Now, some 11 weeks into the Body For Life challenge I have had a realisation.

Recently putting together a list of links I will be adding to this site soon to make it of more use to you, dear reader, I realised how many people claim that they have lost x lbs of fat and gained x lbs of lean muscle mass with such-and-such a program.

How do they know?

Well I’ve spent some time thinking about this and coming up with the answer but before I reveal it to you I’d like to make an admission.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

When I launched this site earlier in the year I decided I wanted to take as many measurements as possible as I didn’t know which ones would show the greatest change.

I also wanted to be able to “map” my progress - where (in time, and on my body) did I make the biggest (and smallest) gains and why.

As you’re no doubt aware I’ve been measuring my biceps, thighs, chest, stomach and waist and have been posting regular photographs - though the Weekly Updates have become less often to, hopefully, show greater changes between them.

I’ve also weighed myself regularly and reported on weight lost.

Principally I have found I have lost weight, and reduced the size of my waist and stomach, whilst my chest, arms and legs have stayed virtually the same throughout - somewhat frustratingly.

Which means next week when I finish the 12th week of Body For Life I shall be ditching it, to try another program that will hopefully help me build up some muscle as well as lose weight.

However, muscle and fat weigh different amounts, so I don’t know, of the weight I’ve lost, how much fat I’ve lost, and how much muscle I’ve gained.

I have results - but not the most accurate ones essentially.

So I am going to buy some calipers to measure % bodyfat so that between now and Christmas you’ll be able to continue watching the transformation (with the new program which will be revealed soon here) but have even more information on the results I’m achieving.

It’s just a shame I wasn’t doing this from the beginning of this Body For Life challenge or we’d have some even more interesting results.

Anyways…

Here’s how I figured out how to measure fat lost and lean muscle mass gained…

Firstly, we take our weight. Let’s say its 100lb here just to make our sample calculations easy. Then we measure our percentage body fat using calipers (the most accurate method). Let’s call it 20% (which is the average for a man).

The next week we do the same calculations. Let’s say I still weigh 100lb, but my % bodyfat is now 18%.

How much fat did I lose, and how much muscle did I gain?

Easy…

The first week I had 20% body fat. 20% of 100lb is 20lb of fat (yuck!!!).

The second week I had 18% body fat. 18% of 100lb is 18lb of fat.

So I lost 2lb of body fat.

Here’s another calculation to further explain what I’ve worked out:

The first week I weight 100lb with 20% body fat again.

The second week I weigh 103lb with 19% body fat.

So… the first week I have 20lb of body fat again.

The second week I have 19% of 103lb = 19.57lb of body fat.

So I lost 0.43lb of body fat.

Assuming everything else is equal - my skeleton weighs the same, I did the measurements on an empty stomach etc. then the rest of the gain will be lean muscle mass.

So I gained 3.43lbs of muscle.

So now you know…

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