Diet 2020 Wk 3 - week ending 19.JAN.2020

Stuck to my nutrition and exercise plan 100% last week. Daily calorie intake ranged from 833-1,511 cals/day and averaged 1,120 cals/day. As usual I got in more walking during the week (avg 15,608 steps/day) than during the weekend (avg 7,013 steps/day), but I did two hours of Kendo training on Saturday which probably compensates for this. Continued to increase my reps and total volume in my gym training while keeping to three sessions (Mon/Wed/Fri) per week. Managed to reduce my sodium intake slightly, but still higher than the recommended maximum - while bacon is tasty and packet ham or roast beef a very convenient 'keto' snack, their sodium content means I'll have to watch how much of these I consume!

While I'm very happy with my current rate of weight loss (it might even be a bit too rapid), and I can see the reduction in belly fat, my bathroom scales body fat daily readings seem to have remained scattered around 17.5% for the past week or so. The daily data has quite a lot of 'noise', so hopefully I'll start seeing some lower body fat readings over the next couple of weeks. When I get close to my 80 kg 'target' weight I'll get my second DEXA scan done to get a more accurate reading of body fat and lean mass. The body calipers I ordered a few weeks ago should arrive soon, and then skin fold measurements will give a more accurate estimate of body fat percentage than the "bioelectrical impedance analysis" (BIA) of my cheap bathroom scales.

Apparently this sort of measurement (BIA) isn't really accurate enough to use to track changes in body composition over time, although I found the 21-day moving average corresponded very well with the DEXA reading. The main limitations of BIA estimates of body fat are that they are a) a calculation based on the correlation of body fat measurement to BIA for a specific test group - so the correlation may be different for any particular individual, b) the measurement is affected by hydration status, so a change in body water can be misinterpreted as a change in fat mass, c) my type of scale uses foot pads, so measures the current travelling up one leg and down the other, so is really only measuring how fat my legs are -- probably not the best methodology when most males carry excess fat stores around their belly, d) losing weight via cardiovascular exercise (rather than via weight training alone) can underestimate fat loss and overestimate loss of lean mass due to an increase in plasma volume that is one of the adaptions to cardiovascular training. Overall, BIA readings can apparently be out by up to 8%, so I won't worry too much. In any case, to eliminate to impact of daily reading variations I'm using a 21-day moving average, so the 17.5% estimate is for 11 days ago.

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