Actual fat loss??

I got home from work this afternoon and I decided to take some stats, they aren't going to go in my stats but I was interested to see what they were.

My weight had increased slightly, and my % body fat has dropped, this got me thinking if I had no idea that my body fat % had decreased and I had only seen my weight increase I would be quite dissapointed, but I know that the weight increase has actual been due to increased muscle. and that my body fat has decreased.

This got me thinking should I really worry too much about my overall weight and should I set myself a target for this weight? or should I just concentrate on the body fat %.

I decided to do a few calculations, I multiplied my weight against my body fat %, I'm assuming that this will give me the weight of body fat on me. By my calculations I have dropped from 43.5 pounds of fat to just under 41 pounds of fat so I have lost 2.5 pounds (1.1kg) of fat.

To help me visualise this means I have pretty much lost over a kilo of lard. I couldn't find a photo of 1kg of lard I could only find this, which is about 500g I think:

Improve Progress charts

Well I decided to review my progress charts as the one I put up previously didn't show my progress very well. I have had to find a new Google gadget that would let me create these graphs, unfortunately there is no way to get the body fat and weight on the same chart so I have got to create two charts, if I'm feeling really geeky and adventurous I may look into creating my own gadget.

Anyway, with these new graphs you should be able to see that my weight has dropped over the last month, its not a great deal but I'm losing about a pound a week which isn't too bad, unfortunately this means I have about 3 months to go before I'm a healthy weight.

The body fat hasn't been a steady drop it was a bit dodgy during the first couple of weeks, but it looks like its going down now, lets just hope it is a bit more steady over the next few weeks.

Photos

I have taken some photos of myself as it is a good way of showing changes that are occuring, unfortunately the first set of photos I took are not in focus, and I also have not see a massive change between the photos which is slightly dissapointing, but I will certainly be adding some photos in the future I just need to make sure they show some improvement.

Supplements

For the last few weeks I have been using the Maximuscle weight loss stack, it basically consists of a months supply of Promax Diet, a tub of Thermobol and CLA-100 enough for the month.

Although I have seen some changes they haven't been as significant as I had hoped, I'm wondering if I should change the Maximuscle stack to one that concentrates on increasing muscle instead of losing fat. The only problem is as soon as you mention maximuscle on any website everyone just tells you to forget about Maximuscle and use something cheaper.

I'm going to do a bit more investigation before making a purchase.

So the graph below shows my current progress, it probably doesn't look that impressive but the good news is that my weight has dropped by a pound a week, I'd prefer it if I was losing more but any loss is good. My muscle mass has stayed fairly steady and so has my body fat %, I'm not sure if that is good or bad but time will tell.



One thing to point out is that I have been eating more, my daily diet currently consists of:

Breakfast: Porridge Oats, Protein shake & Coffee (The oats are new this week last week I was just having a protein shake and coffee)
Lunch: This is where I struggle, if I'm good then I'll have some tuna and a salad, if I'm bad then I'll have what ever is the cooked lunch at work.
Dinner: Protein shake, Fruit, Tuna on Ryvita this is spaced out throughout the evening.

Quick update

I've been going to the gym now for 2 weeks and although the changes haven't been massive I have noticed some changes. My weight has dropped a few pounds and my fat % has droppped slightly.

I think the downfall has been a couple of boozy nights on the weekends, but this weekend is going to be different, although probably very dull.

Anyway I'll give a better update on Monday after my weekly weigh in.

First workout

Well I did my first workout at the gym today, I've been given an all over workout so I should be able to get to the gym and train 3-4 times per week, depending on what is going on during the weekends.

Most of the exercises weren't to bad, until I got to work on my arms, I was using the 10kg dumb bells and I struggle to do 3 sets of 10, I ended up doing 3 set of 6, I'm sure I used to be able to life more than this, but I'm sure with time I'll get better.

I was feeling very tired though, this could be due to me not eating the right food before going to the gym. I'll need to look into what is a good snack to eat before training so that I don't feel quite so tired.

Everything is almost ready!!

Right so I signed up to the new gym today and I have my induction later this week, the guys that I have spoken to seem very friendly, although slightly intimidating as they are all huge.

Anyway I got weighed on my scales this morning, I am currently 22.7% fat, which isn't as bad as I thought it would be, anything below 20% is regarded as healthy, so I only need to burn off about 5 pounds and I'll be back to healthy, but I intend to burn off more than that.

I was planning on following the maximuscle 3 session per week plan, it can be found here. But they said at the gym that they would create a plan for me, we'll see how it goes.

I'll update my body fat and weight on Monday as that is when I intend to actually start the training.