Muscle gain and weight loss

lplankenhorn0712
lplankenhorn0712 Posts: 2 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Question... I have been logging in consistently for a little over a month now. For the last couple of weeks I have been under my calorie goal daily with one exception. I have also incorporated exercise into my daily routine, mainly running (couch to 5k) or doing a cardio fitness blender video that incorporates some strength building also. I had lost 5 but the scale has gone up this week. Is it possible I’m gaining muscle, thus making the scale tip in the wrong direction? I don’t know how much exercise, or how long it takes to actually build enough muscle to impact the scale. Any guidance appreciated! :)

Replies

  • Seffell
    Seffell Posts: 2,221 Member
    Weight loss is not the same as fat loss. Your fat loss might be linear if you deficit is steady but your weight fluctuates due to the water which make 70% of your body.
  • lplankenhorn0712
    lplankenhorn0712 Posts: 2 Member
    Thanks everyone! This may sound like an odd question (again, not my area of expertise) but if muscle gain is near impossible with a calorie deficit then when they “recover” do they just go back to their original size? And how long until they stop retaining water as long as the exercise regimen is the same?
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,030 Member
    lplankenhorn0712 wrote: »
    Thanks everyone! This may sound like an odd question (again, not my area of expertise) but if muscle gain is near impossible with a calorie deficit then when they “recover” do they just go back to their original size? And how long until they stop retaining water as long as the exercise regimen is the same?

    If you're new to weight training, you could gain a little muscle . . . verrrrrry slooooowly . . . in a calorie deficit. But it wouldn't be happening fast enough to mask any reasonable rate of fat loss.

    The water weight for muscle repair tends to create a scale jump. For some people, it seems to cycle up and down with workout timing, but with the same couple/few pounds as the amplitude of the cycles; for me, if I keep up a consistent progressive weight training routine say 3x a week, I add a couple of pounds and hang onto it until I take a longer break between workouts. Either way, you don't just keep adding more and more water weight, so - if you're losing fat at any sensible kind of rate - the fat loss will eventually offset the minor water weight, and you'll see a dropping trend on the scale.

    But "a dropping trend" is still going to be a bumpy line with an overall downward long-term direction, like the graphs show up-thread, because bodies are weird. ;)


    (I don't understand what you mean by that part about "going back to their original size" - if you're talking about seeing a bit of a pump in the muscles from water weight, then when you stop challenging the muscles you'll probably see a decrease.)
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 9,961 Member
    malibu927 wrote: »
    It’s difficult-to-impossible to gain muscle while in a calorie deficit. It’s most likely water weight your muscles are holding on to to repair. Give yourself another couple of weeks and if you don’t see a loss by then, then it’s time to take a look at your logging to see what you can tighten up.

    ^^This.

    And even if all the stars align (small deficit, plenty of protein, progressive lifting program, new to lifting, preferably young male for the best hormonal situation, plenty of excess body fat) so that you may see some incremental muscle gains in a deficit:

    1) You're not going to gain enough muscle to make you gain weight. Your fat loss will outpace your muscle gain. Your body can't create a net mass gain in a deficit, even if it can fuel your (small) deficit from your (lavish stores of) fat and still allow your body the luxury of using some of the protein you're consuming to build a little muscle.

    AND

    2) You're not going to gain enough muscle in a week to be noticeable on the scale amid the noise of normal weight fluctuations (especially not in a deficit).
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 9,961 Member
    lplankenhorn0712 wrote: »
    Thanks everyone! This may sound like an odd question (again, not my area of expertise) but if muscle gain is near impossible with a calorie deficit then when they “recover” do they just go back to their original size? And how long until they stop retaining water as long as the exercise regimen is the same?

    If you're lucky, and doing things right (small deficit, plenty of protein, progress resistance program), your muscles may go back to their original mass, if that's what you mean. More likely, even doing everything right, you will see small incremental losses because muscle retention in a deficit isn't easy, but one does the best one can.

    How long your muscles retain water for muscle repair is going to vary from person to person. If the regimen isn't that challenging to begin with, and quickly becomes not challenging at all (I'm assuming by "the same" you mean not increasing weights or reps or trying variations on the lifts), then water retention is going to subside a lot quicker. If you rest more than a day or two between lifting days, it should start to subside in most cases. But people are going to vary.

    What's odd to me about your question is, Why would you want to keep doing the same exercise regimen (assuming, again, you mean the same weight amount, reps, sets, exact same lifts...)?
  • mmapags
    mmapags Posts: 8,934 Member
    sardelsa wrote: »
    You wouldn't be gaining enough muscle in a deficit to offset weight loss. It is likely water retention from new exercise.
    ^ This.
  • alexmose
    alexmose Posts: 792 Member
    edited May 2019
    Sorry to resurrect but I’m curious on people’s thoughts of cardio’s effect on muscle gain. For example, I do cardio (walking) for about 7 miles twice per week on top of Bodypump (twice per week). But I also lift heavy. Think this cardio is affecting my gains? My progressive lifting program is A Muscle Building Routine by Jay Cutler and I’ve followed for 7 weeks. Before I did SL for about a year. Bf 19.7%. Bw 114lbs. Height 5’3’’. Female. 22 yo
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,030 Member
    The cardio per se isn't materially affecting your gains as long as you eat enough to fuel it.

    The Bodypump could be affecting your recovery in an unhelpful way, depending on timing, if I'm correct in believing it includes a non-trivial resistance component.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
    Don't see any problem with your walking but mixing in Bodypump with a heavy lifting routine could impair your recovery and impair your energy for your next heavy lifting session. That seems an odd combination if your primary goal is strength/muscle development. If Jay Cutler wanted you to do high volume/light weight training he would probably have written it into his program.....

    My cardio (high volume road cycling) affects my lifting not because of that ridiculous myth about cardio burning muscle but because I'm always either saving my legs for the next long cycle ride or recovering from the last one so in the cycling season I rarely do any leg work in the gym. When you have multiple goals you have to accept the compromises that come as part of the package.

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