[starsandrockets]

Out of curiosity, I weighed myself last night. I also have one of those digital body fat readers at home and I punched my info into it. I was rather shocked to see that it said I only lost 1% body fat when I've lost 16.5 lbs. Shouldn't my fat percentage loss be more than that? I'm scared I'm losing muscle. After my first weigh in, I lost 6.8 lbs and almost 1% body fat. The last 2 weeks of weigh in with my coach, her computer hasn't been working so we haven't been able to do the readings on her machine. I'm sure mine isn't 100% accurate (what digital reader is) and it only reads body fat.

Should I be concerned I'm losing muscle instead of fat?

[scorbett1103]

I've read more than once on here that for every 4lbs we lose, 1lb of that is muscle (but not in a bad way - as we shrink our body loses unnecessary connective muscle tissue and such). So it could be perfectly reasonable. Is there anything going on that could cause you that concern - too much exercise without adding packets, skipping meals/snacks, etc?

[ragdoll74]

I wouldn't worry about it. I bought myself one of those Omron scales and also had the same concerns, but after a few weeks I can see that percentage changing more.

[JohnP]

You shouldn't be concerned in the slightest.

Bioimpedance scales are not accurate, at all. The margin of error is 8% for measuring body fat. In otherwords it might say 20% and you could be as low as 12% or as high as 28%.

The real problem though is you could weigh in and have it say 40% fat. Then you lose 16lbs and it says 39% fat. You could lose another 10lbs and have it still say 39% fat.

This is all within the margin of error.

The fact is when you're on a low calorie diet like IP you're going to lose some muscle but because of the amount of protein you're ingesting the amount of muscle you're going to lose is fairly minor. Your total LBM loss is going to be much higher than the amount of muscle and that is what you want to keep.

Long story short - don't worry.

[ustasmom]

Drinking water will throw off the percentage. Try it first thing in the morning. But get your AM base percentage first, and then go from here.

[starsandrockets]

Thanks everyone. I'll try not to worry about it too much.