Category
|
September 6, 12 Results
|
October 19, 12 Results
|
Change
|
Weight (lbs)
|
172
|
169.4
|
-2.6
|
Fat Free Mass (lbs)
|
153.3
|
150.5
|
-2.8
|
Fat Mass (lbs)
|
18.7
|
18.9
|
+0.2
|
Body fat %
|
10.9
|
11.2
|
+0.3
|
As you can clearly see, I look leaner physically. As a
matter of fact my muscles appear larger. So why is my body fat up, my fat free
mass down, lets take a closer look and see what may change these numbers. And yes I know the lighting and angle is a little different but you work with what you have got.
Body fat percentage I feel like is something worth touching
on. My change in body fat % is rather small, a variance of .3% or 0.003. This
value based on the % change is 2.75%. Either of these numbers being used does
not provide a significant amount of data to be statistically significant. Bummer
right, my change is within the percent of error.
How about that fat free mass now? Well you will notice that
both my weight and my fat free weight dropped this time and my fat stayed
mostly the same. At first glance it would appear that I lost roughly 2.5 lbs of
muscle. With some insight and review of diet over the past week a relatively
easy explanation is available. Right
here is where I explain the crazy carb
complex.
Geeky science brain is trying to take over but lets take a
basic review of carbohydrates. Carbs or CHO (nutrition shorthand) are the most
basic form of energy we consume, providing 4 cal per gram, all calories must be
changed to CHO before we can use them. By stoking your bodies fire with
exercise, it increases your bodies need for CHO. When CHO run out like a keg at
a frat party we go to find more hardcore sources of energy. In comes fat and
protein, the nutrients get sent to the liver to be converted to none other than
CHO. Still following?
If you are consistently exercising as I have been, your body
goes to an extra effort to store these CHO in your muscles (aka Muscle
Glycogen). In order to store the extra CHO your body needs to hold onto more
water. I can’t recall exactly but it is somewhere to the tune of 3g water for
every 1g CHO.
Fade in and out to a scene of me chomping on salads and
asparagus this past week sans rice. Yup I cut out close to 4 cups of complex
carbs per day. While I didn’t fall flat on my workouts, the water weight my
body normally stores was released. The result a 4 lb drop.
The pieces begin to fall into play now. I lost 4 lbs when I
cut out carbs, therefore my lean mass dropped. Since lean mass is muscle,
water, bone, hair, skin, etc. I saw a decrease. A decrease in muscle mass is
what is known as catabolism (anabolic being addition, catabolic being taking
away). My theory being that my body fat should be lower, I felt leaner and
looked it, so I decided Friday to experiment with returning my carbs to normal.
Not all the carbs were complex, as a matter of fact, I had my first can of pop
(A &W Rootbeer) in who knows how long.
Then this morning upon returning to the gym for my morning workout I
stepped on the scale, tipping in at 175 lbs.
6 lbs in one day, the only change being more carbs confirmed
what I had believed. Dropping carbs didn’t necessarily help burn fat but caused
my muscles to hold less CHO and in turn, less water. Obviously fat didn’t
increase overnight, so lets look again at those initial numbers.
Fat mass – 18.9 lbs
Today’s weight – 175.6
Normal CHO body fat % - 10.7
While it really doesn’t make a significant difference, it
does confirm for me that over the past 6 weeks, I have added 3 lbs of muscle. Unfortunately
I didn’t achieve my goal of under 9, I did learn about how my body reacts to
CHO and refreshed some of my nutrition vault. I will have to start analyzing my
exercise program and see what I can do to tweak it for the better.
Lastly check out my new shades. They are the Oakley Plaintiff Infinite Heros.
