Lost 5 1/2 stone - body fat percentage

[TheWitche]

Hi all,

This year I’ve lost 5 1/2 stone and feeling much better. My BMI is 24.1 and I want to lose a little more, maybe 10-14lb to bring my BMI to the 22ish point.

My issue is, although I’ve brought my body fat % from nearly 50 (!!), it’s still 34.5% which is excess according to my scales. Not even ‘high’, but ‘excess’!

How do I get my body fat percentage in the normal range? I have been exercising but it’s probably cardio 3 times a week and a Bodypump class once a week. Sometimes I do some of the arm machines for around 30 minutes.

Im thinking a personal trainer will help but I can’t afford it until the new year. I don’t want to lose too much weight, and I really need to ‘sculpt’ now. Has anyone been able to reduce body fat without the scales going down too much?

You can get an actual device to measure your body fat rather than going off the scales. I don’t understand how scales can be accurate as everyone’s bodies vary so much!

Just been on google they are called callipers!

Scales are accurate enough, I had it measured in April when I was at a bootcamp and I can see the downward trend so I’m happy with that. I know they aren’t 100%.

can see my body fat (stomach!!) so I know I’m definitely not in the normal range. I just need some help with body sculpting without losing anymore weight really - bar this last 10lb! But that’s not going to take me in the normal range.

Well done on your weight loss!

It sounds like you may need to add more resistance training to your routine to build muscle, maybe 2 - 3 times a weeks. A trainer would be ideal to start you off on a weights based routine, but if you can’t do that until Jan start with body weight exercises at home / on the mat (people here seem to swear by Caroline Girwan) with maybe the odd Pilates class thrown in.

im trying to build strength / muscle from scratch at the moment (I do have a trainer once a week to give me the right form and structure). I’m enjoying it and feeling better in myself already. Don’t be shocked, though, if you put a few pounds on in the beginning - when you have muscle soreness from new exercise you can retain water temporarily, plus muscle is denser than fat. But it does normalise after a bit of time - and even when the scales might say you have gained a couple of pounds you will look smaller.

I am trying to get body fat down without loosing lean mass. It is really hard, loosing the fat felt like the easy bit, I ended up getting down to a bmi of 18.5 and I think my body fat is around 21% (my scales say 14.5% but have been consistantly under measuring by 6%).

I am now just trying to gain muscle without gaining fat. My strategy is to eat healthily (no upf, alcohol or sugar) with lots of fat and protein. I limit bread and starchy carbs becuase I don't do cardio.

I strength train 5 days a week (Caroline Girvan at home). Doing this I am very slowly seeing gains in lean mass and muscle definition but think the timescale for significant change is months/years. I think some people see quicker change with bulking/cutting cycles but I could not manage this.

@Bubbles254 what was your start BMI? So my BMI was 36.9 and now it’s 23.9. Everyone is like ‘oh you look great, your not going to lose anymore are you?’ And in my head I’m like well realistically I don’t want to lose weight but I want to lose the fat!
its actually really stressing me out and not something I’d considered, I don’t know when or if I will ever get into the healthy range 😩