weight loss, or more specifically fat loss!
weight loss & fitness monitoring can be frustrating. As in I can't often tell if I am making progress or sliding - it's easy to say, skip exercise and lose weight then over weeks of exercise not see the scale move: but that move is water weight. It wasn't til I got my electric body fat scale (uses electricity to monitor body density/not safe for those w/a pacemaker) - it tells me my body fat % & water %. What I've learned is that although my total weight has stayed about the same all year (flux between 160 and 170 up & down/currently at 161) the dif. is since August I've gone from 37.5% body fat at 165 lbs to about 32.8% body fat at 161 lbs - that's a big drop in fat. That was 61.8 lbs of fat to 52.3 lbs of fat now - so that's a drop of 9.4 lbs of fat, but only 4 lbs on the scale; must've gained water or muscle or both.
Funny how it's affected my wardrobe: now when I wear pants I used to fill out, my butt area is just sagging fabric like I have no butt.
And even better (for me!) is my chest is smaller, I've lost 2 inches off both my hips & chest. woot!! burn, baby, burn. I don't need that fat, my goal is to get to about 26% body fat or better.
If I get down to 135 lbs with 26% body fat (my "healthy zone" for my very very short height) I'll be down to 35.1 lbs of fat - so 17.2 lbs of fat less. Since I am 160, losing only 17 lbs of fat would put me at 143.8 lbs, not 135 lbs - so I guess I have 10 lbs more musclemass then the average woman. I expect some might drop too - hard to say. I don't think it's possible to only lose fat and not lose any dense muscle mass in the process, or, to add to that, I'm not sure how muscular I want to be either. I don't want to lose 17 lbs of fat plus 10 lbs of muscle - I'd rather just lose fat, but it's a trial & error process.
I guess if I get to my body fat % goal I have to decide if I'm okay if it leaves me a bit more dense then I had expected (such as 145 lbs and 26% body fat).
Funny how it's affected my wardrobe: now when I wear pants I used to fill out, my butt area is just sagging fabric like I have no butt.
And even better (for me!) is my chest is smaller, I've lost 2 inches off both my hips & chest. woot!! burn, baby, burn. I don't need that fat, my goal is to get to about 26% body fat or better.
If I get down to 135 lbs with 26% body fat (my "healthy zone" for my very very short height) I'll be down to 35.1 lbs of fat - so 17.2 lbs of fat less. Since I am 160, losing only 17 lbs of fat would put me at 143.8 lbs, not 135 lbs - so I guess I have 10 lbs more musclemass then the average woman. I expect some might drop too - hard to say. I don't think it's possible to only lose fat and not lose any dense muscle mass in the process, or, to add to that, I'm not sure how muscular I want to be either. I don't want to lose 17 lbs of fat plus 10 lbs of muscle - I'd rather just lose fat, but it's a trial & error process.
I guess if I get to my body fat % goal I have to decide if I'm okay if it leaves me a bit more dense then I had expected (such as 145 lbs and 26% body fat).