Fat or Muscle ???

Hey Guys.... Now that i'm back in the gym, my cloths feel tighter in the ches...belly still flat, but not pretty...( like blobs) and I think I have put on about 2 pounds....after decades of training myself to say that any gain in fat...how do I know if it is muscle....?   Kelly is a peice of S**t when it comes to the calipers...no dunk tanks around...and I don;t know about those hand held machines...Do you trust them???? Plus, I still got those Gawd Alful Thighs...that get the chop in a month or 2...so I know that the readings may be off from them.... any input??? russ

Oh no,...not GoToMan.. Next you'll be asking if those pants make your butt look fat. Gesh,.....dude,I'm,...shocked. My 2 cents: Look in the mirror.  Take some pics and do the before and after thing.  Take some measurements.  You know how you're eating and working out.  You of all people aren't going to the gym to develop fat.  Get a grip man!!! If you are liking the results,...who freakin cares??   Rather look like Rocky and be obese than Barney Fife and have a low fat mass. Then here are the CarbonBlobs and notDaves of the world that have it both ways. I expect if you are not there, you will get there. You're really just rattling our cages,....right??

Hey Brother Joe.... My Doc is busting my chops, saying that I need to put on a few pounds of muscle....and with the loose skin, ...hmmm...you know...it hard to tell with the calipers the body fat content.... I'm ok with how I look, but the mind game....up in the scales = fat... BMI says i'm still overweight.... i'm at leat 30# less than what the doc said to expect...I guess I need to go with one method, and stick with that....belly is tight, butt is tight....chest....I got moobs....how do you caliper that....thighs are flopping, but no fat there...just waiting to get sliced.... you see,,,,, How are you doing????  All well.....are you ready to put some protein on the grill for the 4th??? Russ

I hear you Russ,.  the flabby sections bother me too. I fugure I probably got 20-30 pounds of sag altogether but I've been depending on the jogging and walking that has kept the body at an acceptable level and no lifting very regular to help get to that goal weight before buling up some. I got the pysch-job thing going too.  But igotta start working on the upper body.  The shape and foundation are still there but it needs to expand to help tighten things up in the arms and gut.  I got a little sag in the chest but not like I was expecting. But I don't want it to get any worse either. I understand the gain fat thing too.  I was just busting your chops as you caught me off guard.  I care about that stuff too but just not use to voicing it out loud.  You know, that sensitive guy thing...... I guess I am still applying the attitude I adopted with dieting and wieght loss before surgery.  I quit dieting and decide if I was happy with myself,..I didn't care.  Well that didn't work long term. But I am learning to listen more to he mirror and the clothing sizes than the scales,...just for sanity purposes. Carry on sir. I love your posts, your humor and inspiring weight loss.

Russ, In the past I didn't mind the calipers, but for those of us who have lost significant amounts of weight, the extra skin I believe can skew the result by several percentage points.  If there's not a dunk tank available in your area, you might want to check and see if they have  Bod Pod anywhere nearby.  It's one of the better methods to measure of body fat / muscle mass along with hydrostatic measurement.  The Bod Pod measures the percentages by air displacement and density and doing so that helps negate or at least minimize the effects of the loose skin on the measurement. The Bod Pod is rather odd looking - first time I saw it I thought about Mork & Mindy or something out of Star Trek!   Don't let the crazy looks of it fool you though...it's a great piece of technology. Check out this website for more info: http://www.bodpod.com/index.php The website also talks about the various methods of measurement.  They do of course tout theirs as the best - they're trying to sell their product of course, but the explanations of measurement options are good ones. Good Luck Russ! Cards Fan

I think Tanita scales (and the many, many clones) can be pretty reliable, much more so than calipers, but they are picky.  You have to keep everything the same each time.  I do it after my shower, just after drying off, making sure my legs aren't touching, that I don't shift my weight, that I haven't just worked out or ran or drank a lot of water.  Yes, it still bounces a little from day to day based on hydration (just like weight does), but over five days of measurements I can see a pretty reliable trend that accords reasonably closely with what the formulas suggest I should be at in terms of body fat at my weight, age, and height (I've creeped ahead of those formulas slightly each week, which is to say I'm retaining muscle better than predicted). Even if the electrical impedance isn't 100% accurate vis a vis a bodpod or water tank, it's relative measurements are still useful. Say your doctor wants you to add a couple pounds of muscle.  If the meter says you are 22% body fat at 200 pounds, moving that to 20% body fat would be approx. four more pounds of lean tissue. When I get closer to goal, I intend to take my scale to a water tank, bodpod, or DXA machine, so that I can know more precisely.  But then I will still use the Tanita to measure changes, "calibrated" to the "true" result. ETA: The handhelds and the scales work the same.  The scales are a bit more convenient because it's one-stop info and you don't have to enter your weight.  The handhelds (if it's a high quality device) are a bit more reliable for some people because if you have thick feet it can interfere with measurement (hence why I shower before to soften them).

Hey A I used the ETA machine at the gym, it says 17.2%...That is after the 2nd PS...I just wonder how that works with all the skin, that has to be removed....so you think you would adjust it up or down???? bubba let me tell you, the skin on these thighs are bad....they lipoed them with the 1st PS, so that all they would have to do is cut, when the time comes.....what a floppy mess... How are you doing with the cardio....I did 55 mins, for about 3 days....I need to ger motivated again....I'd rather lift Russ

I don't know that there is any "adjustment" per se for excess skin.  Skin ain't fat.  That is, it usually is backed by several layers of fat, but the skin itself is part of lean tissue, I believe.  As I think about it, excess skin probably either has no affect or causes impedance to slightly underestimate your body fat %, since maybe the electricity can travel smoothly through your lean tissue without regard to your excess skin (which is backed by some extra loose fat).  I any event, 17.2% means you are in pretty respectable territory.  And changes in that measurement are still reliable indicators of whether or not you are gaining muscle. I did cardio a few times last week, got my 20 miles down to 55 minutes.  But this week I joined a gym and Mon-Tues "joined" a friend's workout (that is, acceded to his freeweight split routine, 3 sets of each).  Despite a few months on the bow machine, my body wasn't quite ready for that, so I've been walking around like a cripple for the last few days (down stairs one at a time, etc.).  I plan to bike again tomorrow if the hams are feeling a bit better.

Hi Russ, Two pounds of muscle is easily possible--and likely if you're hitting the gym hard and regularly. Here's my two cents worth on the bigger picture: For those of us who have been super morbidly obese and not buff, once we start to work out seriously muscle growth is pretty fast and constant. It's hard during the weight-loss/muscle-growth phase to get a precise reading on what's causing weight fluctuations, but, as as been said, you can get a reasonable assessment by watching body shape changes and paying attention to firming and hardening--no, not that kind of "firming"! I've been advised to respect but not worship the scale (1) because it has its mysterious fluctuations and (2) because I've had years being goofy when it comes to weight-related matters. So I know what you mean about thinking every increase = fat. I still think that way if I'm not vigilant. For instance, today my weight is up 1/2 pound from yesterday. I was disappointed, agitated, dare I say "depressed", at first. I obsessively tried to figure out how I managed to eat an EXTRA 1750 CALORIES yesterday until my wise wife said, "Oh, stop it! You're nuts. First, you barely ate 1800 calories all day. Second your body doesn't absorb all calories anymore anyway. Third, you worked out for over an hour. The only fat you have to worry about is between your ears, where your brain belongs." "Yes sir, I mean dear," I said in my most manly squeak." Part of me understands these things but my old ways of thinking and feeling are going to linger longer than my weight. We do need to watch out for weight creep and it is interesting and important to know about BMIs and body-fat percentages, etc. But we need also to trust the process if we are following the rules and to realize that there's a lot more going on than weight loss and muscle buildup. Great, thought-provoking post. When it comes to real-life precision, I remind myself of this principle from Aristotle: We can demand as much precision as the subject-matter allows. So let's do our best to enjoy genuine progress without expecting perfection.