Kwap! 7 lbs down but only 2 lbs fat. Back to the #4HB drawing board :)
If you look really closely, you can see the BodPod reading on % fat has dropped a mere 0.2% units, from 23.8% to 23.6%, after 4 weeks on the 4HB Slow-Carb Diet. I was expecting a drop into the teens at least, as well as a weight drop of around 15 lbs. Time to roll up the sleeves and see what da heck happened.
- Total wt lost: 6.8 lbs (had lost a bit over 3 lbs in the week prior to formally getting measured, so closer to 10 lbs since starting SCD)
- Fat lost: 2.1 lbs
- Fat free mass lost (e.g. muscle): 4.7 lbs
By any stretch of the imagination, these are pretty poor #s for a month on Slow-Carb -- from a weight and fat loss standpoint. I was thrilled to be under 200 lbs for the first time since college, and most thrilled with the 30 point BP drop that prompted this endeavor in the first place. But I'd expected double the drop, and losing nearly 5 lbs of muscle surprised me ("You're getting lighter," my wife kept saying, "and not in a good way").
Should it have been a shocker?
Previous exercise regimen:
- The Five Tibetans yoga poses, every night, 19 reps per exercise
- Rings One routines, M/W/F, a progressive and intensive bodyweight strength + agility program
- FlowFit twice weekly, at low to moderate intensity as a joint mobility and compensation routine
- Walking, 20-60 minutes, 3-6 days a week
Exercise during these last 4 weeks:
- Kettlebell swings, 24 kg, 2-hand swings, 75-102 reps, 2-3 days per week
With that drop in exercise volume, it's a wonder I didn't lose more muscle mass.
I'll be re-measuring and reporting the change in TI -- total inches -- on my cheat day this Saturday; I have lost inches, but noticed that the waist slimming, while ongoing, had slowed in the last 2 weeks, and that I'd also lost fractional inches from my arms, legs, and already flat butt.
Clearly, am hitting an equilibrium point between three forces:
- Decreased overall muscle stimulation from exercise (less muscle), resulting in
- Decreased caloric expenditure compared to previously (plateaued fat loss)
- Different type and lesser amount of caloric intake (drop in BP and hunger -- yesss!)
This raises some interesting questions about my primary focus, which was and still is blood pressure reduction. Losing "just" 2 pounds of fat is chump change on paper, but is a surprising real-world volume -- about four and a half cups, or a little over a quart. Was the fat loss itself responsible for the BP drop? [Research topic: check with Plastic Surgeons who do lipo on hypertensive patients, and compare pre-op BPs to daily post-op readings for a week in folks with a small amount of removed fat (around 2 lbs)]. Did the decreased exercise volume help the BP by reducing overtraining stress? Or was it more the sodium reduction plus potassium rich food intake (green smoothies)?
Next direction queries:
Can the 23.6% body fat -- 24% -- be lowered into the teens, while pursuing total weaning off BP medication? Probably; there's no intrinsic reason why lowering body fat percentage should raise blood pressure.
Has the muscle mass loss plateaued? Also, probably; the weight has been stable within 2 lbs for the last 1-2 weeks. Ergo, the current dietary habits, including a cheat day per week, equate to daily activities plus 2 brief kettebell swing sessions per week.
So which way to go, reduce calories, increase metabolic burn rate, or both?
Easiest would be to reduce calories a tidge, by one of the intermittent fasting protocols. Skip lunch a couple days a week, or for longevity and protein restriction purposes, turn the cheat day breakfast into a protein-free green smoothie, and ditto for one other dinner during the week.
Increasing metabolic burn rate would mean ramping up the exercise burn and/or building muscle, and or invoking other aides: the thermogenic cold therapy protocol from 4HB, or the PAGG stack. For efficiency and the minimizing of pills, I'm leaning towards the cold showers and ice packs on the traps, and adding one KB grind day a week: more frequent and drawn out exercise may not be needed, and might raise the BP, which I've seen before. Isometric gymnastics and total body bodyweight programs are also candidates, just less standardizable than KB lifting.
So, here's to Round Two!
