stave off muscle loss while sick

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mooreks81
mooreks81 Posts: 15 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I posted a few weeks ago in another forum about participating in a challenge through my gym in which the goal was to lose body fat % and lbs. I did REALLY well at the 3 and 5 week mark. At 5 weeks I was down from 26% body fat to 20%, and down from 141 lbs to 135. I was set to weigh in and use the body scanner today for the conclusion, 6 weeks in. Then I got the stomach flu yesterday. I weighed in anyway, but I dropped 5 lbs from the previous week (130) and GAINED fat percentage (above 21%). I also was below my initial muscle mass for when I started the program in spite of strength training every day. I know the result is not accurate due to my dehydration from the illness. They might just use my week 5 numbers for the purposes of the challenge (which puts me at a week disadvantage), or let me weigh in a few days late, though I think they want to move along faster than that.

Anyway, though I know the analysis is wrong--internet searches on these body fat analysis machines confirms this to be true--I am thinking about muscle loss. Throughout this challenge I dropped a LOT of fat and that was awesome, but I only gained about 2-3 lbs muscle though I was strength training HARD. I would like to maintain that strength. Any tips for how to get through the stomach bug illness not to lose these hard earned gains?

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  • jseams1234
    jseams1234 Posts: 1,217 Member
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    nutmegoreo wrote: »
    How long do you expect to be sick? Muscle wastage doesn't happen overnight. Those scanners have a degree of inaccuracy and are influenced by hydration, which is going to be affected by having a stomach bug.

    Maybe focus on taking care of yourself for a day or two then get back at it.

    Yup, it's potentially a HUGE degree of inaccuracy. BIA is up to +/- 8%

  • lorrpb
    lorrpb Posts: 11,464 Member
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    In addition to the accurate comments above, we all need to realize that life happens and sometimes there may be setbacks. It might be a few days, a few months, or a few years. We are still better off than before and we can always rebuild. Whenever I get discouraged I think of friends who have had to battle severe illness and recovered, because they had it much harder than me. Most (many) of us will get sick a couple times a year, of course it's frustrating, especially when starting out, but it is not the end of our fitness journey. I know that doesn't help with your challenge, but life is what it is. If you don't win, you will still have made progress, and that's the whole point of a challenge. Hope you feel better soon.
  • mooreks81
    mooreks81 Posts: 15 Member
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    Thanks for the positivity everyone. I felt better so I made it back to the gym for a strength class. The director of the challenge declared a winner (not me) but said he didn't receive my weigh-in at all and allowed me to retake it today; I think there is a chance I could be a runner-up or something. Though I'm not fully recovered in terms of hydration, I did go up a bit in weight and down a bit in fat percentage (and up a bit in muscle), so that makes sense. I think this will be a very short blip and obviously it doesn't matter if I get no prize from the competition given that I really "won" with my health progress!

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