Lose weight slow or fast?

derek1237654

Im 230 lbs and would like to do a body recomposition. Height 5 foot 11 and 3/4. Body fat probably 30%. Would i be better off just tearing through the weight and getting down to 210 which i could easily do losing probably 10 lbs of fat and 10 lbs of muscle with this approach...because realistically it would only take 5 or 6 weeks to do this..because it would be nice to have less than a 45 inch waist and fit into old jeans as well as look better with a shirt on.
The flip side is that i would lose muscle which would take months and months to rebuild. ..but then even though ive lost muscle my strength to weight ratio would probably go up simply because im lighter. And there is the added benefit that every pound lost removes 4 lbs of force on your joints during flexion. So while you would have lost muscle and presumably joint strength to some degree i think that would be outweighed by the fact that i would be lighter.
What to do? So many variables

TavistockToad

Personally I wouldn't willingly lose so much muscle, but that's just me.

jessef593

I'm currently on about a 15lb cut. Going from 13% body fat to hopefully 8-9% by the end of May. Why be in such a hurry and lose muscle mass? Take your time do an 8-16 week cut of 2.5-1lb a week. Preserving as much muscle as possible. Just realize every pound of muscle you lose you'll be spending another 2-3 weeks putting it back on.

Azdak

If you keep protein intake high, and continue to lift weights, you can sustain a 2+ fat loss per week w/out losing appreciable muscle mass.

sijomial

The amount of muscle lost in a cut is often wildly over-stated. Also don't mistake LBM for muscle loss - not the same thing at all especially if you have a lot of weight to lose.

It's not hard to minimise muscle loss to pretty insignificant or at least low levels. Especially if you are under-trained or a beginner.

The more realistic effect of "tearing through" your weight loss is difficult adherence to your diet, poor nutrition, sub-standard gym performance and generally feeling awful.
What's the hurry?

jemhh

I remember you from last week. You've already lost something like 70 pounds in 4 months, you eat fairly high for somebody in a cut (2800 calories?), and you exercise over 2 hours a day. My suggestion is to eat in a moderate deficit, exercise in a way that isn't obsessive, and stop overthinking everything.