Update: FitMelle continues to transform her body

Update: We featured Michelle‘s story back in 2015 and she wrote in to give us an update on her journey. She has dilgiently shared her transformation online, week by week for 2 years. Her body fat has gone from 35% to 15%. Her story is an awesome example of why building lean muscle can create awesome results.

My name is Michelle, better known as FitMelle in the social media fitness industry! My journey started 2 years ago. I weighed in at 211 pounds. I reached a point where I was tired of going up and down in weight. I decided to track week to week my transformation on Instagram (@FitMelle) to inspire and create a personal journal of my change in real time. I wanted to show the power of focusing on a body recomposition vs. weight loss. In the left photo, I weigh 185 lbs and in the photo on the right I weigh 157 lbs. Many will find it hard to believe that such a difference is just 28 pounds.

My journey truly began when I stopped focusing on WEIGHT-loss” but rather “FAT-loss.” Losing weight means both Muscle and Fat loss, which typically happens on cardio only training and a non-muscle building diet. The key is to focus on strength training to build muscle so you can increase your metabolism and allow your muscle to eat fat for you as it grows. Once you stop doing cardio, your body stops burning fat vs. building muscle which burns fat up to 24-36 hours later! When I understood that concept, the light bulb went off and I decided to work smarter, not harder. Muscle is vital to a high metabolism, and building a strong and long lasting physique.

It is important to remember that the number on the scale doesn’t define you, how you look or how you should feel. I focused on a body recomposition, which is reducing body fat and developing/growing my current muscle with a lifting/strength training regimen. Then, I focused on stripping off fat once the muscle was built with proper cardio amounts. The key to reshaping your body by using your current fat to grow areas that you want bigger. Secondly, you have to allow your diet to lean you out in the areas you want smaller.

Here are some great diet tips that will assist you with doing this: Eat protein that is 99-93% lean in fat. (Grams of protein per day = to your lean muscle mass or your body weight). Eat slow burning carbs, such as rice, potatoes and oatmeal, and tons of negative calorie vegetables. I only eat fruit once per day, mainly low sugar and higher fiber fruits. I also drink 1 gal of water consistently. More importantly, I suggest focusing on getting at least 6 hours of sleep for muscle repair and fat loss. In terms of training, focus on different muscle groups, 4-5 days per week. Lift medium to heavy weights, doing 10-15 reps for 3-4 sets.

My goal is now to weigh as much as I can on the scale with the lowest amount of body fat. The biggest lesson I’ve learned is to stay consistent and try to eat the same number of calories each day. Giving your body consistency will allow you to monitor how it is reacting to what you are doing. I also recommend listening to audio recordings and studying fitness pages for inspiration and workouts. To continue following my journey on online, please check out my entire process at @FitMelle.

Check out what she shared with us about her journey back in 2015.

How to avoid Loose Skin while losing weight. ✔📚📚📚 Let’s learn what causes it. Then I will provide a few steps on how to avoid this happening as you lose weight. It originally starts from the skin being stretched out from getting over weight to begin with. Now as you start to lose weight and your fat cells start to shrink from weight loss you actually still remain the same “surface area” to ensure skin tightens as you condense (YOU MUST LOSE WEIGHT SLOWLY.) If you drop weight too fast typically from: Weight loss Surgeries, Extreme Crash Diets or Obsessive Cardio training you are in HIGH RISK. 👉How to avoid it: 📚1)Build muscle- the more muscle you build full body it will create a firm appearance underneath the skin which makes you look TIGHT. That is why you should lift weights or do a strength training regimen while dieting with small bursts of cardio training. 📚2) STOP obsessive cardio- you are dropping weight too fast because you are losing fat & muscle. If you do for Example:1 hour of steady state cardio your body is now in a catabolic state and starts to burn muscle. As muscle mass is lost in addition to fat it creates an even larger gap under the skin surface. There is nothing firm underneath now and it creates the sagging effect. 📚3) STOP Crash diets- People argue me all the time regarding this. Saying, “Well I ate fruit all day and juiced & lost weight so…” You sound silly 😒here is why- Weight loss is simply calories in vs calories out. HELL, you can only eat a slice of Pizza= 285 calories & Snickers Candy Bar=215 calories all day long and “lose weight” ….So DUH you will drop weight if all you eat is 500 calories each day. Doesn’t mean that is the correct way to lose weight. The point I’m making if you starve yourself or crash diet you can drop weight way too fast causing sagging skin. If you don’t eat enough Protein you will not feed your muscle and lose it also creating the sagging skin appearance. That is why DIET is VITAL to how you look. 👉Try to lose 1-2 pounds per week. At this speed with strength training & a muscle building diet it will give your skin time to tighten. #fitmelle #fitness #truth #education #womenwholift #womenshealth

A post shared by 🌻Melle (@fitmelle) on May 3, 2017 at 8:57am PDT