Weight going the right way, lean mass not.
damiannikodem
Posts: 77 Member
I've done this whole shebang before so I know what to do, but this time around for some reason these past few days have given me confusing results. According to my scales have lost 2 kilos of weight and 1 of those has been lean mass. What's strange is that in the past few days I have trained harder than normal cardio wise and started weights again to try to break through a plateau. And over the past few weeks my lean mass was growing while my weight was dropping.
I have lost 25 pounds /11.5 kilos in these past 60 days so that part is right on the mark.
Any explanation for this rapid loss or advice for gaining lean mass while dropping weight ?
I have lost 25 pounds /11.5 kilos in these past 60 days so that part is right on the mark.
Any explanation for this rapid loss or advice for gaining lean mass while dropping weight ?
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Replies
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BIA scales are not accurate, I wouldn't worry too much what they say.5
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Scales aren't accurate for tracking bidyfat/lean mass %2
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Also, how much weight do you have to lose, you're losing at quite a pace so you may indeed be losing more lean mass than is desirable.1
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Just keep your protein up and lift heavy. Also, I wouldn't those scales. I trust the mirror and the bar.2
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1) While in a caloric deficit, some of your losses are going to be lean mass no matter what you do.
2) BIA scales are useless for measuring body fat/LBM, especially in the short term.5 -
The scales aren't 100% accurate but it's also a fact that cardio causes muscle loss. So does weight training if you aren't getting enough protein in your diet or enough rest so your body can rebuild/repair your muscles.1
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courtneyfabulous wrote: »The scales aren't 100% accurate but it's also a fact that cardio causes muscle loss. So does weight training if you aren't getting enough protein in your diet or enough rest so your body can rebuild/repair your muscles.
Cardio and weight lifting do not cause muscle loss. In fact weight lifting is muscle sparing in a deficit especially when supported by sufficient protein intake!2 -
trigden1991 wrote: »courtneyfabulous wrote: »The scales aren't 100% accurate but it's also a fact that cardio causes muscle loss. So does weight training if you aren't getting enough protein in your diet or enough rest so your body can rebuild/repair your muscles.
Cardio and weight lifting do not cause muscle loss. In fact weight lifting is muscle sparing in a deficit especially when supported by sufficient protein intake!
Yes exactly as long as you are eating enough protein and getting enough rest- but like I said if you AREN'T then you're only tearing down your muscles and not rebuilding (it happened to me once when I was not tracking protein- a month of working hard in the gym and yet I lost muscle & gained fat due to improper macros).
Although I have always heard from body building & fitness experts that cardio does cause a bit of muscle loss that's why you never want to do ONLY cardio.
But it's still worth it to do some for fat loss & overall health.0 -
Lean mass in a deficit does not work that way.
Newbie gainz (brand new lifter) can gain minimal muscle while in a deficit and then this tapers off, a person will reach their potential while in a deficit. Note: an aggressive deficit will cause muscle loss and not conducting what I call "muscle sparing insurance" to preserve muscle..
So what you are left with is, eat enough protein while in a deficit and continue to lift as you are to maintain your current mass and if you chose do a bulk/cut cycle later if you want to build more..
While you can trend this so called body composition number you are getting from your scale over time..just know your beginning body composition number is not gonna be accurate in the least.0 -
No matter how hard you workout there is a set maximum amount of muscle mass you can put on. So if you are losing too fast you are going to lose muscle too.
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courtneyfabulous wrote: »Yes exactly as long as you are eating enough protein and getting enough rest- but like I said if you AREN'T then you're only tearing down your muscles and not rebuilding (it happened to me once when I was not tracking protein- a month of working hard in the gym and yet I lost muscle & gained fat due to improper macros).
Although I have always heard from body building & fitness experts that cardio does cause a bit of muscle loss that's why you never want to do ONLY cardio.
But it's still worth it to do some for fat loss & overall health.
If you are in a surplus you cannot lose muscle. If you are in a deficit you will lose fat and lean body mass (unless you are on steroids).
The bit about cardio is only true if you do no lifting at all. As per my previous quote; weight training and protein are muscle sparing. Cardio in itself does not "burn" muscle.0 -
I'm looking to lost about 75 pounds in total, and over the past 2 months I have managed to drop about 5% body fat.and I have been running a daily food deficit of 350. ( and 2 to 3 times a week take a extra 1000 to 1200 from excercise )
My protein in tank isn't that great but isn't too bad either ( between .75 to 1.2 grams per kilo )
Essentially I really have Let myself go these past few years since in 2013 I was sitting on 160 pounds/16% bodyfat, and now I am sitting at double that...
While I do very little traditional strength training I do about 4 hours of judo and grappling a week which has the same effect
As for the scales, sure they may not be accurate but they are at least consistent in the sense that if they are are reading 10% off that will be 10% constantly at any reading and not 10% low one morning and 10% high the next day.0 -
Well I'm not on steroids (and I'm female) and I was able to gain muscle while in a deficit- though just a little and probably only newbie gains or just gaining back the muscle I had lost during that first month of cutting while under eating protein. It has now stabilized though, I seem to be mostly maintaining but at least no longer rapidly losing muscle like before. Protein intake makes such a big difference!
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Damiannikodem I wouldn't really think martial arts has the same effect as weight lifting... and aren't you supposed to get 0.8 to 1.5 grams of protein per pound? (Not per kilogram)
Might want to add some lifting into your routine.1 -
courtneyfabulous wrote: »Well I'm not on steroids (and I'm female) and I was able to gain muscle while in a deficit- though just a little and probably only newbie gains or just gaining back the muscle I had lost during that first month of cutting while under eating protein. It has now stabilized though, I seem to be mostly maintaining but at least no longer rapidly losing muscle like before. Protein intake makes such a big difference!
Sorry to break it to you but you almost definitely didn't gain muscle in a deficit. How much muscle and over what time scale? Women are lucky to gain 1lb of muscle per month in a surplus.0 -
trigden1991 wrote: »courtneyfabulous wrote: »Well I'm not on steroids (and I'm female) and I was able to gain muscle while in a deficit- though just a little and probably only newbie gains or just gaining back the muscle I had lost during that first month of cutting while under eating protein. It has now stabilized though, I seem to be mostly maintaining but at least no longer rapidly losing muscle like before. Protein intake makes such a big difference!
Sorry to break it to you but you almost definitely didn't gain muscle in a deficit. How much muscle and over what time scale? Women are lucky to gain 1lb of muscle per month in a surplus.
Not much, lean mass percentage just went up by like .5% but could just be because body fat % went down?0 -
damiannikodem wrote: »I'm looking to lost about 75 pounds in total, and over the past 2 months I have managed to drop about 5% body fat.and I have been running a daily food deficit of 350. ( and 2 to 3 times a week take a extra 1000 to 1200 from excercise )
My protein in tank isn't that great but isn't too bad either ( between .75 to 1.2 grams per kilo )
Essentially I really have Let myself go these past few years since in 2013 I was sitting on 160 pounds/16% bodyfat, and now I am sitting at double that...
While I do very little traditional strength training I do about 4 hours of judo and grappling a week which has the same effect
As for the scales, sure they may not be accurate but they are at least consistent in the sense that if they are are reading 10% off that will be 10% constantly at any reading and not 10% low one morning and 10% high the next day.
No, they are not consistent. The fluctuate with hydration levels.1 -
courtneyfabulous wrote: »trigden1991 wrote: »courtneyfabulous wrote: »Well I'm not on steroids (and I'm female) and I was able to gain muscle while in a deficit- though just a little and probably only newbie gains or just gaining back the muscle I had lost during that first month of cutting while under eating protein. It has now stabilized though, I seem to be mostly maintaining but at least no longer rapidly losing muscle like before. Protein intake makes such a big difference!
Sorry to break it to you but you almost definitely didn't gain muscle in a deficit. How much muscle and over what time scale? Women are lucky to gain 1lb of muscle per month in a surplus.
Not much, lean mass percentage just went up by like .5% but could just be because body fat % went down?
Curious? how did you measure this and over what period of time? Are you a newbie lifter and what was your deficit at the time (you stated you were rapidly losing muscle at the time)?0 -
My BIA scales think I am 41% bodyfat as a "normal" female and when switched to "athlete" (I think I'm really somewhere in between but whatevs) it sais 19%. Neither of those is even vaguely or remotely true and I am indeed, somewhere in the middle of those two numbers. When I got them and was setting them up that evening it said 38% and in the morning 41%. They cannot be relied upon in any way to track much of anything at all. I don't even use the BIA aspect now (I have to press a button for it to do it), i just use them as regular scales because anything else is essentially pointless.
And female bodybuilders who have everything on point from nutrition to their lifting schedule, can maybe, if also genetically winning the muscle lottery, put on 1lb of lean mass in a month eating at a surplus. More like 0.5lb. Newbie gains would be less I imagine. Women especially are not putting on any muscle whilst eating at a deficit. You're just getting a little post lift pump and lowered bodyfat giving the optical illusion of more mass.0 -
damiannikodem wrote: »I'm looking to lost about 75 pounds in total, and over the past 2 months I have managed to drop about 5% body fat.and I have been running a daily food deficit of 350. ( and 2 to 3 times a week take a extra 1000 to 1200 from excercise )
My protein in tank isn't that great but isn't too bad either ( between .75 to 1.2 grams per kilo )
Essentially I really have Let myself go these past few years since in 2013 I was sitting on 160 pounds/16% bodyfat, and now I am sitting at double that...
While I do very little traditional strength training I do about 4 hours of judo and grappling a week which has the same effect
As for the scales, sure they may not be accurate but they are at least consistent in the sense that if they are are reading 10% off that will be 10% constantly at any reading and not 10% low one morning and 10% high the next day.
i've read many times that if you're more or less hydrated, bodyfat scales will show very different readings.1 -
Lately I weigh & measure body fat % & lean mass % almost every day first thing in the morning with a new body composition scale that I got- it doesn't have different settings like "normal" or "athlete" though. It gives me a body fat percentage that makes sense when compared to my bmi & how I look... it seems pretty reliable since I weigh at the same time every day & it doesn't fluctuate a whole lot so I mostly trust the readings.
Before I got that scale I used the in-body machine at the gym and have to admit that one's readings fluctuated a lot more in general and also because I would weigh at different times of day. It also gave me a body fat percentage that was obviously too high so I only paid attention to the changes.
I've been going to the gym since December 2015 and for a while I wasn't really tracking anything, just eating whatever but "healthy" (mostly clean, no junk food), would occasionally weigh myself, and was seeing a trainer twice a week for full body circuits type stuff (body weight, TRX, weights, plyo, whatever she had me do). Goal was weight loss & getting "in shape", I was about 167ish lbs at the start, and I'm 5'4" 35 years old. I was very out of shape when I started, only exercise previous was walking, hiking, a little yoga.
I got stronger, better stamina, gained some muscle, lost a little fat, started to really love working out... I eventually stopped seeing the trainer after about 7 months (still do 1 session every other week) and continued on my own and started building my own workouts and focusing more & more on lifting/bodybuilding, and would do hiit cardio or walking & hiking a few times a week as well. But after a couple more months I got kind of frustrated that I wasn't getting much results (more fit but only a couple pounds down from my start weight) so I decided to get more serious.
I started tracking calories and discovered I was anywhere from 1800 to 2500 a day. I decided on a daily calorie goal of 1550 and increased weight training to 3 to 4 times a week (and continued my hiit & walking etc). My maintenance cals should be somewhere around 1800 to 2000 so I was in a decent but not too crazy deficit. I did occasionally eat up to maintenance calories on "cheat" days, but only once a week. I continued that for about a month and measured periodically with the gym's scale. Although it fluctuated somewhat the general trend seemed to be that my lean mass was decreasing and body fat % was going up, although I had lost a few pounds overall.
But I didn't want to lose muscle & gain fat! So I did more research into nutrition and discovered I was barely even getting half the protein a sedentary woman with my stats should get- like only 25 grams a day, and was eating mostly carbs & also a good amount of fat. So for the following month I stayed at the same calories & workout schedule but upped my protein to at least 100 grams a day. It's hard for me to get a lot because I don't like meat much so it was kind of a chore. I also got my new home body composition scale and tracked using that and over the next month and the numbers started going in the right direction- body fat % decreased and lean mass % increased slightly, and weight went down overall.
Lately though I've been stuck at 160 lbs for about a week and body fat & muscle staying about the same. I'm hoping it's just hormones or something and I keep progressing again soon.
I am new to lifting for sure- I've done a bunch of research, follow a few podcasts & youtubers, read articles on bodybuilding.com, etc. I've heard within the first year it's possible to gain muscle mass while cutting, because of "newbie gains", but after that it's pretty much not possible.
It's also possible that since the fat percentage was going down and weight was going down but muscle mass staying the same or only decreasing slightly then that makes the muscle percentage number seem to go up, even if I'm not actually gaining any muscle. I would have to do calculations to see the actual pounds of fat and lean mass on my body to really be sure. Maybe I'll do that and see...0 -
Ok just did the math (for my "good" month after I started actually eating protein) and you're right I didn't gain muscle that month, I lost fat and weight and my muscle mass did decrease a bit. The PERCENTAGE just went up because my weight went down.
If you calculate it in pounds instead of percentage it was:
9/8:
Weight 164 lbs
Body fat 47.9 lbs (29.2%)
Muscle 49.7 lbs (30.3%)
10/8:
Weight 160.4 lbs
Body fat 45.4 lbs (28.3 %)
Muscle 49.2 lbs (30.7%)
So you can see why I was confused. The muscle percentage went up by 0.4%, even though I actually lost 0.5 lbs of muscle.
Sorry guys!! My mistake.
It's also interesting that I lost 2.5 lbs of fat and 0.5 lbs of muscle, but I lost 3.6 lbs of weight... I guess 0.6 of the weight loss was water then?
Really interesting stuff!!
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courtneyfabulous wrote: »Lately I weigh & measure body fat % & lean mass % almost every day first thing in the morning with a new body composition scale that I got- it doesn't have different settings like "normal" or "athlete" though. It gives me a body fat percentage that makes sense when compared to my bmi & how I look... it seems pretty reliable since I weigh at the same time every day & it doesn't fluctuate a whole lot so I mostly trust the readings.
Before I got that scale I used the in-body machine at the gym and have to admit that one's readings fluctuated a lot more in general and also because I would weigh at different times of day. It also gave me a body fat percentage that was obviously too high so I only paid attention to the changes.
I've been going to the gym since December 2015 and for a while I wasn't really tracking anything, just eating whatever but "healthy" (mostly clean, no junk food), would occasionally weigh myself, and was seeing a trainer twice a week for full body circuits type stuff (body weight, TRX, weights, plyo, whatever she had me do). Goal was weight loss & getting "in shape", I was about 167ish lbs at the start, and I'm 5'4" 35 years old. I was very out of shape when I started, only exercise previous was walking, hiking, a little yoga.
I got stronger, better stamina, gained some muscle, lost a little fat, started to really love working out... I eventually stopped seeing the trainer after about 7 months (still do 1 session every other week) and continued on my own and started building my own workouts and focusing more & more on lifting/bodybuilding, and would do hiit cardio or walking & hiking a few times a week as well. But after a couple more months I got kind of frustrated that I wasn't getting much results (more fit but only a couple pounds down from my start weight) so I decided to get more serious.
I started tracking calories and discovered I was anywhere from 1800 to 2500 a day. I decided on a daily calorie goal of 1550 and increased weight training to 3 to 4 times a week (and continued my hiit & walking etc). My maintenance cals should be somewhere around 1800 to 2000 so I was in a decent but not too crazy deficit. I did occasionally eat up to maintenance calories on "cheat" days, but only once a week. I continued that for about a month and measured periodically with the gym's scale. Although it fluctuated somewhat the general trend seemed to be that my lean mass was decreasing and body fat % was going up, although I had lost a few pounds overall.
But I didn't want to lose muscle & gain fat! So I did more research into nutrition and discovered I was barely even getting half the protein a sedentary woman with my stats should get- like only 25 grams a day, and was eating mostly carbs & also a good amount of fat. So for the following month I stayed at the same calories & workout schedule but upped my protein to at least 100 grams a day. It's hard for me to get a lot because I don't like meat much so it was kind of a chore. I also got my new home body composition scale and tracked using that and over the next month and the numbers started going in the right direction- body fat % decreased and lean mass % increased slightly, and weight went down overall.
Lately though I've been stuck at 160 lbs for about a week and body fat & muscle staying about the same. I'm hoping it's just hormones or something and I keep progressing again soon.
I am new to lifting for sure- I've done a bunch of research, follow a few podcasts & youtubers, read articles on bodybuilding.com, etc. I've heard within the first year it's possible to gain muscle mass while cutting, because of "newbie gains", but after that it's pretty much not possible.
It's also possible that since the fat percentage was going down and weight was going down but muscle mass staying the same or only decreasing slightly then that makes the muscle percentage number seem to go up, even if I'm not actually gaining any muscle. I would have to do calculations to see the actual pounds of fat and lean mass on my body to really be sure. Maybe I'll do that and see...
tl;dr all of it yet.. but what stuck out to me scanning over this,
I hate to break it to your who ever told you newbie gainz while in a calorie deficit can be built for up to a whole year is providing misinformation. I hate for you to think that you will be going into the gym as gaining mass while you are still cutting. most likely you have already reached your newbie gainz potential.
you are using a bluetooth or wifi BIA scale?0 -
Yeah probably.
Now just try to maintain til I get less fat.0
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