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Hello! My goal is to bring my Body Fat Percentage from 23% to 16% (estimated).

Here are my stats:


Name: Kelly
Height: 5'1"
Starting Weight: 120
Starting Body Fat: 23%
Goal: 100-105 and 16% Body Fat

Before Pictures: and
Goal Image:

Below I have attatched my Weight Loss Log, which is a daily record of consumed and burned calories, calorie deficit, and weight. I will update it every night and sometimes in the middle of the day.
 

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Hi Message,
Welcome to the wlf :)

If you're only eating 700+ calories, I would definitely say you're under eating. You have to eat to lose, especially if you don't want to screw up your metabolism.

Having 10-12 calories, per pound of body weight is a good way to figure how many calories to have. So that would put your range at 1170-1404.

Best of luck to you :)
 
So I just updated the first entry of my diary. It is now very organized and my progress will be updated daily there.

I'm so proud of myself for being so organized. This all seem so easy when I have a log and can see what I am eating so I know how much I should exercise each day! :D

Today I am going to try and get out my weight training equipment and start my first round of HIIT. Wish me luck!
 
Kelly, welcome to WLF.

I think you meant going from 26% bf to 23%, not the other way around - right?

At 26%, you have about 30 lbs. of body fat. This means you're only looking to get down to 113 lbs. The trouble is, if you eat too little, those 5 pounds will come off lean muscle mass, not fat. In other words, you'll very likely get down to 113, and still find yourself at 26% body fat.

Our bodies will do everything they can to preserve fat, including using muscle for energy before fat. With only 30 lbs. of body fat, a safe calculation for your daily deficit is 10 calories per pound of body fat. In your case, that would mean a deficit of only 300 calories a day.

You'll only lose a pound every 10 days or so that way, but at least you have a very good chance of it all coming from fat, as long as you have a good exercise program.

It's great that you started a log, and you're very organized. A woman after my own heart!
 
Hey Tom!

Well, I did a Body Fat % Test last night and I got an estimated 23% body fat, with 92.3 pounds in lean muscle mass and 25.7 pounds in body fat. I'd guess that around 20 pounds of that body fat is in my legs/hips alone.

My goal is to eliminate body fat until I have just a little above my essential body fat, which would be about 16%. It's going to take a lot of strict exercise and diet and most of all TIME.

I'm going to do a lot more weight training so that I don't start losing weight in my muscle, and eating 500 calories below what I burn daily. I'm really serious about it... I want to be as lean and fit as I can possibly be.
 
So I've updated my Weight Loss Log on my first post again.

I changed my ways and consumed 1562 calories today. However the foods I ate to take in that many calories were too high in calories from fat. It's just so hard to eat a lot of lean food because I get too full eating a lot of it all the time! I'm going to have to get up every morning around 7-8am to be able to eat so much in one day.

But some good news: I set up the Total Gym 1500 today and did some major muscle training for almost an hour! It was so much fun, and my legs got a great workout, esp. my inner thighs (yay!). I've got to build that muscle! Then I did between 1-2 miles of running and 15 minutes of HIIT. Whew!
 
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Hi Message

I'm happy to see that you have taken everyone's advice and have increased your caloric intake, also...you are absolutely beautiful. It just goes to show that our perceived body image is so different than that of everyone around us. Fantastic job on the workout--lifting, cardio and especially HIIT! I can't wait to work my way up to that. Good luck :)
 
Kelly, you sound like you're making good progress. Remember, though, fat can be good. It's just the transfats you have to avoid completely, and monitor your saturated fats carefully. But fat from things like fish and nuts and olive oil is good for you.
 
Hi Kelly,
I am SO glad to hear you've reevaluated your caloric intake! That is fantastic :)

Like Tom said, fats are good for you.

Also - you can't build muscle while you're at a deficit - you can keep the muscle you have by weight training and as you lose body fat, that muscle will become more noticable.

You might want to check out the weightloss through exercise section, there's a sticky by Steve that gives some great work out suggestions :)
 
M2M said:
Hi Kelly,
I am SO glad to hear you've reevaluated your caloric intake! That is fantastic :)

Like Tom said, fats are good for you.

Also - you can't build muscle while you're at a deficit - you can keep the muscle you have by weight training and as you lose body fat, that muscle will become more noticable.

You might want to check out the weightloss through exercise section, there's a sticky by Steve that gives some great work out suggestions :)
Click to expand...

So, if I do weight training and cardio while still being at a deficit, I will be preserving and toning the muscle I already have while burning body fat?

That sounds like something I'd want to do. I want to get rid of the body fat so I can SEE the muscle before I start building it, haha!

Thanks everyone for posting! I am taking all your suggestions to heart!
 
So... I had my usual 170 calorie cereal and milk, and then my friend calls and tells me we should go out to lunch. Little did I know that we'd be going to Chipotle!

That means I've already hit 1200 calories today... after eating a Chipotle today, I'm thinking I should have a tiny dinner... maybe more cereal and an orange just to keep my metabolism going for the rest of the night...
 
Message said:
So, if I do weight training and cardio while still being at a deficit, I will be preserving and toning the muscle I already have while burning body fat?

That sounds like something I'd want to do. I want to get rid of the body fat so I can SEE the muscle before I start building it, haha!

Thanks everyone for posting! I am taking all your suggestions to heart!
Click to expand...

Preserving the muscle, yes; toning the muscle -- well, that doesn't really mean anything. "Toning" is nothing more than removing fat tissue that covers muscle. But basically you've got the right idea, Message.

Just make sure you get enough calories each day. If you have too much of a deficit, your body will use your muscle for food, and leave the fat. That's the last thing you want to have happen. You're at a pretty low body fat percentage anyway, so you've got to manage your deficit pretty carefully.
 
Thanks Tom! I'm glad to have some reassurance that I'm doing things right!


Although I am frustrated this morning. Yesterday I used a newer scale because my old one wasn't completely accurate. So, the new one said I was 118.2lbs yesterday morning. And I'm always a pound or two heavier at night, and then I'm a few pounds less in the morning again.

Well, this morning it said I'm 119.2lbs. I did not gain a pound because I burned off more calories than I ate yesterday. AND my old scale said I was 18lbs yesterday morning, and 116 pounds this morning. Either the scale is wrong, or I did gain muscle (isn't that impossible after 5 days of weight training?). Or perhaps I just have water weight again because I had a lot of sodium yesterday... But when I look in the mirror I look thinner than I ever have in my waist and hips. *shrugs*

Between 19.2 and 16 that is a huge difference and now I have no idea what I weigh!
 
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Steve gave you some good advice in that other forum. I would follow what he said over what I say any day of the week. He's the expert; I'm just a neophyte trying to understand this stuff.

Day to day fluctuations on the scale aren't very meaningful. You can't really draw very many conclusions from them, except that your body is a fickle thing.
 
Okay, I'm officially at 118.0 pounds. My ticker has been off this whole time... I actually weighed more than I thought after I got my brand new scale. I trust my new scale a lot, considering it was $50, it measures body fat & water percentages (although it can never be completely accurate since your weight and height doesn't solely determine BF%.)

I'm excited. The trend seems to be that I'm losing about 0.2 pounds a day. So that would be a pound every week if I keep it up. We'll see how it goes!

I'm still eating better. A few bad things here and there, nothing too big. I did eat a serving of Doritos yesterday at 250cal. But it didn't seem to mess up my weightloss, so that's good. I bought those DELICIOUS 100calorie snack bags for work as well.
 
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I changed my starting weight on this thread to 120 because my scale was wrong at the time, and I was probably more than 120 before I came onto this forum.

So I'm pretty sure I was 119 last week and now I've been maintaining 118 for two days now. Hopefully tomorrow I will hit 117.8.

Last night I ran two miles at 5.5 m/h WITHOUT STOPPING. It was amazing... I haven't been able to run without taking small walking rests. So total I ran about 21 minutes, so I added some more HIIT to the end. Probably the best workout I've had running yet. Burned 400 calories on the treadmill (though I'm suspicious of the cal counter on that thing).

Oh! And I got up at 8:30 today!! I've been getting up 10-11 and I haven't been getting all my meals in.
 
Message said:
Okay, I'm officially at 118.0 pounds. My ticker has been off this whole time... I actually weighed more than I thought after I got my brand new scale. I trust my new scale a lot, considering it was $50, it measures body fat & water percentages (although it can never be completely accurate since your weight and height doesn't solely determine BF%.)
Click to expand...

Hate to break this to you Message, but those body fat measurements from scales are only accurate to the extent your legs are an accurate proxy, compositionally, for the rest of your body. This is because they send a small current up one leg and down the other, and measure the impedence (fat has a different impedence than muscle). So if you have the same amount of fat in your legs as you have in the rest of your body, they're accurate. If you don't they're wildly inaccurate.

I, for example, am 25% body fat, yet my scale reports this as 17%. Why? because I have hardly any fat in my legs, so it grossly underestimates.
 
Very interesting Tom. The majority of my body fat is in my legs and it says I'm at 20%... and I think it should be higher as well. I realized it was inaccurate, but not that inaccurate. I'm still glad I paid the money for it because weighing-wise it's amazing because it remembers how much I weighed the last time I stepped on it, & tells me the difference, and I trust it's accurate. Plus I wanted a scale that wouldn't fall apart on me (like my cheap old one).
 
You know, it's great that you upped your cals. But, did I miss WHAT you are eating? Macronutrient selection becomes critical when you are relatively lean, trying to get leaner.
 
Well, I've been having cereal or eggs for breakfast every morning and having fruit or yougurt for in between meal snacks. Lunch has been a little inconsistant though (oops), but my dinners usually consist of grilled chicken or fish and veggies or a chicken salad with vinegrette.

I did cheat two meals this week but I am still trying to get used to eating how I am. I'm getting better at it as I go. So far I seem to be making progress, albeit slowly.
 
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