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Cardio only in a deficit: Muscle loss?

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  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,422 MFP Moderator
    edited December 2016
    Traveler120 wrote: »
    psuLemon wrote: »
    Azdak wrote: »
    This is the problem with making blanket declarative statements. There are a number of variables in this scenario including type and intensity of cardio, definition of "muscle loss", diet, beginning mass, calorie deficit, etc. (and others that have been mentioned).

    Protein intake can significantly influence changes in muscle mass. In this study, subjects gained muscle even while doing intense exercise with a high calorie deficit: http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/early/2016/01/26/ajcn.115.119339

    I have tested a number of people who went on VLC diets with modest exercise which showed that 33% of their scale weight loss was lean mass.

    I have had others who kept their protein intake over 100g per day, lost 50 pounds in 5 months doing a lot of cardio, did almost no weight lifting, incurred 1000-1500 kcal deficits per day and lost no muscle at all.

    Ideally, resistance training should be part of any exercise or weight loss routine. The benefits--especially with maintaining the weight loss long-term--are irrefutable. But it's not a black/white issue.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10204826

    This one is a lot older than your study but it demonstrates roughly the same thing.

    But it also says that that the C+D group doing walking, biking and stair climbing, lost significantly more total body weight than the resistance group. Too bad the abstract doesn't say how much more.

    Yea it is a shame its only an abstract. I suspect the increase in bw was mainly due to increases in expenditure due to a 4 day workout program vs 3 day resistance program.

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