How much muscle loss is normal?

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tinypastels
tinypastels Posts: 32 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I know with weight loss its expected to lose some lean body mass along with fat. I'm sure it also depends on many factors such as how overweight you are, if you're weight training etc. If there's no straight forward answer maybe you can look over my weight loss for this year

Jan 2016 ... 182lbs ... 31.0%fat ... 56lbs fat ... 126lbs lean ... 26.9 BMI
Dec 2016 ... 153lbs ... 24.5%fat ... 37lbs fat ... 115lbs lean ... 22.6 BMI

I ask because it hasn't totally been a steady weight loss. I got off track several times and gained, then had big jumps in weight loss when I was under stress and not eating much. Also only did cardio exercise with no weight training. Does my weight loss look proportional or did my body rely too much on lean body mass? (BTW I used a handheld body fat device both times and also water dunk test in Jan. I know handhelds aren't totally accurate)


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  • jemhh
    jemhh Posts: 14,261 Member
    edited December 2016
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    Handhelds are too inaccurate for those numbers to mean anything. They are up to 8% off at the individual level.

    Remember that LBM is everything except fat. It is fine to lose straight LBM.
  • tinypastels
    tinypastels Posts: 32 Member
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    jemhh wrote: »
    Handhelds are too inaccurate for those numbers to mean anything. They are up to 8% off at the individual level.

    Remember that LBM is everything except fat. It is fine to lose straight LBM.

    Thanks for responding! I know handhelds aren't the most accurate. Although in Jan my handheld reading was pretty close to my water dunking result. Given handhelds are an approximation I just want to know if I'm *approximately* on track
  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,411 MFP Moderator
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    To add to the above, also take into consideration that lbm is not just muscle; its everything not fst mass. If you deplete glycogen, you would show a loss in lbm.

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