How accurrate is musle mass weight on the scale?

DannyYMi54321

I have a Garmin Connect scale. As my weight has declined in the last year, so has my body fat. But muscle mass has declined in a similar pattern per the graph.

What does it mean? I feel stronger than a year ago - for example, I can bench press more weight, about 1.5 to 1.75 times where I was a year ago, and do more reps.

I want to gain muscle and strength. Unfortunately my body type isn't prone to building muscle.

shadow2soul

Strength increase =/= muscle gain

While scales can be pretty inaccurate when it comes to bf%, it is normal to lose a bit of lean body mass as you lose weight. The goal is to minimize the amount lost with progressive strength training, adequate protein intake, and a deficit that doesn't exceed 1% bodyweight loss per week.

sgt1372

The paradox is that you CAN lose weight (including body fat (BF) and lean body mass) and still gain strength, if you are lifting weights and doing other strength building exercises by maximizing the strength of the existing musculature.

Lean body mass (LBM) is NOT the same as muscle mass. Muscle mass can NOT be measured by any commercially available retail device.

Your Garmin scale is a bioelectric device that is very inaccurate in making precise BF and LBM measurements, as are all such devices. The measurements however can be used free reliably to map trends over time. So, your device is probably correct in indicating a loss of LBM with the loss of weight.

If you truly want to build muscle, you will need to GAIN weight by eating more cals (at least 100-200 cals/day over TDEE) and more protein (at least 1-1.5g/# body weight) and doing HEAVY progressive weight lifting at heavier and heavier weights starting at no less than 80% of your 1RM (which should increase over time) in order to stimulate muscle growth.

Consult the threads in the Gaining Weight and Bodybuilding subforum for further advice and information.