Slowing on the loss…
I knew week two wouldn’t see near as much loss as week one as my body would now be more used to the lower calories, but I’m bummed to see I haven’t lost anything since Friday.
That said, I know why. I’ve been working hard at the gym and here at the house with Yoga to not only burn calories but to build muscle. I’ve been doing weight training since early November and with the Yoga and the cross training on the Elliptical, I’m building muscles even with my cardio activity.
We all know muscle weighs more than fat, so as I build muscle, my weight loss is going to low (at least for a bit.) That’s why I’m glad I bought the scale I have. It not only shows my weight and my BMR to tell me how many calories I need, it also tells me my percentage body fat and my percentage body water.
While I haven’t lost any weight the last several days, I am seeing my % body fat go down. It started at 42% (ugh, can you imagine?) and dropped to around 40% last week. In the last two days, it’s dropped to 37%, while my body weight has stayed the same. That means I AM building more muscle, which explains why I’m losing inches but not weight.
The plus side of this is more muscle = more efficient burning of calories. So, if I can keep this up, I may temporarily stall in my weight loss, but I’ll eventually pick it back up and drop at a better rate. So don’t go getting overconfident my comrades in consumption, I may end up losing this week, but I’m building a lean, mean, calorie burning machine to take you out in the home stretch!
February 11th, 2008 at 9:47 am
Wow that is some great results and as somebody who is the biggest believer in weight training, I am pumped to see you do that.
Are you still worried about your weight? It seems that you know you will not really loose to much because your are gaining muscle… but you are slimming down which is better than anything thing.
I was just curious and keep up the great work… remember to change up your routine frequently so you can avoid pattern overload.
February 11th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Thanks for the encouragement Dan!
I do still want to get at least 20 more pounds off, more if I can. I’m only 5′7 and still weigh in at 190, so even with building muscle, there’s plenty of space to drop some more fat and pounds.
I don’t want to be “built” I want to be toned.
Would love to get your input on the weight training. I’ve been doing three sets of 10 reps on most of the weight machines. I’ve gotten to where I can do sets without feeling like I’m going to die, but I’m reluctant to add more weight too quickly. For now, I’ve added one extra set of reps on each machine. That has me doing four sets of ten. I also make the first set one weight level higher, then drop it back down for the next three sets.
Does that sound reasonable? I figure my next step when I feel like I’ve got this tackled is to do the first two sets at the higher rate, and continue on that until all four sets are at the higher rate?
As for my cardio, I changed it up this week. I’d been doing ellipitcal training three days a week for about two months. This week I switched to 15 minutes on a treadmill at an 8% incline, then weight training, then 25 minutes of cross training on the elliptical.