I’m 41yo and train with barbells for around 2 years. Initially to fix problems in my back, but now just because I like doing it.
Somewhat more than year ago was the last time I measured weight and body fat. It was around 92kg and had 23% of body fat.
I stopped measuring, because I wanted to focus more on technique, some pain problems and just raise the weights I could lift. I thought focussing on aesthetics too would be to distracting and I could do that later anyway.
Calorie intake is around 3000 a day (which was the estimated maintenance). Although I don’t strictly measure everything every day, I pay a fair amount of attention on balancing my food.
I’ve also had some breaks because of business trips or holidays. That food was far below my standards at home and I couldn’t resist those devine I.P.A.'s during my trips in the U.S.
In any case: in terms of training, the year was reasonably satisfying. My lifts went up (sq 160kg, dl 190kg which is a lot more than a year earlier), pain is under control and technique improved.
Yesterday I measured weight and bodyfat. 99 kilo’s vs 18.9% bf. I am happy with these numbers, but I am curious about what could have happened.
I didn’t strictly measure my calorie intake - which I now more or less regret, because now I don’t have any data -
I thought you could either lose fat and muscles or gain fat and muscles. According to the percentages I must have lost fat and gained muscles.
I didn’t bulk or cut on purpose, but is that what could have happened without knowing it? How does this work?
It’s no biggie, but I am just curious if someone has a theory about this.
The most logical explanation here is measurement error. That said, I’m pumped to hear that you’re training consistently and (seemingly) happy with your progress! Nice job.
The first time it was a skinfold measurement, the second time it was a machine - not the cheapest one -. This is not comparable of course, but since the difference was quite big, I thought there was more than just an error. There are some obvious changes in my body (my upper legs and buttocks grow out of my pants, shoulders don’t fit my t-shirts anymore), but I’m yet unsure if my waist significantly changed. Anyway, it made me quite curious, so I will do the first measurement method again at the gym shortly and see what happened.
That said: My original plan for the coming months was just to get stronger. I just finished the hypertrophy program and will start a 12 week strength program next week. I wanted to see if I can manage to squat 4 plates sooner or later.
But should the fat percentage still be around or over, let’s say 22%, wouldn’t it be smarter to get that fixed first? In terms of health I mean?
Sure, I’d agree. Just hard to say how much exactly, you know?
We don’t really know exactly, but the WHO uses 20 or 22% BF (measured by DEXA) to suggest people are carrying enough adipose tissue to be a health risk.
We don’t really know exactly, but the WHO uses 20 or 22% BF (measured by DEXA) to suggest people are carrying enough adipose tissue to be a health risk.
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Side question: wouldn’t it make more sense to use an absolute value (like the Fat Mass Index, FMI) to assess if someone should be losing fat? As gaining muscle mass, with no fat lost or gained, lowers BF%, the same person could be told that they needed to lose fat, but with, say, 10kg more muscle, they would be under that BF% threshold and be told they’re fine.
Do you have a recommended FMI value that you would tell people to shoot for?
If it were able to accurately predict that, theoretically yes. At this time however, it does not do that. Rather, BMI and Waist Circumference do a better job than other metrics.