Weight down but BF% is up

[yorkepb]

Hello, pardon the fitness newbie question, I am still trying to figure all of this out:

Since the begining of the year I have been very active averaging more than 70k steps for week, around 3600 calories burned per day and I am eating at a deficit of around 1000 calories.  I am also using the excersize bike for about a half an hour per day resulting in about 200 - 250 calories burned.

Anyway to make a long story short, since the begining of the year I have lost 7 lbs going from 289.4 to (today) 282.5 on the aria scale. However my concern is that in the same period my BF% has gone from: 40% to 40.6%, my lean mass went from: 173.6 lbs to now 167.7 which means all in all 7 of those 9 lbs I lost were lean mass not fat.  What am I doing wrong? Why am I losing lean mass or should I be expecting this?

Thanks in advance for any help

[artlvngirl]

I am concerned about the same thing! I also have an Aria. In the last 2 months I have lost about 9 lb. I am jogging 2-3 times a week and working out with weights and circuit training twice a week. My body fat percentage has only dropped minimally and shows at the high end of avg. at around 34% although my weight is down to 136. I am worried I am losing muscle mass instead of fat, but I am not sure why.

[gerrymcd · Accepted solution]

Unfortunately our bodies revere fat.  It loves the stuff and is loathe to burn it.  This makes sense in terms of surviving famine -- muscles won't keep us alive during food shortages, but fat will.  In fact during a famine having a lot of muscle mass is a negative, since muscles use energy even while we are at rest having less muscle is positive. 

When you cut calories your body thinks 'famine' and makes the decision to either burn lean mass or fat to compensate for the loss of calories.  In which case its a no brainer!  It wants to keep the fat for as long as possible, and dump any unused muscle to minimize the amount of calories required for base metabolism. 

Bottom line, if you cut calories you need to work muscles hard to retain lean mass and burn fat instead.

[JenniLacey · Accepted solution]

When you lose weight, not only do you lose fat but lean muscle/tissue as well. Although some lean muscle/tissue loss should be expected if you are not strength training up to 30% of your weight loss can be muscle/tissue. Strength training helps to combat lean muscle loss.

Keep in mind that scales are not the most accurate tool to measure body fat. Take them with a grain of salt. It's also normal for initial weight loss to come mainly from fluid. This often occurs when changing your diet to one lower in sugars and sodium.

[yorkepb]

Thank you both for your responses, this helps a lot for me to understand better what my body is doing.

[au4all]

There's two things in your body: fat and lean body mass.

When you gain 10 pounds, about 8 is fat, and about 2 is muscle (this ratio is very approximate) that grows to carry the extra weight; you can see that overweight people often have large legs. So it's normal for you to lose LBM when you lose weight.

But what's happening in your case is more likely water weight change. Water is not fat, so it counts as LBM in your measurements.

[Knowledge]

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@au4all wrote:

There's two things in your body: fat and lean body mass.

When you gain 10 pounds, about 8 is fat, and about 2 is muscle (this ratio is very approximate) that grows to carry the extra weight; you can see that overweight people often have large legs. So it's normal for you to lose LBM when you lose weight.

But what's happening in your case is more likely water weight change. Water is not fat, so it counts as LBM in your measurements.

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Just wanted to also chime in that if you're doing a traditional calorie deficit diet you will lose a portion (usually 30%) from muscle mass.

Studies have shown that of all types of diets, the best diet to burn fat and prevent muscle loss is a low-carb diet. The carb restriction affects how much you lose percentage wise, with studies showing at 20grams of carbs/day you lose 99% fat and 1% lean mass, and at most, 110grams of carbs/day you lose 30% muscle and 70% fat.

[wheatland62]

I was so glad I searched and found your post.  I have been wondering the same thing I lose weight but my fat% goes up with every oz. I lose.  So frustrating.  I have done strength training and I guess I need to get back into it.  Just cardio must not cut it.  :).   I love my carbs and always relate low carbs diets to serious side effects.  But I guess I am going to have to try it again.  Any suggestions on which low carb diet is the best? My weight is 141.1 and body fat is 33.3% that is just down right fat.  BMI is 24%.  grrrrrowling!  

I am new to the aria scales and it is a shock to realize what % of my body is fat.  YUK.  

[Dominique]

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@wheatland62 wrote:

I am new to the aria scales and it is a shock to realize what % of my body is fat.  YUK. 

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As this funny customer review on Amazon UK states:

[too_spicy]

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@Knowledge wrote:

Studies have shown that of all types of diets, the best diet to burn fat and prevent muscle loss is a low-carb diet. The carb restriction affects how much you lose percentage wise, with studies showing at 20grams of carbs/day you lose 99% fat and 1% lean mass, and at most, 110grams of carbs/day you lose 30% muscle and 70% fat.

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While it's true that doing a low-carb diet is going to reduce the risk of a loss of muscle mass, it's also SUPER FRIGGIN HARD to sustain. Who doesn't like carbs? All I eat is bread and cereal. (Not really )  As far as what @wheatland62 was concerned about, there aren't really any serious side effects, but a low carb diet is just as prone to failure and binging as any other diet. If you're not eating your fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, you're going to be depriving your body of quite a few micronutrients and a lot of tasty food. Which is no fun. But if masochism is your thing, be my guest I suppose.

If you're trying to lose fat and gain back some of your lost muscle, I would do two things:

1. Stop worrying about how many pounds you weigh for a second, because clearly you're dropping weight and are still not satisfied, which means it's not your weight which is the problem, it's your bf%.
2. Stop doing so much cardio!!!!! Cardio does burn a lot of calories, which is good if you're trying to lose weight. But like the others above me have said, it eats your muscles before it'll eat your fat which is no good.

But here's the thing that everyone neglects to mention: Increasing your body's muscle mass will increase your basal metabolic rate, because muscle takes more energy to function than fat does. Inceasing the amount of muscle you have will increase the amount of calories you burn while sitting on your butt. Which means you don't have to bust your butt as hard to lose the rest of the fat you want to lose. And you'll also get that "toned" look that's all the rage these days.

TL;DR Will everyone please stop focusing on the number on the scale, because it's making you trash your body. Increasing your muscle mass (and consequently, your bmr AND your weight) will get you closer to the fit body that you're looking for, not hours upon hours of cardio every week. -end disgruntled rant-

[wheatland62]

Deat Too_Spicy:

Thank you for your response.  Scales this morning show I am down to 138.7 of course body fat % is 33.6%.This is hard for me to swallow  BUT after reading your response I am going to go back to the weights start toning and continue to watch my fitbit.  I am very active (less in the winter) but love to see the steps I take and the energy level up.

I had asked which low carb diet was the best, I don't think I could do 20 carbs a day, I love my meat but more than 3 oz. at a meal is over doing  for me.  Like you say it is so hard but I do want to get a lower BMI. My Dr. tells me I am great, my husband and family say I am great.  So I am great.  🙂  

Thanks for your great advice, I will let you know how it goes.  Shooting for a lower BMI!

Wheatland

. 

[DominicJ]

Water Weight

Basically, a lot of the weight you lose in the first week is water, which is "lean"

It'll stabilise shortly, if you maintain your 1000cal deficit, you'll stabilise at about 2lbs a week loss, almost all of it fat.

[wheatland62]

Thanks for your help, makes me feel better after reading all the post on body fat. I am going to keep at this start more weight training and keep up with the cardio as well. Wish me luck and I will let you all know if a have a turn around. Wheatland

[josephz2va]

It also depends on your efficiency of training. Cardio is one part of it, but also adding weight training now and then, but also adding personal training to improve efficiency to lose body fat. I would recommend installing Fitstar which is part of Fitbit and is a low cost to afford doing personal training at anywhere you are comfortable. Cardio mainly for me is that 10,000 steps is easy to reach, but I try to aim for 20,000 to improve efficiency in fat burn. My body fat is very high for the 10,000 steps of Office Duty I am at from Aria Scale weighing. So I added pm elliptical training to reach 20,000 steps to add more burning to reach a lower body fat goal.

Food consumption is also important to monitor to lower body fat. Analyzing what foods are good and bad, staying away from eateries outside of your control zone, prepping your house to have all the right foods. DD, Starbucks, McDonalds are bad.

[sapphire]

Have you looked at DAVID LUDWIG's Always Hungry, just out?

[SunsetRunner]

This is great information. I just started using Aria, and now it show my BF%. Where as before just used the regular standup scale. I had notice that even thou I am losing weight that my Lean numbers were going down and fat going up, it was frustrating to see. I have been mostly doing Cardio as a fresher to my body(since I hadn't really workout since military days). Having read through all the info I have better understang of what Aris is saying. Will get back into weight training real soon 🙂

[Dominique]

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@SunsetRunner wrote:

I had notice that even thou I am losing weight that my Lean numbers were going down and fat going up, it was frustrating to see.

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You need to have a look at weight vs. body fat over a period of time that is long enough in order to draw any meaningful conclusions. Have a look at my weight & BF% data for the past six months:

As you can see, as my weight came down (from about 67 to 63 kg), my BF% also came down (from about 18 to 15.5%). This doesn’t mean that on every single day the weight came down, the BF% also came down (and vice-versa). Trendweight (which I mentioned in this other reply to you) also helps make sense of the seemingly randomly fluctuating daily values.

Also see this older discussion started by @ManuMeuh, who was wondering the same as you.