DEXA Results: 5'6''| 24 y.o. | 139lbs (63kg) | 24%. Cardio Bunny/HIIT Lover Ambivalent towards Past Year of Lifting

[amytai]

Dexa Scan Results

I apologize in advance for the novel...format for this post inspired by /@differentviews!

I'd seen a lot of Dexa scans on this subreddit and, as many women here, have felt like a slave to the scale for, realistically, over a decade. I did this Dexa scan to hopefully help me focus on the bigger picture of body fat and improve my mental health around the number on the scale.

Stats (physique photos from day of scan here):

• Height: 5’6.5” (gotta note that extra half inch ) / 169cm
• Weight: 139lbs / 63kg
• Age: 24
• Bodyfat percent: 24.0%
• Lean mass: 100.5lbs / 45.6kg
• Fat mass: 33.3lbs / 15.1kg
• Visceral fat: 0 lbs
• Android / Gynoid ratio: 0.56 (pear-shaped, I've got a donk)

Some things I've noticed:

• My visceral adipose tissue (the fat around my organs) is 0. The person that did my scan said that he rarely sees this and it's great; the higher your VAT is, the higher your predisposition to heart disease.
• 100.5 lbs of lean tissue! I don't really have a benchmark for this but the person that did my scan said that this was higher than most women my age and size.
• My left arm is 2% more fat than my left leg, which is interesting. I was surprised by the amount of arm fat I have because they look quite string-beany to me.
• I definitely carry my extra fat in my butt and thighs (31.5% gynoid, 30.2% legs) and my mom is the same way so I think that's just where I'm genetically predisposed to hold fat.
• My android area (stomach) is only 17.8% fat yet I feel like I'm quite doughy there which was surprising.

Current Lifestyle:
Upon graduating 3 years ago, I entered an travel-intensive, ~60+ hour/week job in consulting. Managing my diet and nutrition and staying consistent can be incredibly difficult when I am living out of a mini-fridge and microwave and often am sharing a rental car with 3-4 coworkers.

Over the past year, I began lifting. I started with SL 5X5 for about 8 months and currently run a 3-day TLS split along with HIIT workouts ~3 days/week. My maxes are currently 80 bench, ~155 on deadlift, ~115 on squat (I've gone very slowly in my first year as I focus on developing good form). I enjoy seeing the progress of being able to lift what I could not before, but I crave the hormonal rush of breaking a sweat and high intensity movement. I truly love to work out by taking group fitness HIIT classes and dislike rest days; exercise and sweat feels like my mental health and working out every morning is a huge part of my routine and it makes me happy. I currently do a Metcon-style HIIT class ~3x/week and feel so strong and confident from it. On the 3 days a week that I lift I still also usually warm up with around 1-1.5 miles just to get a sweat going and might wrap up with 10-20 minutes on a stairmaster/elliptical.

Over the past 2 years, I've experienced significant mental struggle trying to cut back down to my pre-adult job weight of around ~130. However, my weight has only seemed to go up and gave me a lot of stress. Over the past month I've begun to track my intake and weight daily to utilize the TDEE calculator in Excel, and have been trying to cut at an average of ~1750/day and have net dropped a couple pounds with some recent slip-ups...at my weight it seems like even the smallest cheat is messing up my progress, but I've been working a lot on developing a meal plan while on the road and incorporating more vegetables, high-fibrous foods, and protein, so I feel confident that I'm trending in the right direction after years of lack of progress.

Goal: Going forward, I'm going to focus on reducing overall bodyfat, with a 6-month goal of getting down to 21%-22% bodyfat. Aesthetically, I have long limbs and would like to lean out more (in order to achieve aesthetic goal of leaner stomach and legs) and develop more muscular arms. I don't really care immensely about "building my booty" which is all the craze these days.

Questions:

• Can I continue to try to cut to 130 lbs and then recomp? I'm planning to work on cutting for a couple months longer at around 1800/day (including a 1-week break for vacation) until I get down to sub-133lbs on the scale consistently, and then work on a recomposition from this lower weight. Is this a bad idea/will this plan help me get to 21-22%?
• Do I need to be lifting more? I am going to start taking my 3-day TLS split more seriously to do progressive overload but I honestly find lifting moderately boring compared to my group fitness classes (again, I love that sweat). But if I want to get stronger and truly improve my physique, I'm worried that I'm not doing enough.
• Is there another strength training program that is higher intensity to be a proxy for the cardio/sweat that I love? If I can get that "drenched in sweat, wiped out, happy and confident" feeling in another strength training program while building muscle, I'd be a happy camper. But so much of what I see in programs is the heavy weights, low reps, progressive overload that brings the real results.
• I'm worried that I'm doing too much cardio, but I love it, soo... I realistically do probably 3-4 hours of cardio/week between my warm-up runs, HIIT classes, etc. and about 3-4 hours strength training. But is this messing up my muscle-building progress? I see all of these women with amazing physiques that do little to no cardio.

 

[takkula]

@amytai If you're looking for a higher intensity programme, I recommend /r/nsuns. You won't necessarily get extra sweaty but I feel wiped after a workout (I always want to lie on the floor in the gym after leg day, lol).

 

[agapeandrew]

@amytai I love cardio! And lifting! I am in the gym 6-7 days a week because I run on my in between lifting days. I don't think I could stick to my lift program without cardio because it helps clear my head. Yeah, it probably hinders my strength progress some I imagine, but my goals are not to just crank out as high numbers as possible.

I would consider myself an intermediate lifter. I'm on week 12 of a linear progression that I've been taking seriously, and have added about 20 lbs to almost all my lifts. On top of that, my 5k times have improved significantly (for me). It is possible to do both! I used to combine days and run either before or after weights, which did impact progress for both exercises.

 

[iconoclast]

@amytai Omg we are so close to being stat twins but still have extremely different bodies!

Same height, similar weight though you probably have more muscle at 63kg than I do at 60kg (you look leaner and I'm fairly certain my current bf% would be about 25%) - I'm slightly more of a pear than you are though.

Bodies are so interesting, we have a completely different shape to each other despite the stat similarities!

 

[amytai]

@iconoclast I know right, it's so fascinating how I've seen people 10-15 pounds heavier than me, inches shorter, with less body fat! I find it interesting to notice the differences between my body that I consider myself to be mostly arms and legs compared to torso, compared to some women that have these much more compact, strong bodies. All great, all different!

In these photos I think I look a bit leaner/less muscular than I actually am; probably wouldn't have hurt to give a flex photo to show where that 100 lbs of muscle is hiding haha.

 

[dnl123]

@amytai 100.0 lbs = 45.36 kilogram

[sup]I'm a bot. Downvote to 0 to delete this comment.[/sup] [sup]Info[/sup]

 

[channel4]

@amytai 3) Yes. If you are interested in building/maintaining your strength, but also want to do more intensity while incorporating weights, I've got an idea that may work! Lift once per week for strength- get all of your main compounds in, 3x5 or whatever rep scheme you choose. Then another 2-3x a week, do lifting-based circuits. That's what I've been doing for the past few months, and it's so fun. I also get bored of just lifting, but don't want my little muscles to go anywhere.

I work out for about 60-80min/session, and it's really fun and easy to come up with. I'll start with 10min of incline walking to raise my core temp, then 5-10min of dynamic mobility moves. Then, I come up with circuits on the fly. Each circuit is 3 sets of 3 exercises (doesn't have to be this way, obviously, but I do it for simplicity's sake). Here's an example (what I did yesterday):

repeat each 3x
Note: I actually did the first one 5x, because I really like all of the exercises in it, lol

Circuit 1

A: 5 pull-ups

B: 10 tricep push-ups

C: 1:30min skipping

Circuit 2

A: 8 box jumps

B: 5 dips

C: 1min rotating plank

Circuit 3

A: Deadlift- 5 reps

B: OHP- 10 reps

C: This thing I love doing with a plate- RDL, then on the way up, brace core, tighten glutes, and press the plate overhead. 20 reps

Circuit 4

A: Goblet squat- 10 reps

B: 5 chin-ups

C: 15 second ring hold

 

[amytai]

@channel4 Thank you so much for the sample circuit! I've noticed your documenting of your progress on this sub and it's so motivating since we are around similar height I believe!

Simple question: what are your dynamic movements? I've been looking into incorporating glute activation exercises but if you have a routine I'd love to hear it.

The only thing here that I'm a little wary about with the circuits is coming up with circuits on the fly, as I feel like I enjoy coming in with a plan and being able to note my improvements over time. Particularly because I am still in beginning stages of strength building: cannot do a single unassisted dip or chin-up! But I definitely like the idea of supersets as it's similar to the Metcon classes that I've been going to so I'll do some more research into those.

 

[channel4]

@amytai Anytime! I’m 5’9”, so a tiny bit taller! I do a random (sorry, I’m super bad at planning and find it a little anxiety-inducing, so I do a lot of stuff on the fly) dynamic warmup, but I try and keep a few things in mind. I’ll try and incorporate some rotation, primarily of the thoracic spine, some core and glute activation, scapular retraction, and hip opening.

Try out some cariocas (basic sports warmup, you probably remember this from years gone by!), kneeling and reaching t-spine opening (google will have some videos if you plug that in), 90/90 hip switches (again, google will describe this better than me), basic glute bridges/single legged variations. I also like to do a deep third world squat, then plant my hands on the floor, walk that out into a plank, do some scapular pushups (where you don’t bend your arms and just depress and raise your back through your scapulae), and a few glute kicks while planking. Honestly, most athletic warm-up drills are pretty good, and often neglected!

As for chin/pull-ups and dips, I’d sub those in a circuit for other movements working similar muscles that you can perform for reps. For pull-ups, TRX/ring rows are a good sub. Instead of dips you can do push-up variations. To work up to doing pull-ups, I definitely definitely definitely cannot recommend negatives enough. Bands are okay to get some reps in, but stay away from the assisted machine. Does not mimic the proper movement/weight distribution, etc. well. There are ladies who spend years on that and don’t ever get to a pull-up. Also, these moves (slow negatives, or jumping up to the top of a pull-up and holding yourself there, etc.) should be treated as a strength workout, don’t throw them into a circuit, they’re too draining and will leave you crazy sore. As I mentioned above, ring rows would be a good sub for pull-ups in a circuit!

 

[amytai]

@channel4 Ah I think I was thinking of someone else then haha!

Thanks for the exercises, I absolutely know what you're talking about and should probably just make time for them

And agreed on the negatives, they strangely enough tire me out a lot and hurt my hands a bit which are just excuses since I know I need to be more dedicated if I'm going to make this pull-up happen.

 

[elvennice]

@amytai Hey 5'6'' woman checking in here! Your stats jumped out at me as veryyyy similar to my own. I'm going to give a few recommendations based solely on my own experience, meant to be taken as ideas and suggestions, of course, not commands!

1) You can totally keep cutting. In fact, I'm at 130 and cutting, myself, right now. I personally prefer to cut in quick, intense bursts, for a variety of reasons. (Metabolic, social, psychological, plus there's a ton of research that shows that short, responsible bouts of fasting helps prevent aging and disease.) If you're impatient to feel less "doughy," I couldn't reocmmend Lyle MacDonald's "Rapid Fatloss Handbook" more. If you wanna stick to a reasonable, slow cut, soudns liek you have a great plan!

2) Always lift more. JK this sounds a little strict on yourself, to me. I tend to like to do the things I actually find inherently fun, with just a few 20-30 min quick but intense lifting sessions to make sure I'm hitting a good balance of muscle groups. I like to take a look at what muscles my other sports work (quads and glutes for ultimate frisbee, lats and biceps for rock climbing) and then pick complementary lifts to balance (so, hammies and better squats to balance the sprinting, and then "push" arm/back exercises to balance all the "pulling" from climbing.) Note for yourself what gets sore in your other activities, and target all the other muscle chains in your lifting.

3) Don't let the cardio haters get you down. If you love cardio/sweat, just do it. Do it to your little heart's content. Seriously don't let people warning you against it get through too deeply. If you're doing a bunch of cardio and starting to feel shitty, that's one thing. If you're doing it and you still feel great, keep on my girl. There's no need to sacrifice something that is fun, healthy, and good for your mental health because people are telling you you won't look like a body-builder. Don't let "looking good" get in the way of shit your body loves!

 

[amytai]

@elvennice 1) I appreciate that! I'm still figuring out my TDEE using the daily Excel calculator so it's not easy for me to do a quick intense cut until I have a better idea of what that is, but I also do think that could work well for me rather than these longer 10-12 week cuts. I googled the book and will look into it!

2) Yes, I think that telling myself I don't need to spend more than 20-30 minutes could help with the fact that it doesn't excite me too much!

3) Thank you. I've been around this sub for a long time and know how lifting-centric everyone is, and I get it, but progress can come in different ways and can be more effective for others based on level of adherence, and I think I'll adhere best to a strength training plan that doesn't limit my cardio that I enjoy. I have zero interest in looking like a body-builder and don't think I have the same physique goals as many women in here, so naturally one has to take advice with a grain of salt.

 

[dawn16]

@amytai This makes me scared to ever get one since you look around 20-18% to me.

 

[amytai]

@dawn16 Haha if there's one thing I've learned by looking at these scans it's that every body is different and wonderful and no one carries muscle or fat in the exact same place. You could just meet your physique goal at a higher body fat percentage, who knows.

 

[michael1982]

@amytai That much cardio plus also being on a deficit is definitely going to affect your ability to gain strength as quickly as someone else who is on a recomp. Tbh I think you are focusing too much on “I HAVE to be 130.” With your numbers where they are, if I were you I would lift 4x a week, I would meet my TDEE, and I would grow my strength until I’m at the point where I’m not adding weight to the bar every week. Your body will recomp itself and you’ll get stronger a lot faster. Then when you choose to cut you’ll have all of those nice muscles to show off.

I know you don’t enjoy lifting weights so your way would work fine too eventually, i know it would be hard for me to stick to a 4x per week program if I didn’t like it so much. Maybe finding a gym buddy would make it less tedious for you.

 

[amytai]

@michael1982 Thanks for your perspective! I agree that the focus on a number is something I need to work on getting over mentally and focus more on appearance/measurements, which I'm starting to take monthly.

I unfortunately can't have a gym buddy as I travel for work so don't have a consistent gym to work out in, let alone a gym buddy. I'm quite disciplined about finding gyms with squat racks, barbells, etc. when needed so I think that upping to 4x/week could be doable.

But I really, honestly don't want to decrease my cardio at this point. It's something I truly enjoy and makes me feel happy and sweaty unlike lifting so I think it's important I keep that in because that's what is most important to me.

 

[michael1982]

@amytai Honestly you are totally right in that it doesn’t matter what you do to be fit as long as you love it (and I sure wish I loved cardio ) Thanks for sharing your DEXA, you look great and will continue to look even better as you move toward your goals!

 

[onya]

@amytai Where did you get the DEXA scan done at?

Also, I can’t give too much advice since I’m not an expert, but I would definitely say you should lift more. I’m almost 30lbs lighter, but much shorter too and my lifts are stronger than that which is why I’m saying that you could probably lift much more than what you’re at. Try to go up a little every 2 weeks. Mine have gone up with the program I’m on in 4 months if that gives you an idea.

I was doing cardio 3x a week with my lifting and I’ve honestly gotten slack on it, but haven’t noticed any difference as far as weight gain. If you want to build more muscle you may need to decrease your cardio.

Like I said, I’m definitely not an expert so I’m sure others can give you more advice. I can pass along my workouts from my trainer if you want them. It’s changed every 5-6 weeks, but I have kept all of them and my strength and muscle have both greatly increased. And the first 12 weeks were lots of supersets that would definitely keep you sweating and you could focus on lifting heavier and longer and not doing cardio.

 

[amytai]

@onya I searched 'dexa scan' on Groupon! I also live in a major US city which helps, they may not be nearby if you live in a more remote area.

I think I'm going to try to increase from 3 to 4 days and be a little more diligent about increasing weight and not skipping exercises that I don't enjoy. Yes! if your trainer wouldn't mind, I would love to see those workouts! I love the idea of supersets and think that could definitely help me get over this mental block of not sweating while lifting! If you feel comfortable please PM me them!