stave off muscle loss while sick

mooreks81

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?

nutmegoreo

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.

jseams1234

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

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

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!