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Am I gaining Muscle or fat?

Okay so I lost like 65lbs in 4 months by dieting and working out. Now I'm at another point where i'm buliding muscle because I lost alot by losing so much weight. Though I have lost alot of fat I still have that extea layer under my skin which creates that "Extra skin," look. I knew that was going to happen so that is not my problem. I have to slowly and patiently work that away. My problem lies here: I can't tell if I'm gaining muscle or fat. Yea I see my arms getting cut and bigger and I feel the difference in the weights when working out. But I gained almost 20lbs in 3 months during this. I was down to 180-185 and today my scale says 201. I heard someone say before if my waist isent changing than don't sweat it. Is that true? This may all be in my head because of my past weight, but I just want a little assurence that it's not fat. Thank you.

Sat. Nov 11, 5:40pm

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have you been measuring yourself? Are your measurements staying the same or getting smaller?

Also, are you male or female?

One of my friends who is a male weightlifter told me that it is more iimportant to measure your success by how your clothes fit than just by the scale. Depending on your physical stature (how tall you are, the size of your bone structure, etc.) it's possible for you to weigh a lot more, but be much smaller due to having more muscle vs. fat.

Keep working on it--it didn't take a day to gain the weight and it won't go away that quickly either.

Saturday, November 11, 2006, 7:25 PM

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I'm male. No I haven't been using a measure. So I guess I should. What once a week?

Saturday, November 11, 2006, 8:59 PM

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I thought you might be male! ;-)

Once a week or every few weeks is probably good for measuring! :-) (or judge by how your clothes are fitting)

If you are male, you are probably building muscle a lot faster than women do... so that's a good thing... Keep up the good work!

Saturday, November 11, 2006, 9:21 PM

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Ditto to the above poster. If it is muscle then measurements will decrease or stay the same even if the scale fluctuates. Clothes are the best way to judge. If you are working out at a gym, most have some way of measuring % of body fat. Lots of things can influence the results but as a male most won't impact you. Make sure you are well hydrated before measuring body fat. Good luck.

Link

Saturday, November 11, 2006, 10:20 PM

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Awesome. No my clothes still fit the same. It was just that I gained almost 20lbs in 3 months and I wasen't sure that was possible with just muscle alone. Thank you for the support! Much appricated.

Saturday, November 11, 2006, 11:04 PM

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