Weight and Muscle Goals: January – March 2010

It is already 3 weeks into the new quarter and I did not yet write my goals. I have it in my mind. it is just that I did not put it down on paper yet. So for the next 3 months my goal is to gain 3 lbs of fat while maintaining the same weight. It simply means I will have to convert 3 lbs of fat into muscle! Here are the raw numbers

January 1, 2010: Baseline
Weight: 125.6 lbs
Fat %: 12.5%
Fat: 15.7 lbs
Lean Mass: 109.9 lbs

Note that I am using the caliper measurement for fat. I don’t think I can rely on the omron body fat monitor. I will still keep track of the fat numbers from omron fat monitor daily but I probably will not use them in any calculations. Since I cannot take the caliper measurement everyday I will use the fat % number that is closest to a particular date I am refering to.

March 31, 2010: Goal
Weight: 125.6 lbs
Fat %: 10.11%
Fat: 12.7 lbs
Lean Mass: 112.9 lbs

Change in 3 months
Weight: 0
Fat %: 2.39 %
Fat: -3 lbs
Muscle: 3 lbs

I will try and not lose more fat at the expense of muscle. So it will be ok if I don’t lose the 3 lbs of fat, but I definitely do want to gain the 3 lbs of muscle. We will see how that goes…

Filed under: body fat, goals, muscle gain, weight gain

The real muscle and fat gain: October – December 2009

I was having trouble believing the fat numbers using my omron fat monitor, so I analyzed my numbers using the measurements taken with the body fat calipers. There is a world of difference. These numbers are more believable. Makes me think if I should just stop checking fat % using omoron body fat analyzer. It will be an expensive body weight scale then.

I take fat caliper measurements every weekend only. As a result I cannot show the pretty graphs that I usually have in my posts because there will only be 4 data points per month. Anyway here are the numbers again but with body fat calipers.

October 1, 2009 Stats

• Weight: 118.51 lbs
• Fat %: 8.74%
• Fat: 10.64 lbs
• Lean Mass: 108.15 lbs

December 31, 2009 Stats

• Weight: 126 lbs
• Fat %: 11.6%
• Fat: 14.62 lbs
• Lean Mass: 111.38 lbs

Change in 3 months

• Weight: 7.49 lbs
• Fat %: 2.86%
• Fat: 4.26 lbs
• Lean Mass: 3.23 lbs

Those are much better numbers. When I set the goals I wanted to gain 3.75 lbs of muscle while limiting the fat gain to 3.25 lbs. I came close to that goal. I gained about 3.23 lbs of muscle and 4.26 lbs of fat. In retrospect I should have been careful with my fat gain, but overall I did good. Not as bad as my previous analysis led me to believe

Filed under: Uncategorized

Before and After Pics: Sep 2009 – Dec 2009

Another transformation picture session. In three months I gained a lot of weight and a lot of fat too. Sorry the after picture isn’t clear.

Date: 26 September 2009 – Weight: 117.5 lbs – Fat: 10.34%

Date: 26 December 2009 – Weight: 126 lbs – Fat: 15%

I see some changes. Not a lot. I gained some fat that is very visible in the after shot and some muscle too. I can still see the ab definition ever so slightly. Overall I am not very satisfied with the amount of change I see in 3 months. I hoped I would have more muscle and look a lot bigger. Oh well I have to remember that I am an ectomorph and every little helps.

Filed under: before after pictures, fat, lean, muscle

The Graphs: December 2009

Here are the weight and fat graphs for December 2009.

Body Weight Graph

Since I reached my goal of 125 lbs for the end of december I tried to maintain the same weight while I tried to reduce the fat. So I started eating the right number of calories that I need. As can be seen from the graph I was maintaining my weight for a while but then it started dipping for no apparent reason. I increased my calories a bit and it stared going up quickly. It is quite hard to keep track of the exact amount of food to eat.

Body Fat % Graph

While I maintained the same weight I started to see an increase in body fat. I was not sure why that would be the case. Am I losing muscle so quickly? A small increase in weight causes the fat to shoot up quickly while a stable weight still increases it slowly. The only option left to loose fat is to loose weight? I don’t like the idea at all. I am also doubting the fat monitor. It tends read the fat changes a while after the weight has changed. So if I increase my weight today it will be a few days before I see the increase in fat. Same goes when I loose weight. I think it may have something to do with the way I store water in my body. Have to investigate.

Filed under: body fat, graph, muscle, muscle loss, weight

The Numbers: December 2009

Time for some numbers now that december 2009 has come to an end. Not just the month, but the year and decade as well have come to an end. In december again I have gained a lot of fat while I gained very little weight. The reason mainly is because I reduced the amount of calories to a more “maintain weight” level.

Body weight and fat gain for the month of December, 2009

• Weight: 126.00 lbs
  
• Fat %: 15.51%
  
• Lean mass: 106.46 lbs
  
• Weight gain: 1.46 lbs
  
• Fat % gain: 1.48%
  
• Lean mass gain: -0.61 lbs

It is indeed strange that I have lost muscle. Unfortunately since I am doing slow tempo reps I am using lower weights so I cannot be sure if I really lost muscle or it is just an error in the body fat analyzer. I have a theory that my body fat analyzer has a lag in noticing the fat% change. When I gain weight I usually don’t see a quick gain in fat. It comes after a few days of the weight increase. So I am assuming I will see the fat reduction will come a little later after the weight has remained constant for a while. Only time will tell.

Ever since I started using a slower tempo I am unable to lift a lot of weight for the same number of reps that I used to do. Here are the latest numbers.

Exercises

• Squats: 150 lbs, 9 reps
• Deadlift: 185 lbs, 8 reps
• Bench Press: 100 lbs, 7 reps
• Pull-ups: 120 lbs, 9 reps
  
• Overhead Press: 70 lbs, 6 reps
  

All the weights have gone down, but I am getting a better pump. I would like to continue this on for a few more weeks and then I will switch to strength training. That is it for this post. Not a lot of improvements but I am closer to my target than when I started three months ago.

Filed under: exercise, fat, lean mass, muscle, numbers, reps, stats, weight