Here’s body fat percentage results for someone who has never worked out

[ayryil]

@yourservant I wish I had done one of these before I started working out! It would be so interesting to look back on.

I’m excited to see how your results change when you start trying to build muscle as well. Please post an update!

 

[yourservant]

@ayryil Thank you so much!! Not really sure where to begin but this was definitely motivating to start my journey will definitely post updates!

 

[3john3]

@yourservant Interesting, I kind of figured 30-35% would be the case for a woman who has never worked out, so this is in keeping with that.

 

[yourservant]

@3john3 Yep that pretty much checks out! Guess I just need to focus on building muscle because losing a significant amount of weight isn’t really an option for me where I’m at now

 

[sunflowers24]

@yourservant Absolutely! You'll want to pay attention to your diet to do that, too, maybe even more than you need to do JUST for weight loss, because that really is just calories in/calories out. Recomp requires high protein and eating at only a small deficit—both these things combine to help your body maintain and build lean mass while potentially burning off some fat. For reference, I'm currently around the same weight as you (but 2" shorter) and doing a recomp, eating ~1950 calories and ~100g protein, and I literally just added weight lifting to my routine this week! I've been doing yoga every day, but I think I'll aim to swap that for lifting 3-4 times a week and keep the yoga on the rest of the days.

I really like using tdeecalculator.net to get my calories and macros, but it's always best to cross-reference a few different sites at first just to be safe.

 

[yourservant]

@sunflowers24 This was very helpful, thanks so much for the advice!

 

[1950princess]

@yourservant Just want to give my 2 cents that if your weight has been stable for a long time without tracking (i.e. you intuitively eat around maintenance calories) it's probably enough to start just tracking protein. I tried tracking calories for a week and hated it, but made great progress with muscle development by hitting a protein goal and continuing to eat when I was hungry (and not eat when I wasn't). I also think it's hard to figure out what a slight deficit looks like calorie-wise, because a calculator will give you a ballpark, but you have to track calories and weight change over time to really know. Plus,you caloric needs will change as your body changes and you increase your workout load. But I'm pretty sure I ended up in a slight deficit by increasing protein (lost like 1lb a month for ~5 months) because it's pretty satiating - fewer calories per gram than fat and takes longer to digest compared to carbs.

Obviously if you want to get super lean, that would eventually change, but I just mean to get from your starting point to a metabolically healthy place. But, you know, experiment and see what feels good for you.