Lost muscle mass :(

slf2512
slf2512 Posts: 7 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I joined a gym 3 months ago and have been religiously 3x a week, sticking to a programme and pushed on to heavier weights - having never done weights until now. I have been on a Tanita machine today which has shown I’ve gone from 78.4-77.9 muscle mass and fat has gone up by 1 - likely diet related. I just don’t get how I can lose muscle mass tho when I’ve been doing weights????

Replies

  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,908 Member
    Ignore that machine. It's not accurate, it just measures resistance while sending an electric current through your body. It can easily be influenced by different levels of hydration etc.

    Better ways to measure progress: progress pictures, tape measure, seeing if clothes fit you differently.
  • JBanx256
    JBanx256 Posts: 1,479 Member
    The scales you're referencing are good for telling you your bodyweight; they are just shy of worthless for telling you your bodyfat %. If you use them consistently under the same conditions etc, they can be somewhat useful for establishing trends, but even then I would not lose any sleep over their readings.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    ^^^What they said^^^
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    Go back tomorrow and the results may well be reversed, especially if you drink a pint of water before getting a reading.

    If your weights are going up steadily then your lifting is doing what it's supposed to be doing.
    Don't let an unreliable device derail you.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,767 Member
    I also agree with those above.

    I don't know whether you're trying to lose weight, gain weight, or hold steady. Even if we believed those BF/muscle numbers (like others, I don't), they can't be interpreted outside a context.

    One comment: I'd argue that when losing weight we want to lose some lean mass (not necessarily muscle). I think I'd look pretty horrifying if I still had the same blood volume at 2/3 of the body weight, y'know? It's normal to lose lean mass when losing weight.

    Healthy human bodies are pretty smart about what kinds of tissues to adjust, in which direction, under adaptive stress. They've been working that out for millennia.

    Once you're doing all the right things, don't worry about it. There's nothing more you can do, anyway.

    If you're managing calorie intake in a sensibly moderate way for your weight-management goals, getting good overall nutrition on average, getting sensible CV and strength exercise, getting good sleep, staying hydrated, avoiding excesses of alcohol, not consuming nicotine generally or tobacco specifically, managing all-source stress . . . you've done the things you can. Keep doing them.

    Don't worry about some strange reading from a questionably-accurate test. Just do the right things. Most of us know what those are, if we're honest with ourselves.
  • claireychn074
    claireychn074 Posts: 1,686 Member
    I’ve got one at home. I can “lose” about 4% body fat by having a bath 🤣 (higher fat before and for some strange reason, lower after a bath). I can also “lower” my body fat by hydrating, waiting a bit then weighing myself again. Sadly they’re not all they’re cracked up to be.

    NB: just to be crystal clear - the speech marks are to highlight it’s not real loss, just scale oddities. Although losing fat by having a long bath would be awesome…
  • ToffeeApple71
    ToffeeApple71 Posts: 121 Member
    claireychn074 wrote: »

    NB: just to be crystal clear - the speech marks are to highlight it’s not real loss, just scale oddities. Although losing fat by having a long bath would be awesome…

    That would be awesome! Given my love of a long bath, I'd be the thinnest person ever. If only we could literally melt it away in a bath...

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