Losing weight but stopped losing fat... what now?
11-09-05, 01:22 AM
#1
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I have been working to improve my health since June and have dropped from 210-215 down to 175 (at the most recent weigh in). I am a young guy, so it was not too hard to lose the weight. I am 6' tall and weigh in at 175, which is fine. I have a large frame and am just built kind of big. My problem is that I have lost a lot of weight but not a significant amount of body fat!
I first started measuring body fat a couple of months ago via BIA and the military method. I found that with BIA I was hovering around 18-19% and military said 20%. I am down to around 16 BIA and I am not sure about the military, I will check back later with that one. I don't really trust BIA very much, but that is another story.
I have been at this level for about 5 or 6 weeks now. My other concern is that weight has been coming off but my body fat is staying around the same. Plus I just have "extra padding."
What is the next step?
Here is my typical diet:
Breakfast:
Smoked salmon, 2-4 slices
Eggs, 1-2
Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal (Bad... I KNOW!) 1 cup w/ 2% milk
Naked Berry Blast juice (for those who don't know what this is, it is an organic juice smoothie, no sugar added, not watered down, etc.)
Lunch
Sushi, 7-10 oz
or
Deli sandwich with smoked salmon on sourdough or whole wheat roll
Dinner
Varies
Pasta, meat such as chicken, very little red meat, I don't really know
I snack on things like nuts (almonds) and dried fruits throughout the day, not excessively, though I admit I permit myself to indulge in candy once in blue moon (though October can be a hard month to deal with candy cravings). I also eat kashi granola.
Since I am a student my saddle time has been somewhat limited. I try to get in at least an hour every other day, but lately it has been very hard due to stress from school and work and other commitments such as my girlfriend to sneak enough time in. This week it has been raining, so no riding. I am generally able to sneak in about 3 short rides a week and maybe one longer one if I am lucky.
I am getting frustrated!
I first started measuring body fat a couple of months ago via BIA and the military method. I found that with BIA I was hovering around 18-19% and military said 20%. I am down to around 16 BIA and I am not sure about the military, I will check back later with that one. I don't really trust BIA very much, but that is another story.
I have been at this level for about 5 or 6 weeks now. My other concern is that weight has been coming off but my body fat is staying around the same. Plus I just have "extra padding."
What is the next step?
Here is my typical diet:
Breakfast:
Smoked salmon, 2-4 slices
Eggs, 1-2
Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal (Bad... I KNOW!) 1 cup w/ 2% milk
Naked Berry Blast juice (for those who don't know what this is, it is an organic juice smoothie, no sugar added, not watered down, etc.)
Lunch
Sushi, 7-10 oz
or
Deli sandwich with smoked salmon on sourdough or whole wheat roll
Dinner
Varies
Pasta, meat such as chicken, very little red meat, I don't really know
I snack on things like nuts (almonds) and dried fruits throughout the day, not excessively, though I admit I permit myself to indulge in candy once in blue moon (though October can be a hard month to deal with candy cravings). I also eat kashi granola.
Since I am a student my saddle time has been somewhat limited. I try to get in at least an hour every other day, but lately it has been very hard due to stress from school and work and other commitments such as my girlfriend to sneak enough time in. This week it has been raining, so no riding. I am generally able to sneak in about 3 short rides a week and maybe one longer one if I am lucky.
I am getting frustrated!
11-09-05, 02:42 AM
#2
Senior Member
The weight is coming off because you're burning off more calories than you eat, pretty simple. Do you have a log of your rides and workouts so we can compare to your meals list?
Problem with the constant fat is you're losing muscle as well as fat when you're dropping the weight. Thus the body-fat % remains the same. The padding roll will be constant as you drop weight.
This is because with your workouts, you're burning up muscle along with fat. It doesn't appear that you're doing long rides where you're depleting your stored glycogen supply, so muscle-catabolism on the ride is probably not an issue.
I suspect the issue is two-fold. You're not eating enough carbs and not eating right after a ride, followed by a meal within 2 hours. That's probably the problem. What happens after a ride is your body needs about 1000 calories of glucose to convert into muscle-glycogen to replenish the supply that you burnt up during the ride. You must eat 1.5gm of carbs per kg of body-weight within 15-minutes of the ride in order to supply this glucose. Without it, your body will convert stored fats AND take apart perfectly good muscle at the same time in order to replenish the muscle-glycogen. This is triggered by the higher levels of epinepherine, glucagon and low blood-glucose at the end of the ride.
In order to combat this muscle-disassembly, you MUST eat more carbs and immediately after the ride. I would recommend keeping your total calorie intake the same, in order to maintain the same weight-loss rate you're getting. However, cut back on the protein and replace it with carbs. You really will only absorb as much protein as in those two slices of salmon you had for breakfast anyway, the rest is just flushed down the toilet. However, the lack of carbs will cause your body to take apart even more muscle than you're absorbing in protein.
Problem with the constant fat is you're losing muscle as well as fat when you're dropping the weight. Thus the body-fat % remains the same. The padding roll will be constant as you drop weight.
This is because with your workouts, you're burning up muscle along with fat. It doesn't appear that you're doing long rides where you're depleting your stored glycogen supply, so muscle-catabolism on the ride is probably not an issue.
I suspect the issue is two-fold. You're not eating enough carbs and not eating right after a ride, followed by a meal within 2 hours. That's probably the problem. What happens after a ride is your body needs about 1000 calories of glucose to convert into muscle-glycogen to replenish the supply that you burnt up during the ride. You must eat 1.5gm of carbs per kg of body-weight within 15-minutes of the ride in order to supply this glucose. Without it, your body will convert stored fats AND take apart perfectly good muscle at the same time in order to replenish the muscle-glycogen. This is triggered by the higher levels of epinepherine, glucagon and low blood-glucose at the end of the ride.
In order to combat this muscle-disassembly, you MUST eat more carbs and immediately after the ride. I would recommend keeping your total calorie intake the same, in order to maintain the same weight-loss rate you're getting. However, cut back on the protein and replace it with carbs. You really will only absorb as much protein as in those two slices of salmon you had for breakfast anyway, the rest is just flushed down the toilet. However, the lack of carbs will cause your body to take apart even more muscle than you're absorbing in protein.
Last edited by DannoXYZ; 11-28-05 at 02:04 PM.
11-09-05, 11:21 AM
#4
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Originally Posted by DannoXYZ
I suspect the issue is two-fold. You're not eating enough carbs and you're not eating right after a meal. That's probably the problem.
11-09-05, 01:04 PM
#5
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I do eat after I ride, usually within 15-30 minutes. Not enough, maybe? Is there a general rule to calculate the proper amount to eat based upon the level of intensity? eating 1000 calories after every ride is kind of a lot!
11-09-05, 03:43 PM
#6
Senior Member
Originally Posted by Dwayne
If you eat right after a meal, isn't that a continuation of that meal?
, edited.I made a more detailed post with metabolic pathways earlier. You can find it here: Burning Fat/Burning Glycogen. Dietary intake is not fixed and set in stone. It must be varied according to the level and volume of exercise you're doing. Low-carb may work in the beginning for sedentary folks and gives rapid initial weight-loss. But it does impose a very low ceiling on fitness-improvement rates and how lean you can get as far as body-fat %. There was another post on fat/carb/protein percentages in meals here: Percentages for fat, carb and protein?.
Last edited by DannoXYZ; 11-09-05 at 03:51 PM.
11-09-05, 05:26 PM
#7
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Originally Posted by DannoXYZ
The weight is coming off because you're burning off more calories than you eat, pretty simple. Do you have a log of your rides and workouts so we can compare to your meals list?
Problem with the constant fat is you're losing just as much muscle as fat when you're dropping the weight. Thus the body-fat % remains the same. The padding roll will be constant as you drop weight.
This is because with your workouts, you're burning up just as much muscle as fat. It doesn't appear that you're doing long rides where you're depleting your stored glycogen supply, so muscle-catabolism on the ride is probably not an issue.
I suspect the issue is two-fold. You're not eating enough carbs and eat right after a ride, followed by a meal within 2 hours. That's probably the problem. What happens after a ride is your body needs about 1000 calories of glucose to convert into muscle-glycogen to replenish the supply that you burnt up during the ride. You must eat 1.5gm of carbs per kg of body-weight within 15-minutes of the ride in order to supply this glucose. Without it, your body will convert stored fats AND take apart perfectly good muscle at the same time in order to replenish the muscle-glycogen. This is triggered by the higher levels of epinepherine, glucagon and low blood-glucose at the end of the ride.
In order to combat this muscle-disassembly, you MUST eat more carbs and immediately after the ride. I would recommend keeping your total calorie intake the same, in order to maintain the same weight-loss rate you're getting. However, cut back on the protein and replace it with carbs. You really will only absorb as much protein as in those two slices of salmon you had for breakfast anyway, the rest is just flushed down the toilet. However, the lack of carbs will cause your body to take apart even more muscle than you're absorbing in protein.
Problem with the constant fat is you're losing just as much muscle as fat when you're dropping the weight. Thus the body-fat % remains the same. The padding roll will be constant as you drop weight.
This is because with your workouts, you're burning up just as much muscle as fat. It doesn't appear that you're doing long rides where you're depleting your stored glycogen supply, so muscle-catabolism on the ride is probably not an issue.
I suspect the issue is two-fold. You're not eating enough carbs and eat right after a ride, followed by a meal within 2 hours. That's probably the problem. What happens after a ride is your body needs about 1000 calories of glucose to convert into muscle-glycogen to replenish the supply that you burnt up during the ride. You must eat 1.5gm of carbs per kg of body-weight within 15-minutes of the ride in order to supply this glucose. Without it, your body will convert stored fats AND take apart perfectly good muscle at the same time in order to replenish the muscle-glycogen. This is triggered by the higher levels of epinepherine, glucagon and low blood-glucose at the end of the ride.
In order to combat this muscle-disassembly, you MUST eat more carbs and immediately after the ride. I would recommend keeping your total calorie intake the same, in order to maintain the same weight-loss rate you're getting. However, cut back on the protein and replace it with carbs. You really will only absorb as much protein as in those two slices of salmon you had for breakfast anyway, the rest is just flushed down the toilet. However, the lack of carbs will cause your body to take apart even more muscle than you're absorbing in protein.
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11-09-05, 06:46 PM
#8
Senior Member
yeah, you would calculate it based upon what you ate and burned off. However, you have to balance the rates of multiple variable like digestion-rates, fat-burning rate, carb-burning, fat-conversion-rate, glycogen-restoration rates, etc.
The first step would be to take a look at total calories-in vs. calories-out in exercise to come up with a weight-loss rate that's realistic without losing muscle at the same time. I would say that 1-lb/week is a good number without having to be too meticulous with your bookkeeping in tracking everything. That would be about a 500-calorie deficit per day. Let's say you're a fairly fit athlete, able to burn off 800-calories/hr while still maintaining a high 30% fat-burn rate for a 3-hour ride:
+300 cal pre-ride meal
+400 cal on-ride snacks
-2500 cal burnt on ride (700 ingested, 1300 glycogen, 500 fat)
+300 cal post-ride snack
+400 stored-fat conversion to glycogen
+600 cal post-ride meal within 4-hours
------------
-500 cal deficit TOTAL
These are carb-calories only, protein is free but needs to be counted towards your total calories-in daily. The idea with going for long rides at a rate just under your LT is to burn off as many fat-calories/hr as possible. Due to the slow conversion of fats to glucose, it's the distance and hours on the bike that counts. The more fit you are, the more calories of fat you can burn off per hour without going anaerobic above your LT.
Notice that the majority of ingested calories comes after the ride to replenish the depleted glycogen stores. The body is gonna restore those 1500 calories of depleted glycogen you used up no matter what. Fat-conversion to glycogen occurs at a rate of about 75-120 calories per hour, which is slower than the 200-250 calories per hour that your muscles can pack in glycogen (varies with insulin/glucagon/leptin levels). If your blood-sugar is low during this recovery phase, your body will take apart good muscle protein to convert into glycogen to make up for the deficit with fat-conversion. So that 900 calories above what you can get from fat-conversion is gonna come from carbs or muscle-protein. You can stave off the muscle-catabolism by supplying plenty of high-GI carbs right after a ride, then follow with complex-carbs from a meal later. But you need to have those 900 calories from carbs, or else it will be made up from muscles.
The first step would be to take a look at total calories-in vs. calories-out in exercise to come up with a weight-loss rate that's realistic without losing muscle at the same time. I would say that 1-lb/week is a good number without having to be too meticulous with your bookkeeping in tracking everything. That would be about a 500-calorie deficit per day. Let's say you're a fairly fit athlete, able to burn off 800-calories/hr while still maintaining a high 30% fat-burn rate for a 3-hour ride:
+300 cal pre-ride meal
+400 cal on-ride snacks
-2500 cal burnt on ride (700 ingested, 1300 glycogen, 500 fat)
+300 cal post-ride snack
+400 stored-fat conversion to glycogen
+600 cal post-ride meal within 4-hours
------------
-500 cal deficit TOTAL
These are carb-calories only, protein is free but needs to be counted towards your total calories-in daily. The idea with going for long rides at a rate just under your LT is to burn off as many fat-calories/hr as possible. Due to the slow conversion of fats to glucose, it's the distance and hours on the bike that counts. The more fit you are, the more calories of fat you can burn off per hour without going anaerobic above your LT.
Notice that the majority of ingested calories comes after the ride to replenish the depleted glycogen stores. The body is gonna restore those 1500 calories of depleted glycogen you used up no matter what. Fat-conversion to glycogen occurs at a rate of about 75-120 calories per hour, which is slower than the 200-250 calories per hour that your muscles can pack in glycogen (varies with insulin/glucagon/leptin levels). If your blood-sugar is low during this recovery phase, your body will take apart good muscle protein to convert into glycogen to make up for the deficit with fat-conversion. So that 900 calories above what you can get from fat-conversion is gonna come from carbs or muscle-protein. You can stave off the muscle-catabolism by supplying plenty of high-GI carbs right after a ride, then follow with complex-carbs from a meal later. But you need to have those 900 calories from carbs, or else it will be made up from muscles.
Last edited by DannoXYZ; 11-09-05 at 10:44 PM.
11-09-05, 07:59 PM
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I'm having somewhat the same problem. I am 5'9.5", weigh ~290, and according to a Tanita BIA scale, 39% body fat. When I work out at the gym (no bike yet, but I'm working on that), according to the machines, I burn anywhere from 3-400 calories in half an hour. I follow it up with a protein shake about 1.5 hours later or so.
Should I change to take in some carbs right afterwards (equivalent to the # of calories the machine said I burned) and still have my protein shake after I clean up? IE, carry a couple granola bars and wolf them down in the locker room?
Should I change to take in some carbs right afterwards (equivalent to the # of calories the machine said I burned) and still have my protein shake after I clean up? IE, carry a couple granola bars and wolf them down in the locker room?
11-15-05, 04:21 AM
#10
Senior Member
Originally Posted by IBreakCellPhone
I'm having somewhat the same problem. I am 5'9.5", weigh ~290, and according to a Tanita BIA scale, 39% body fat. When I work out at the gym (no bike yet, but I'm working on that), according to the machines, I burn anywhere from 3-400 calories in half an hour. I follow it up with a protein shake about 1.5 hours later or so.
Should I change to take in some carbs right afterwards (equivalent to the # of calories the machine said I burned) and still have my protein shake after I clean up? IE, carry a couple granola bars and wolf them down in the locker room?
Should I change to take in some carbs right afterwards (equivalent to the # of calories the machine said I burned) and still have my protein shake after I clean up? IE, carry a couple granola bars and wolf them down in the locker room?
I would try to do 60-minutes of the exercise-machine workout rather than 30-minutes. That's because the 1st 15-minutes is really warm-up and doing an extra 30-minutes would actually burn off close to 2.5x as many calories (600-800 cal/hr). Then your body would convert even more fats & blood-sugar to replenish the glycogen that was burned off (provided you have enough carbs to ward off muscle destruction).
