Over the past few weeks, my weight loss has kind of halted, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. The reason that it is not bad is that my muscle mass has been growing a lot!
For a couple of months not, I have started doing daily exercise. I kind of alternate days. One day I work on my upper body – arms and such, then the next day I work on my lower body. I exercise every day in some way, though. I have been told by friends who are bodybuilder types, and from medical professionals that you should not work on the same muscle groups every day. You need to work those muscles, then allow them a day or more of rest. That is why I work different groups of muscles on alternate days.
In addition to alternating days between my lower and upper body areas, I have also been doing some exercises that I found on YouTube. There is a guy who has videos of core body exercises specially geared toward people who are obese. Based on my body weight and other factors, I am still classified as obese in the BMI category, but where I used to be in Class 3 (high risk) obesity classification, now I am in Class 1 (low risk) obesity classification. Although it is only a number, I look forward to leaving the “obesity” behind, and I am getting closer to that.
Here is the video that I have been using for my core body workouts (designed for the obese person):
My legs have always been quite muscular, and not much fat on my legs at all. I think this is fairly normal since for many years my legs were carrying around a lot of weight. They naturally built good muscle by doing that. My arms are a different story, though. I have never had much muscle mass in my arms at all. I don’t ever remember being able to “flex my muscles” and see much of anything. Now, though, when I flex my arm muscles, there is a noticeable “mound” of muscle there. It feels good to see that! I can also feel that my strength has increased a lot.
When I weigh myself using my Tanita Body Composition Monitor the muscle mass is increasing a lot! Those Body Composition Monitors are not super accurate, but they give you a relative number that will indicate changes. I have had days when my muscle mass increased by 6 lb. I don’t believe I actually gained that much muscle in a single day, but it gives me a good indication that things are on the right path, which I can see with my own eyes when looking at my muscle mass.
At the same time, my fat percentage on the Tanita is going down every day. Some days, I gain a little weight, but it is obviously from putting on more muscle, and the fat numbers are down even if I have gained a bit of weight that day. So, I have no problem with that. Losing fat is great. Increasing muscle mass is great, how can I complain?
The best thing is that I am continuing to feel great. Even if my weight loss has slowed down, if I am feeling good and feeling healthy, that is the important thing. Everything continues to move in the right direction. The numbers on the scale will take care of themselves as time goes by, it is not a worry to me. I know that I am moving in the right direction.
