If I in theory am close to 20 percent then I need to stop eating how I am eating right now(bulking).
I donāt doubt what you say. My thoughts are that I wouldnāt want to use a maths based approach if I wasnāt confident on my data points and I donāt think you can get an accurate body fat measurement just by visual.
Aside from autopsy can you ever get an accurate measurement? I always thought the value was to get a baseline to monitor change. With my own body I can guess well enough with a tape measure and eye test. Arm and waist measurement plus how much it jiggles when I brush my teeth seems more of a constant variable that having some rando pinch my fluff.
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In theory you donāt have to bulk. We all know we do not need to eat more than a bit over maintenance and just do that for along time to gain muscle, its the consistency of the time in surplus that is more important than amount of surplus.
People like me prefer to call it ābulkingā or some variation to justify treating myself like a veal calf for the pursuit of gains despite knowing better. God I hate being in a deficit this long. Iām a walking snickers commercial right now.
I donāt understand why you think like this. Why do you let a number decide your goals for you?
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I have found the mirror a far better determiner on if I need to lose fat vs a bodyfat reading.
What should be determining whether or not you should cutā¦?
a) actual appearance
b) an arbitrary number nobody can accurately assess visually
I would base the need to cut on one of the above, and not the other.
Iāll use me as an example. You know how lean I am/look. I personally donāt have any idea what number that equates to. So if one person told me Iām 15%, and another told me 8%, it wouldnāt matter which person I believed. I would either be saying āok. 15% means abs and veins and stuff. cool. Guess Iāll keep doing what Iām doingā, or b) āok. 8% means abs and veins and stuff. cool. Guess Iāll keep doing what Iām doingā
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My best way to determine when to cut.
Pants getting tighter around the waist: cut so I donāt have to buy new pants.
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This reminds me of CTās story about how he put on like 40lbs over the summer in high school thinking he must be getting jacked because his pants still fit, only to find out later that his loving mom noticed that her son was getting a little pudgy so she kept taking out his pants whenever she did the laundry.
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I looked at your log (no. Not like that.). Based on the pics and several posts following about prās, Iād say keep doing what youāre doing. Itās working.
Could always buy one of these, mine was like $30. As long as you arenāt obsessive I think itās a nice tool to have, I usually check at my fattest and lightest just out of curiosity.
I have this as well. I think it tracks the trend pretty well, just not sure how accurate it is.
I think the accuracy varies per individual. When I was in school we did hydrodensitometry, calipers, and bioelectric impedance. They were all within 0.5% of each other for me but some people varied by 4%+.
Like you said though, itās good for trends which is more important than the number itself
Ours always tells me Iām fat. I donāt like it.
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I was going to buy it until I saw this post lol it would probably tell me to go shoot myself
This reminds me of how my family only played Wii Fit once because our Wii made all of our avatars obese based off BMI.
Feelings were hurt.
However, I told the Wii my goal was to gain 20lns and then it would scold me for not gaining weight.
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Little update from me:
I took 2nd place in my work contest, purely weigh loss based, and won $600 ā¦ so thats basically a win for me this year. The gal in first place lost basically as much as I did and started 40lbs lighter, so she murdered everyone. The 2 people I beat were .1 and .2 percentage points below me, so one good shit from either of them could have put me in 4th.
Iām doing good in my friends contest too, again purely weight loss based, although one guy may give me a run for my money.
My body weight seems to be continuing with its āfuck with Lonnie every other monthā routine, I started at 177 this month, have lost another 1/2 inch around my waist but my weight decided to go up 2 pounds. Obviously that doesnt matter for this contest as its visual, but its still a head scratcher.
Iām thinking maybe 175ish is about as low as I can go with my current lifestyle. I no longer have houuuurrrs to dedicate to ācardioā like I used to (aka walking to the store 3x a week, and 2nd gym sessions). I suppose I REALLLY could if I wanted to, but that would come at the cost of insisting my 9 month pregnant wife take care of the other kid while daddy pursues his vanity projectā¦ so Iām gonna go ahead and stick with my current plan and not rock that boat.
I try to learn something new from every cut and experiment a little bit, and I think this year its going to be about how far I can get on only 3 workouts a week, with a little bit of extra walking when I can.
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I probably wonāt win because cutting isnāt on the horizon for the time being, Iām just making too good progress to stop this. Gotta take advantage of the strength and mass increase.
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Gained 4-5lbs on holiday so thinking of just hitting the permabulk life. Maybe I can at least be strong if I canāt be lean.
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Those seem to be the only two options.
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