Well, further interaction with Susan Courtney from calipers day suggests that my body fat percentage is 12% by calipers. She thinks that number is more accurate than the electronic Tanita scale. She did a careful job, but her method is also potentially error prone (lots of human judgment).
The bottom line for me is this: I'm going to make a play for 10% and declare partial victory when I make it by calipers. I'm going to investigate the Tanita more. It appears to be less comprehensive.
Investigation on the book front makes me believe that losing this weight will not be straightforward like it was with Atkins. I'm now a very active exerciser, and I'm really only looking to trim 5 to 10 lbs. I want that all to be body fat, not the muscle I've worked for. Atkins is too much of a blunt instrument for that.
All weightlifting diets seem to require careful input/output analysis. I'm going to make the following assertions about output to start:
- I need 1850 kCal to maintain my current body weight if I am sedentary.
- On weight training days (5 days per week), I burn 1400 to 1500 additional calories. This estimate is based on 90 minutes of weight training at a calorie burn of 540 calories every 60 minutes and 30 minutes of cardio at anywhere from 600 to 800 calories.
- On pure cardio days (1 day per week), I'm doing 1300 to 1600 calories, depending on how high I decide to set the resistance on the cardio machine.
This analysis suggests that I need 3150 to 3450 kCal to maintain weight on my active days. I have no idea what my input really is, but it is likely a similar number. My guess, having read both Nick Evans' Men's Body Sculpting and John Hansen's Natural Bodybuilding is that I am actually overconsuming protein and not getting enough protein variety. I could also vary my vegetables a bit more.
This week, I am going to track what I eat, and I am going to institute a Sunday weigh-in. The Most Complete Food Counter by Natow and Heslin should give me an idea about the composition of what I am eating. Then, I can reorient a bit. A key point seems to be to eat multiple small meals per day, something I am already starting to do.
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