Elvish Legion

Well Iwent to the doctors today and got weighed, I topped the scale at 175ish and freaked out. I'm roughly 5'9-5'10 and I still wear a size 32 or 33 (depends on the company) What happened, where does that weight come from? I'll try to post some pictures of me and see what you guys think..I'm so confused!

Edit: Forgot to say, I've been riding a lot lately trying to lose weight, but it hasn't worked

Kyle90

You could be gaining muscle, muscle weighs more then fat.

Elvish Legion

Thats what I thought but I'm just confused on how I could put that much muscle on in just a few months time

Kyle90

If you did alot of uphil or rough terrain riding, then it's easy to put on that.

Longhorn

I've been getting more and more comments on how trim and toned I look and clothes are fitting better but the scales only show a net loss of five to eight pounds. So I'm thinking I have less fat and more muscle.

Gurgus

Same thing happened to me. This year I went down to a size 32 in pants from a 36. I only lost about 5-10 pounds max. My clothes are HUGE on me and my wife told me to stop losing weight because I was starting to look scrawny. This year was the first time since college I bought a pair of size 32 pants.

30 years old, 6 foot and 180 pounds. I'm just scared of whats going to happen when the Canadian winter hits and I can't ride as much.

Elvish Legion

See its really strange though, I feel like I weigh to much. 180 @ 5'9ish is an awful lot, but I'm not fat by a long shot, I wear roughly a 32 x 32 pants I'm able to bench roughly 150, I can run a mile in about 5 mins, so I'm in pretty good shape, just heavy for a cyclist....but I dunno why? Maybe I'll be one hell of a sprinter when the race season starts?


Elvish

Kyle90

go see a fitness doctor (or whatever you call them).. he could probably tell you more then we could.

Elvish Legion

Personal Trainner?

InfamousG

Next time you see a doctor or a PT, ask for a body-fat analysis. There are a few things they can do to see what % of your body is fat. If it's low, you're fine. 180 lbs of mostly muscle on a 5'9" frame is fine.

Why do you feel you weigh "too much." Do you have friends that weigh less? Do you think that you should just generally be a lower weight?

Do you feel 'fat' or do you just think that the actual value of the scale is too much? If you don't feel 'fat' then chances are, you probably aren't. Everybody and every body is different. Bone density, muscle density, etc. are all factors in your weight.

Think... 180lbs will go downhill faster than 160lbs and 180lbs of muscle will push harder up the hills than 180lbs of flabbies

Cyclaholic

Are the scales working OK? certified as accorate?

Medpilot

If you like the way you look, then I wouldn't worry about it. I'm 5'8" 170lbs @ 12% body fat and my waist is 30"-31" . I'd still like to drop a few pounds to get to down to around 9-10% body fat but over all I'm good with how I look. As long as I can see my abs, I'm happy.

Elvish Legion

The reason I think that number is to high is, you always hear of these 6 footers weighing in at 180, and here I stand at 5'9. Some of my friends weigh from 120-150, but I don't feel or look fat, I feel heatlhy and I look healthy (I was 5'8 nad 115 untill I started lifting weights) I guess I'm just still in the fighters midset, which means I'm a middle weight class instead of a light weight oh well, I feel fine and I can sprint pretty good thats all that matters. I hear more weight it a little better for sprinters...

Elvish

crank'n

scales arnt the only measure of fitness,
pinch test the flab arround the waist,neck.
and being able to look down see your happy stick, are two others.

grgs

Not sure if this applies to you, but I always weigh very high at the doctor's office. They weigh me with whatever I'm wearing (I weigh myself at home just in underwear) and they always seem to come up with the weight extremely quickly (like here's an answer, get 'im out of here!)

RhumbRunner

Elvish, using a weight of 175, a waist measurement of 32.5" and a neck measure of 17", I'd say you are already 6# UNDER your ideal. If you are riding distance and speed you could be destroying lean body mass.

Look at the very simple %BF calculator I linked to in "Percentage of body fat or BMI?".

Only a sports physioligist could tell you for sure, but having too little fat for an athlete can be dangerous!

Rhumb

dfw

Waist measurement is not as conclusive as abdomen measurement. Measure your abdomen at the point of your belly button. Use that for comparison. If yours is less than someone else's (assuming they are male), then chances are you have less body fat. Height doesn't really play a factor in abdomen size.

Some guys who are really serious about cycling get their body fat down to 5% or less. Personally, I don't think this is such a great idea if you are really concerned about overall health. Very low body fat is believed to suppress your immune system. It's very possible Lance Armstrong would have not gotten cancer if his body fat had been higher, but of course this is nothing more than pure speculation.

Pat

Well, Kyle, muscle is more dense than fat, but not that much denser. Fat does float on water and muscle is denser than water by a small margin.

But the thing is that fat is well flabby. Muscle is toned. If you have 2 people of the same weight and one is toned and the other flabby, who do you think will look lighter?

dfw

Depends on if they're in the water or not.