#33: My body recomposition journey - year one (and tips for retaining muscle while losing fat)

Resources mentioned in the episode: 

• Get started lifting with my self-study courses >>
• How to take progress pics >>
• Other episodes on my calorie deficit & recomp journey: episodes #16 and  #21
• Free guide: 5 Things you Need to do to Build Muscle >>
• My "before" picture >>

As women in midlife  (I'm 52), we are NOT doomed to get fatter. We CAN do something about that - and that is to train in a way that improves our body composition. 

Body composition means how much fat and muscle you have in your body relative to one another. As a rule, the more muscle  relative to fat you have, the better (of course, going to extremes is not good!)

In this episode, I review how I managed significant body recomposition in 1 year and share tips on how you can do the same. 

I share: 

• My results - how much body weight, fat and visceral fat I lost
• How I achieved body recomposition with a combination of weight training and a 10-week calorie deficit
• How you can do it too - I share my tips. 

You'll learn: 

• What is visceral fat, why you should care, and how weight training helps reduce it
• How to minimize loss of muscle when dieting
• How to take progress pictures
• My strategy for body recomposition.

Enjoy the episode!
x Lynn

#buildmusclelosefat #bodyrecomposition #visceralfat #reducevisceralfat #startliftingweights #caloriedeficit #diettips #gettoned #toneup #fitafter40 #fitafter50 #fitnesstips #strongafter50 #onlinefitnesscoach #menopausecoach

Transcript

#33: My body recomposition journey - year one (and tips for retaining muscle while losing fat)

[00:00:00] Welcome to 40 plus fitness for women. My name is Lynn and I'm your host today. We are going to take a look at what you can actually achieve. In body decomposition in a year. So I have been tracking my body composition using in body scans since a year ago. And now I want to share that journey. But before we get into it, I wanted to share something that I found quite interesting.

So I'm divorced. I got divorced about six years ago. I always have to think, when was it that I left him? Yeah. Anyway. Um, and in between here, I did have a four year or almost four year relationship of sorts. And what's interesting now this time being in the singles scene and dating men is the kinds of [00:01:00] things that I'm noticing.

Now, obviously the first time that I was single, which was before I met my now ex husband, I was, I had a whole other goals in mind, right? I was, I wanted to establish a family. I wanted to build, build a life together. And so my criteria were maybe a little bit different than they are today. And when I got divorced that time, I was looking for somebody who was for me, you know?

That we would have a nice time together, not so much thinking about like the children and whether they're a good father, those kinds of things. But really a partner for me. And now four years later, I notice that that has changed a little bit and, and here's how I really notice it. So I went out on a date and several dates actually with a gentleman, like, really the word gentleman applies here.

A gentleman who. I mean, he was wonderful. He was the guy who like opens the doors for [00:02:00] you, make sure that you can go through first paid for my dinners. I mean, that's like unheard of in this country and made sure that I didn't get wet in the rain. I mean, really, really a nice guy who has gone through some rough patches in his life and has really analyzed them.

So, you know, was willing to like discuss things, think about things, open up, share things. But I'll tell you what for me was a really big showstopper in this was actually when we were walking up and down stairs. And I noticed that he is actually having a little bit of trouble getting up and down the stairs, you know, stiff, a little hesitant, like rather not be walking up and down stairs.

And he's 56 now. I'm looking for a partner who will spend the next 40 years plus with me, [00:03:00] like the rest of our lives, literally together. And I know that there is going to be decline in our health in that time. And of course it is possible that one of us will get some terrible disease and the other will have to support them, you know, through the end of our lives.

Let's say we were going to be healthy, like not get any terrible diseases. I want to make sure that the person that I hitch my life to is somebody who really takes care of themselves, of their physical body, making sure that it's functional. I mean, if he's having trouble getting up and downstairs at 56, what's he going to be like at 66?

What about 76? What about 86? And now obviously you may criticize that kind of thinking and think, Oh my God, you know, what if he's like the most amazing person? Well, okay. And in [00:04:00] his case, it wasn't this love at first sight kind of thing. The way I think about it right now is that since I have the world of men out there, why would I even go out on date number one with somebody who already I see that there is some kind of limitation that he might put on my life.

Anyway, I don't know whether you agree with that or not, or whether you've noticed this kind of thing, but I do my darndest to make sure that my body is not going to be the reason why we can't travel, why we can't play golf or whatever it is that we want to do. Boating is one of the things I would really love to do, and that requires balance and some strength and some speed.

Oh my goodness. There are crazy situations when you're on a boat, and that's one of the things that I want to do over the next 40 years. So I want a partner who can be there for that anyway, kind of a long [00:05:00] beginning to this, but I think it kind of sets the scene also in why I'm doing this and why I hope you are doing this.

Of course, there are the aesthetic benefits. It's wonderful to look better, to have other people notice that you look better, especially if you're single, it's pretty nice to feel more confident in your skin because of the aesthetic parts. But what's, I think, even, even better is Feeling like your body is younger because it can do stuff.

You know, you're not feeling these limitations. You're not thinking, Oh yeah, I can't buy that sofa because it's too deep. I'll get like lost in it. I can't get out of there. Right. These are the kinds of really big reasons why it makes sense to take care of your body at this age. Anyway. So jumping now into the topic of the day, which is really, uh, my, Journey, what I've been able to achieve in just a year.

So why I'm looking at the last [00:06:00] year is that I was silly enough not to actually do an in body measurement or some kind of a body composition measurement earlier. And I really wish I had, and I really encourage all of you, you know, this week. Go and get some kind of body composition measurement done in body scans are widely available, I think, in many, many countries, and they're not very expensive.

It's not a perfect measure, by all means, not. You know, a hundred percent accurate, but it's better than nothing. It'll certainly tell you something, especially the trends over time. So I started doing them last year, uh, at this time. So now I have a habit of going every three months to see where I am with that.

Now I started my weight training journey earlier than that. And I really wish that I [00:07:00] had, I had done the scan right in the beginning. And by the way, also make sure that you take progress pictures, right? You want, you will want that, you know, three months from now, six months from now, a year from now, two years from now, you will want to look back because progress is gradual.

It's like your kids, right? They're home with you and they grow every day and you see them every day, so you don't notice how much they're growing. But somebody who sees them once a year. Maybe their godparents, they notice like, Oh my God, what a change has happened in a year, right? But you don't notice it unless you look at the pictures from a year ago.

And that's why I really, really encourage taking progress pictures. And I will link in the show notes to my method of very, very easily taking progress pictures. So you can get started with that as well. That's even easier. You don't even [00:08:00] have to leave your house. You just need a mobile phone with a camera.

And that's it. Okay. So, but what have I been able to achieve in a year? So in a year I have lost a little over six kilos, so 6. 1 kilograms of body weight. So that's 13. 4 pounds. Now I was not overweight to begin with. I was. Well, when I show my picture to my friends of my before, they say, well, you look like a pretty typical middle aged woman who's, you know, a little bit, yeah, not looking so fit anymore.

Right. You're kind of rounded out. And that is. I have a bikini picture that I've shared in social media, and that is definitely, I am not obese. I was not obese, but managed to lose that 6. 1 kilograms or 13. 4 pounds of [00:09:00] weight. And the thing about losing weight that I think doesn't get discussed enough is that a lot of the weight that you lose If you're not weight training is going to come from your muscle.

In fact, it's estimated 25 to 30 percent of any weight you lose when you're in a diet will be taken from your lean muscle mass. Now that's that very, very precious muscle that you do not want to be losing, especially in midlife. But when you are dieting, in other words, eating in a calorie deficit. 25 to 30 percent of the weight that you lose is going to be muscle.

Now you can counteract that. You can make that percentage less than 25 to 30 percent if you are doing two things. One is eating enough protein and I suggest the 0. 8 to one [00:10:00] gram per pound of body weight per day. And that's. Uh, body weight, your ideal body weight wouldn't go for, if you're very obese, it's not going to be your current weight.

It's going to be your ideal body weight that you want to aim for. And then the second thing is to be doing weight training because the weight training, lifting heavy, progressive overload, pushing yourself close to failure, that is how you signal to your body. That. Hey, you don't want to drop the weight from these muscles here because I need them.

You signal to your body that it needs to find those extra calories from that calorie deficit from some other resource in your body, not your muscles. Okay. So if you take nothing else away from this episode, please that. All right. But back to where I've gotten to. So. In that 6. 1 kilograms of body weight that I have lost, I have lost 5.

6 [00:11:00] kilograms of fat. So I have actually managed to have quite a bit of my body weight loss come from fat. And that comes from the fact that I have been really religious about the protein and then the weight training three to four times a week. So that's 12. 4 pounds of fat out of that 13. 4 pounds of body weight.

So one pound has come from muscle and the rest has come from fat. So that is actually really a good result. Now, one thing that they talk about a lot is the dangers of visceral fat. Visceral fat is that fat that accumulates around your organs and it leads to all kinds of trouble with insulin sensitivity issues, uh, type two diabetes, all kinds of things.

So visceral fat is one of those enemies that you want to get rid of. And you can [00:12:00] be somebody who is actually Fairly skinny looking and even have a healthy BMI and have too much visceral fat. So in the in body measurements. Visceral fat is measured on a scale and you are trying to stay below 100. Now, I started out already below 100 because I have been active all my life, so I have been able to keep that visceral fat below a dangerous level.

It was 74.2. You know, on this scale where a hundred is something you don't wanna go above. But it has come down to 49. 1. So that is a significant decrease. In fact, the measurer said that I now have the visceral fat, but 25 year old woman. So I don't know whether that was. It's a hundred percent scientifically accurate, but in any case, quite a bit less visceral fat [00:13:00] than a woman my age generally has.

And one thing we know from Dr. Stacey Sims, who's one of the leading experts on women and their physiology and nutrition, and has written a book on this for middle aged women is that weight training. Is one activity which will activate your visceral fat stores. So it's not that you're spot training the middle of your body.

It's that it sets off a cascade of events which leads your body to utilize your visceral fat. And I have certainly noticed that I am narrower, uh, now, like there's just less in the center of my body. And my basal metabolic rate has stayed almost the same. So the basal metabolic rate is how many calories your body uses, even just sitting around the house.

And generally as you become a smaller person, i. [00:14:00] e. lose weight, your basal metabolic rate will also drop and the number of calories that you need in a day just to keep your body functioning will drop. My basal metabolic rate. Has stayed almost the same, so what that means for me, it's like changed by eight calories a day.

Yeah, so I should eat eight calories a day less now that I'm. You know, a smaller person. So what that means is that I can actually eat as much as I was able to eat before. So that's what's happened to me over the year. And now how have I accomplished this over the year? And I started out really by lifting weights.

Three to four times a week in the beginning of the year, at the beginning of this year that I've been tracking, I was really trying to lift four days a week, three days [00:15:00] a week was the exception. So around Christmas, when it got really hectic, I would do an upper body day, a lower body day. And then my third day I would combine.

So I would do a full body day to make sure that I'm hitting all my muscle groups twice a week anyway, but in three sessions rather than in four sessions. So I did that to some degree. Then I did a 10 week calorie deficit in the spring and the calorie deficit. I have another podcast episode about that.

So if you're interested, check the show notes, I will link to the calorie deficit episode. In fact, I'll probably do another one in the spring as people get more excited about doing calorie deficits. I'll walk you through what exactly I did. So my strategy, and it is the one that I recommend for you as well, is to start by weight training.

Make weight training a part of your every week [00:16:00] fitness program. Weight train as often as works for you, but I would suggest that the minimum really is two days a week, and you need to be applying progressive overload and pushing yourself. Close to failure. So we're not talking about small dumbbells in some group fitness class where you're feeling the burn.

No, this is, this is something different. It's, it's what I've talked about a lot on this, on this podcast. So, and if you're unclear as to what I mean, then please in the show notes, I have my freebie, which is five things you need to do to build muscle. And If you look at those five things, you will understand that most of the fitness classes are not allowing you to achieve those five things.

So you need those five things. Okay. So that's what I was doing for the majority of the time. And during that time, I was able to achieve body recomposition. I didn't [00:17:00] lose any weight. I was staying at maintenance. In other words, I was eating as many calories as, you know, I normally ate. I didn't really pay attention to my diet other than ensuring that I was getting enough protein and my body weight was staying about the same.

But when I did the in body scans, there was. Loss of fat and increase of muscle during that time. And that period of time is actually when I gained the most muscle because I wasn't, my body wasn't super stressed out and you know, not stressed out by any kind of diet. And I was just focusing on building.

And then after I had been doing that. From fall of 2022 through spring of 2023, I started a 10 week calorie deficit. That was really rewarding because the muscles that I [00:18:00] had been building all winter, I got to reveal, right? So I definitely recommend doing it that way around. Hey, if you're ready to start weight training, but you don't really know what to do, I wanted to remind you about my self study courses called Learn to Lift at Home and Learn to Lift at the Gym.

They have everything you need to get started, including a program to follow and videos explaining how to do each exercise. Check them out on my website, www. befitafter40. com or check the link in the show notes. So if you want to get similar results. Over the coming year, so that next summer you can have a different body than this year, healthier body, less visceral fat, less fat, more muscle, and also a [00:19:00] more well functioning body.

Then here's the plan. Start by adding weight training to your weekly fitness program. At least twice a week of hitting all of your muscles. You can do that either in two sessions, three sessions, or four sessions. So during this time, don't diet, okay? Make sure you're eating enough protein, but otherwise don't worry about the number on the scale at all.

Try to keep that pretty steady. What will happen is you will be giving your muscles enough fuel to grow, and when you make sure you're hitting your protein targets, you're making sure that you're having enough amino acids, i. e. the building blocks of muscle in your body. And most likely you will get some degree of body recomposition.

You will have muscle growing. And since your weight is staying the same, it means something there is disappearing. And that's most likely going to be fat because what else could it [00:20:00] be? Right. I mean, then as we get closer into summer, I'd say 10 weeks. Before you want to look your best, then start your calorie deficit and that needs to be something controlled.

Let's not go overboard. And during the calorie deficit, make sure that you're eating enough protein. So that 0. 8 to one gram per pound body weight. And per day, and also that you are continuing to weight train to signal to your body that you need to hold on to those beautiful muscles that you are trying to reveal and that you have been building all winter long.

Okay. And the reason that I want you to do the calorie deficit second is because a, I want you to learn the weight training [00:21:00] when you don't have to be focusing on other things. Also, when you're in a calorie deficit, the weight training is so much harder because your body is tired. You are not giving it enough energy.

Weight training during those 10 weeks when I was in the calorie deficit, it, it was really like. It was frustrating. I was tired there. I was not progressing very far. It was not very motivating. I had to remind myself every day that I have to do this because otherwise I'm going to lose these muscles as I, you know, lose weight.

Plus, at that point, you'll have the wonderful muscles that you can reveal. So it is really exciting to start seeing those muscles and because you have them as the fat starts to melt away, then you'll see them in the mirror and whatever, and that'll help keep you motivated to go to the weight room. And we want to build sustainable habits.

This is not like a [00:22:00] one year program, right? You want to get to a point where you're happy with your body and then keep it. What we're endeavoring to do is to get you to a point where you can then just maintain, You can maintain your weight and continue to weight train to improve. Your body composition over time gradually, right?

So you don't need to be torturing yourself with diets, with going up and going down and having two sides of wardrobe. Right. We want to get to a point where we're happy with our bodies and then we just continue to keep them strong and healthy going forward into our fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties, and who knows, maybe some of us will make it into our hundreds.

Okay. And with that, if you have any questions, please feel free to hit me up in my DMs. I love to hear from my [00:23:00] listeners. So if you have any comments, you want to share something about your own journey, please join me in Instagram, be fit after 40 underscore with Lynn link is in the show notes. I love to hear from listeners and my DMS, so don't be shy.

Hit me up there. And if you need help getting started weight training, remember I have my do it yourself courses, online courses, which give you everything you need to get started. So you don't need to go into the weight room and think, Oh my goodness, what, what should I do? Which machines should I use? How much weight should I lift?

How many reps should I do? How often should I go? When should I schedule it? All those questions are answered in the courses. And of course, if I missed answering a question, then you just reach out to me and ask because I'm happy to support. Okay. And until next time, I wish you happy training.