Number crunching

Today's Weigh-In: 217.2 lbs.
5-Day Average: 217.2 lbs.

Looking at my weigh-in this morning, I was a bit disappointed. I've been eating clean, working out hard, and sleeping well. Taking my fish oil and creatine. So why isn't the weight going anywhere?

So I busted out my tape measure, and took some measurements to compare to those I took at the beginning of the month. Turns out I've lost an inch off my hips and 2 inches off my waist, without changing my other measurements significantly. This means that I have indeed lost fat, just not weight, which also means that I've increased my lean body mass. This makes me very happy. There's nothing worse than working hard and not seeing any results, and sometimes it's easy to get lost in what the scale tells you. But you've always gotta remember that the scale is not the only way of measuring progress.

Looking back on some older measurements, from when I was at my lowest weight, and I'm only an inch bigger in the waist and hips than I was then, but I'm almost 20 pounds heavier. This means that in the past year I've probably gained 12-15 pounds of muscle, and between 5-8 pounds of fat. Thinking of the weight gain in that sense makes it much easier to swallow.

Another way of measuring muscle gain was to compare body fat percentages. At my lightest I was about 18% body fat, and now I'm at about 20%. 18% @ 196lbs. means 161 lbs. of lean mass. 20% @ 215lbs. means 172 lbs. of lean mass. So that's in line with my estimate above.

I find it fun to play around with numbers, and it helps to see everything from a different perspective than just the scale weight.