my waist line stays the same which is about 29" from 34" when I started.

In order to encourage the body to use body fat as a fuel source during a weight loss process is to go about it in stages, where you need to deplete the body of glycogen through a low caloric diet and exercise and the consequence of that is you lose a few lbs of weight which is mainly water until the body is forced to use your body fat stores as the fuel source.  Continue this until you hit a plateau and then ease the dieting and let your body recover before the next stage of weight loss.  This way, you are ensuring that you are only losing body fat not muscle mass, because you sometimes can't really tell whether your body is using fuel either from glucose (food) or in the absence of glucose (food) from your glycogen and if there's a lack of that then the body is forced, through a process called glyconeogenesis, breakdown muscle and convert that into glucose for fuel without touching your body fat stores which is not good.

Hope this helps.