bump, getting my next dexa scan tomorrow

its kinda wild that i've only been dieting for 2 months, it feels like an eternity.

currently sitting at around 149 lbs, i think i'd be at 148 or 147 if it weren't for a visit home that interrupted my diet/workout regimen just a little bit

current workset GSLP strength splits are nothing to write home about (started low and building gradually)
bench: 117.5
squat: 145
DL: 165
Press: 60

presuming the 5rm is a good bit higher as i haven't hit a wall but i'm just pacing it steady as she goes.

i'm considering joining up at a crossfit my friends go to to expedite the process. current gym is just too crowded too often and i hate waiting 15 minutes to bench and then standing around for 15 minutes after benching waiting for the squat racks to clear. not worth the cheaper rate!

from here on i'm just treating this thread as my monthly log. day to day is pretty boring, just lots of chipotle with saturday cheat days and the lifts.

looking forward to this next scan as it should really start letting me dork it up in excel!

148 25.1%

wouldnt be shocking, i think theres a higher expected variance with the next BF% number since the first month involved a lot of water weight. im expecting to take off 1% a month on my current routine but would feel a little more motivated if i was somehow at 24.5 or lower.

Your parallels to mine are so numerous that it's kind of creepy tbh. I didn't know there was anyone else as skinny fat/weak as myself. Thanks?

hi 5

**** it ill take under


Clayton I'd guess things will pick up on all fronts once weight starts getting tougher (retaining or building lean mass/burning more fat).

If you look at the weights he's lifting, it becomes clear how likely loco's number is. For more corroborating evidence, look at my log. 133 bw, I'm starting to have reasonably not weak numbers (at least for sq/dl), and still almost certainly over 20% bf in my photos.

Muscle takes a really long time to develop, and for populations like mine and OP's who spent their entire adult lives in a state of atrophy, it will take years (more than two) to accumulate the LBM of the average 20 something mildly athletic male.

I think if you're a part of that population (more active, better genetics, younger, or a combination thereof) it's hard to imagine that it could this be this way for other people.

Yeah I assumed zero muscle growth. And just took the ratio of previous fat loss/lbm loss and applied it to the new weight. Might have messed up some simple math but it doesn't really matter. Hero can easily manipulate results via water weight and there are also natural water weight fluctuations.

Plus machine has an error rate and maybe got recalibrated. Even though the time I used it, it looked extremely accurate and matched my expected results to the dot.

one nice byproduct of the saturday cheat day is i can get sorta consistent water weight manipulation. i always do my dexa scans on thursdays, which is right around where i imagine my "normal" weight is before the inevitable fattening on saturday.

if what it takes is 1% per month just from dieting and lifting then i'll take it, that just means a year+ of grinding which i'm more than capable of doing since i've got nothing else to dooooooo

Good luck Clayton! Similar frame and strength level here, so very curious to follow along. Glad to see the bump.

Thanks Floppy, will do

update: ship the under, 24.3% now



i feel like i'm running way above EV on this 2nd month, but i guess adding in the lifting and sticking to it has paid more dividends than i expected. was v surprised to see fat go down and lean muscle mass go up.

i don't notice a change in the mirror this last month except maybe the face is a tiny bit leaner but that's it.

this is why i love dexa, even if there is a slight margin of error. this gives me more confidence to continue with the diet/lifting and not have to change things up just yet.

looking at the individual splits, very promising with the trunk and abdomen since that's where i'm most fatty. my arms/legs/gynoid are sitting at about ~20%, trunk 28%, and abdominal is 30%. the gains will be most obvious in these sections as I continue.

current diet routine:

breakfast: approx 30g protein, 15g fat, 20g carb of eggs, beans, salsa, spinach and some coffee

lunch/dinner: chipotle bowl of double meat, black beans, mild salsa, and lettuce

random turkey to munch on thru the day as filler

too many diet sodas (ups)

workouts:
A-day: Bench, Squat, dumbbell bicep curl, tricep pulldown machine
B-Day: Press, DL, horizontal row machine, lat pulldown machine, shoulder press machine

in b4 lol machines

how many days per week?

currently doing 3 days (A-B-A--,B-A-B--) and doing cardio on off days.

will figure to up the training volume once it feels right but i'm not sure yet how that works on GSLP.

Nice there ya go, keep it up man.

I'm jealous. Really want to find a place within 50 miles that does DEXA with this type of breakdown associated with it. I know the one hospital does them, but I'm guessing it's going to be a hell of a lot more than $50, and probably not provide the distribution breakdown (this I'm just guessing on).

Clayton,

Where in SD are you going for the DEXA? Would you recommend the place?

For faster body change results, at your height/weight, you want to focus on adding muscle first, then losing fat down the road(unless you want to look real skinny first before focusing on muscle gain). You want to do moderate set/rep volume like 4X8 per exercise, focusing on adding reps to the 4th set over time. Sticking with the basics to keep exercise volume in check. Poundage increases twice or once a month as possible. Eating more carbs than what you're eating now. Obviously, as you grow muscle, your bodyfat percentage will go down a little from muscle displacement if you continue to eat clean, eventhough fat loss won't be the focus. Monthly Dexa measuring is too OCD. No need for it. It doesn't speed up progress anyway. Get to workout poundages of at least 185 bench(squats, deads obviously much higher) before you consider focus switch to fat loss with lower calories, or to continue with muscle gain. GL.

the speed of the progress isn't my top priority, I'm just trying to get out of the skinnyfat zone. i've already decided that cutting->bulking is better for me than bulking-> cutting. i anticipate the ratio of bodyfat% loss will be more and more due to lean muscle growth as I plod along, but I don't plan on getting into bulk territory until I'm at a level of skinny where I can comfortable say I'm not skinnyfat. I don't know if that's 15% or 12%, a lot of it could just depend on how the process goes.

monthly dexa is absolutely not too ocd for me, cuz from my eye test i couldn't tell the diff between 26% and 24%. i need to see progress beyond the scale and measuring my waist to stay motivated.

Oh ok. Motivation is important. GL.

Where do you think you're going to fall weight wise at the end? If you're 152 to start, just straight fat loss puts you where, ~140 to reach your goal?

Sorry for the million questions. I suspect we're built a lot alike, though I'm currently 155ish. Have you compared the Dexa results to a bioimpedence measuring system like the Garmin Index scale? My Garmin says I'm single digits bf, but realistically I'd guess more like 16%.

Any pics, so we can see what 24% at 150 looks like?

i honestly have no idea where i'm gonna be, the test a month from now should be sorta telling. it's pretty obvious that i'm getting the noob gains just by virtue of having consistent weight training, and there's gonna come a point in time where i stop being blessed with losing fat AND gaining lean mass. once that happens maybe i can get a better read on the situation. i would love to just continue staying around the same weight and losing fat + gaining muscle but i know that's a pipe dream. realistic may be something more like 140 lbs to get to 15% and 135 to get to 12%.

not gonna do pics this go round, tho i am taking pictures now and then just to chart the overall progress. i don't notice a huge difference in my pictures from 28% to 24%.

Sigh. Trying to reinvent the wheel. We have already gone over this many times. For you to get to 15% dexa you probably need to cut to 128.

What you should be concentrating on is posting videos of your technique and getting stronger. And I see almost zero of that in this log. You obsess over the bodyfat number when you should be obsessing with at least being able to do 10 pull-ups and benching bodyweight.

loco speaks the truth

Preach loco. Preach.