A little frustrated at 18% subQ

(B Creighton) #1

Ok. I improved my health vastly with keto and low carb, but have never gotten my subcutaneous fat below 17% according to my dumb smart scale… My first year the fat just fell off after I quit keto, and did lots of walking, and I temporarily comfortably got down to a 34 waist. I am wearing 36s now - although somewhat loosely. Those of you who follow me a bit know I have worked hard to gain a little muscle, and every time I do this - except my first year - I gain some fat, although this last year my scale said it was an equivalent 3 pounds to my 3 pounds of muscle gain. Anyway, every year I have to lose that fat again, which I have done again this year. So, I am around 178 to 179 lbs right now. I still can pinch a tad of fat at the level of my love handles.

Who has been successful at losing more fat, and getting a six pack, and how did you do it? JFYI, I probably will not do carnivore, but am willing to approach something fairly close to it. My body just seems to have said - this is where I am happy, and no more do I want to lose. If anything I lose some muscle over the course of the summer, and have to regain that. This year I am trying to work out at least once a week year round. Maybe I just need to eat more during the summer, but for instance my scale says I am down 1 lb of muscle since March.

(Joey) #2

A few reactions…

  • Yes, your smart scale is indeed dumb.
  • Your body knows where it is “happy.” (please define?)
  • Honestly, working out once/week is not very much.
  • If you gained 2 inches at your waist, you’re eating stuff that your body is stowing away for the future. Food for thought.

:vulcan_salute:

(B Creighton) #3

Just to be clear I work out 3x/wk Nov-Mar, but the rest of the year I traditionally have not done strength training. That is what I changed this year to at least one time per week in an effort not to lose muscle… in the past I seem to lose a lot of muscle - or at least strength - during the summer, and have to almost start over again. So this year I am trying to at least do “maintenance” once per week.

I think part of that 2 inch gain in the waist has actually been muscle rather than fat. Way back before keto I had 2 hernia surgeries, and now my strength training has included leg lifts and ab rolls to strengthen my core… and it is stronger, so I suppose has more muscle. I weigh 15-16 pounds more than when I graduated HS. That is not all fat.

I arbitrarily set a goal of 11% body fat, which I probably haven’t seen since my early teen years. But, if I am going to do all this work to gain muscle, I wouldn’t mind seeing them…lol.

(Joey) #4

Sounds like you’re doing well. But it’s hard to imagine gaining 2 inches in the waist as being muscle - just sayin’

FWIW, exercise is a wonderful way to improve health on so many fronts (building muscle, enhancing cardio capacity, circulation, immunity, etc.). But it’s close to useless for losing weight. What you eat will drive that more than anything.

And unless you’re grossly overstuffing, if you’re truly avoiding the carbs, then your natural body weight will prevail over time pretty much regardless of whether you exercise much at all. Exercise is a whole different issue.

(B Creighton) #5

I am no longer actually trying to lose “weight.” My goal is to gain weight LOL… But at the rate I am going, I will never reach 188 Lb with 11% BF. That is another 8-10 pounds over what I am now with at least another 10 pounds of fat loss ie a 20 pound swing of muscle. I am just not really built that way, unless I find some new secret, LOL, I am going to do well to maintain my weight while losing that fat, which means 10 more pounds of muscle. Do I need that healthwise? No, I don’t think so. I am very pleased with my current health markers, and have no real complaints. My BP is excelllent, my stamina is good, although this year I am feeling like my stamina is not quite what it used to be… but I am 62. I am just naturally a slender build, and it is really hard for me to gain muscle - my very slender frame is partly responsible for that.

(Joey) #6

In my late-60s and thin framed, I can readily relate. We’ll never look like something other than who we are :wink:

(But if I gained 2 inches in my waist in a matter of months or so, I’d still be wondering what I’m eating? :thinking: )

(B Creighton) #7

Yeah, I understand, but there are 2 factors at work here. One is that about 6 years ago I weighed 20 pounds more, and 20 pounds more before that. That means I made fat cells to store all that fat. One thing about storing fat, is you gain it much faster if there are empty cells to fill up without waiting to grow new fat cells.

The other thing is I am purposefully tweeking my diet to gain muscle in the winter. That includes eating things to purposefully spike my insulin after working out. The purpose here is to maximize protein synthesis in order to build muscle. It is really the only effective way I have found for me to gain muscle. Otherwise, I just seem to plateau, and not build significant new muscle. The downside is that I do gain fat at the same time. The insulin is telling my body to store any fat I am eating. What kind of things am I talking about? Including stevia-coated maltodextrin in my protein smoothie. That avoids the dangers of fructose to fat storage, uric acid, etc.

I probably only gained about an inch. I probably went from 34.5 - a tight 34 to 35.5 - a loose 36. I don’t have much fat there when I tighten my abdomen. I would like to lose it though. This year I am thinking I am going to focus on fat loss rather than muscle gain.

(KM) #8

This will sound silly, but are you using the same tape measure? I used to have two (mostly for sewing). I finally realized my “big problem” was that one of the tapes was very old and it had stretched over an inch - in other words I “lost inches” when I used the stretched out pink tape measure and gained them back with the yellow one. :roll_eyes:

(B Creighton) #9

No, just pant sizes. I can still get in a size 34, but I really have to suck it in. I am at least an inch wider than my first year of keto.

(KM) #10

Same pair of pants? Same laundry routine? I know, grasping at straws here, but the same pair of jeans that are snug out of the dryer are falling off me a few active days later.

(B Creighton) #11

Yeah, same shorts or pants. I actually don’t have a lot of size 34s. Those are from decades ago. I have bought some new 34s - a handful - like some stretch shorts, and yes, I can wear them comfortably. Things like jeans will stretch out with wearing them, but I do know I am just a little bigger than my first year of keto. That year I optimized my fat burning, and quit keto in March. I went to a fairly low carb diet, with my highest carbs at breakfast. However, after breakfast I was doing post-prandial walking… I didn’t know it at the time, but that has been shown to prevent extreme insulin spiking because you are burning off the carbs. In two months I lost another 20 pounds. The fat just fell off until I reached 34 inches. Then it stopped. My eating did not change at all. The next fall I went back to keto, but was trying to gain muscle rather than lose fat. I know I can lose at least some of the fat, but I have been more focused on gaining muscle without gaining lots of fat. My third year, I gained twice the fat as muscle, but this last year, I was able to stave off some of that fat gain.

(Joey) #12

Oooh, let’s put our heads together to market stretched out tape measures. :moneybag:

(Edith) #13

I was wondering why you don’t keep up the strength training (well, except for that 1x/week) for more than half the year. Are you doing different types of exercise during your off months?

(Bob M) #14

You could also try TKD (targeted keto dieting), where you eat carbs around exercise. I do this sometimes, like yesterday (had about 50 grams of carbs after exercising, at “lunch” - I don’t eat breakfast - had ketones of 0.4mmol/l later in the day). I can’t tell whether the TKD is beneficial or not, I think because I gain muscle mass and strength so slowly. I did a TKD for a month or so, and couldn’t tell a difference really. But others might.

One thing that’s happened to me (using creatine) is that my muscles are physically bigger (though my strength is about the same). What this means is that my pants are a bit tighter, because I have a lot of ab musculature.

I don’t use a scale though – at all. I found the body fat ones to be too prone to error, and I stopped using a scale at all when I was fasting a lot. I could “lose” 5 pounds in day when fasting, and there was too much noise in weight. It was easier to use pants, wedding rings, etc. to gauge how I was doing.