I started dieting three weeks ago and i am confused about the results. In the mirror i look leaner but my tanita scale tells me:75,6 kilos 19%, 75,4 19%, 76 19% on each succesive tuesday. How can this be? I was consuming five meals of four hundred cal. the first week, then six meals of three hundred after that, now i am trying to reduce to six meals 200/250 cals. How come the scale is not showing any progress? I lift and do cardio 4 times a week, or a bit more. What irritates me is that if i can not see any progress on the scale i am less motivated to go on; i might be doing something wrong.
What’s going on?
First Tanita scales are not accurate.
What exactly are you eating to make up those cals?
Include all supplements, vitamins, etc.
I’m trying to keep carbs low, except in the morning and after exercise. I keep my proteine in the 150 grams range. I supplement 25 mg of ephedrine and 25 mg synephrine, green tea extract 40% 500mg, 200mg forskolin, 1500mg guggul per day and fish oil 580mg epa 400mg dha, and broken flaxseeds. I am experimenting with 15grams of soylecithin before workouts(contains fosphatidylserine) and glucosol to lower blood sugar.
If you’re not losing weight - and you haven’t been - then you need to a) increase caloric expenditure, b) reduce caloric intake.
Tell us more about your workouts and diet.
If still interested in the tanita scale arguements. check my post in the “Accu-measure vs. Tanita” thread.
In short, you need “Athlete” mode on the Tanita scale. Even then a couple grains of salt are required with the scale, but overall it gives you a good “big picture”.
Some Tanita scale models have a “athlete” setting and for lower than average bf% readings would be the setting to use.
Anywhoos, yeah: more info on diet/training please. Why are you attempting to get lean? What’s your stats?
Also, maybe…just maybe, it’s time stop with the 4-days of cardio a week and look into the magical HIIT. I say “magical” since sprinting, running stairs, jumping rope, etc. has a way of maintaining all-important LBM and dropping excess BF%.
Hey Pat would you recomend buying a tanita scale of any model or not?
i have a tanita and they are not accurate at all. the best is skinfold testing with the mirror. Also are you eating enough protein? Don’t go on low carb for too long. try the revised cheater’s diet. also are you progressing in the gym? are your weights or intensity going up? Do HIIT for cardio, no endurance stuff which taps into your oxidative system and also burns muscle. Also do the cardio after your workouts if you are not doing so? Have some patience also. Dieting is just as difficult as is gaining lean mass. laters pk
“In the mirror I look leaner”
Screw the numbers, if you look better in the mirror, then you are accomplishing your goal. The mirror and photos are the best indicators of progress. If you do like I did, lose fat and gain muscle, the weight does not matter, and the body fat % using the scale is useless IMHO.
I havent trained for two months prior to starting the diet. So my workouts started out being half an hour weight training, and then half an hour cardio low intensity. Now that i have adapted to training more my weight workouts are goin to an hour, and i am starting to do high intensity bursts at the beginning of the cardio. Cardio is a "new"thing for me, i havent done anything serious for half a year after getting shin splint from trying to do sprints to fast.
The reason for dieting is two sided. I want to look leaner and get rid of my stomach fat, and i was thinking to try bulking maybe with some pro hormones for adding some mass(80kg 12%bodyfat would be great), but before doing that common opinion seems to be one should be around 10% fat before starting that. I have tried to bulk while not being lean, and it did not work very well.
My training now looks like this:
- the Bear, one arm snatch, twists, abdominal twists
- Overhead squat, chin-up, push-up, dumbell row, millitary press, crunch, hanging pike
- (dumbell) Deadlift,glute/ham, reverse hyper, plank
This is what i came up with to get back in to training. Most exercises i do 5x5. Soon i will add some more exercises, ideas?
Oh i forgot; my tanita is the cheapest kind, i can only choose between man or woman.
also i think it is funny that your name means “food” in my native tongue… hehehe
I thought it ment chicken in thai?
Keep in mind the difference between "losing Weight"and losing fat.If your diet is right and you are training hard you will get leaner,but muscle weighs more than fat. By your own admission,you look better and I’ll bet your clothes fit differently. So keep doing what you are doing and stop bieng obsessed by the scale.
You are right i came to the same conclusion, although it would still be nice to be able to quantify the fat loss because when do i decide to start buking? I will questimate that with the mirror i quess.
it looks like you need to focus on training heavier lifts. ie instead of overhead squats, do regular or front squats, instead of pushups do dumbell benchpresses. the reason i say this is because certain lifts are difficult because of the motion. not necessarilly because the muscle can not handle it. that’s my opinion. laters pk
To all you folks wondering about Tanita.
I have the one that has settings for “athlete”. I’ve played with it quite a bit and found it correlates closely with 7-site caliper measurements.
Obviously you can throw it off depending on hydration, time of day, etc.
Also, the non-athlete settings are worthless for someone with muscle.
I have used my Tanita (athlete mode) with skinfold and it is indeed accurate. However, you can’t be on low carb and get an accurate reading, it throws it off. You need to be properly hydrated and you need to be on a mod carb diet. Also it works better close to the end of the day…in the morning you will be a little underhydrated.