Very slow process, but it is still a progress. Body fat percentage went down to 27.8%. I do not want to make more calorie restrictions, because it won't be beneficial for the long run. I am committed to my weekly four workouts, which are always changing due to the nature of Crossfit, so I need to make sure I eat enough to accomplish with my exercise too. It is an important day for me, I spent some time to revise my goals. Let me explain this whole thing.
I am using beyond the white board (it is a Crossfit log in system) to log my workouts and weight with body fat percentage measurements, and I am doing my logs over there quite a long time ago. I like to see their summary regarding to my strength progress and body composition changes.
Their summary states that in a year time I gained 20.8 lbs, my body fat went up with 3.4%, and my lean body mass increased with 9.1 lbs (my height is 5'10"). It is true approximately a year ago I was 173.0 lbs, my lean mass was 130.8 lbs, and my body fat percentage was 24.4%. Beyond the whiteboard states that I gained 20.8 lbs within a year. My highest weigh in was recorded at 199.2 lbs in September, 2013, because due to my weight gain I was really pissed of, and I did not record the highest point of my weight gain, which was 206 lbs on January 3, 2014, about the time, when I joined Fatsecret. Three days later I lost 4 lbs, which was pure water weight, due to my two days of extremely law carb consumption and I started my weight loss journey here.
I have had a rough year in 2013, full with stress and big changes in my life. Although, I kept going on with my workouts most of the time, I managed to gain quite a lot of weight due to my comfort eating and some muscles too, but until now I did not take this into consideration. After staying very committed to the Paleo diet for three months (it was the Lurong Paleo Challenge) at the end of 2012, and the beginning of 2013, I was 173 lbs, and I felt relatively weak. My workouts showed that I could not progress during my diet, so I thought that I need more carbs to get strong again. More or less, it felt normal to gain some weight with the process of reintroducing carbs into my diet again, but I did not pay enough attention for my alarming weight increase. In the middle of the summer of 2013, I left the USA and moved back to Europe, and after almost 3 months break of my Crossfit workouts, I joined a new Crossfit gym, here in The Netherlands. At that point my weight was around 198 lbs - 200 lbs. I was struggling with the workouts here, they seemed to be so much harder and heavier compared to my US Crossfit experience, and I was heavier and slower too. 3 or 4 months later although my weight was fluctuating only with 4-5 lbs, I started to become much stronger and faster and people realized that I looked different, although my weight did not change that much. People were always surprised to learn that I only lost 4 or 5 lbs, and I was surprised by them, because they kept telling me that I lost lots of weight. Now it makes sense, today I did the Math.
It is worth to take a look at all my numbers. Playing with the body fat percentage numbers, and all the gains and losses, I came to the conclusion I need to recalculate my goals, and need to be realistic with these numbers. When it comes to ideal weight, I do not like to use calculations based on BMI indexes. I prefer to use a formula, which takes into account my body fat percentage to calculate my ideal body weight. Using BMI, just about many people with athletic build - like almost every NFL player - is considered obese, even though most have very low body fat percentages. Conclusion from the other side you do not have to be overweight by the BMI Index to be considered “overfat” on a body fat basis. So I am happier to use this formula:
desired weight = lean weight / [1 - (desired body fat % / 100)]
Being realistic, as a female, I want to decrease my body fat percentage to 23% - 22%, and my lean weight is 139.9 lbs, therefore my desired weight is between 179.35 lbs to 181.68 lbs.
139.9 / [1 - (23% / 100)] = 181.68 lbs at 23% body fat
or
139.9 / [1 - (22% / 100)] = 179.35 lbs at 22% body fat
I had to realise that my earlier goal at 170 lbs, was not realistic and healthy at all. I am glad I did the Math to recalculate my goals.
Just to help with others here are some useful images on ideal body fat percentages with a great article:
http://www.builtlean.com/2010/08/03/ideal-body-fat-percentage-chart/