If you lose fat you lose muscle, so...

Countandsubtract

1)Should I gain muscle or lose fat first?

So I've heard that when people lose weight (fat), they will necessarily lose muscle.
I've heard that if you gain muscle, you'll gain fat (presumably not enough to undo your prior work).
Finally, the weight control registry highlighted that weight lifting is one of the best predictors of a person's ability to keep weight off.

Other factors
(Weight lifting while losing fat is supposed to help preserve muscle but doesn't protect it all.
A larger muscle mass should help burn calories. )


2) So should I bulk now and lose fat later or the reverse?

3)Does anybody have numbers or math formulas on the rate of muscle loss vs fat loss etc?
Ex. If I'm going to lose most of my muscle mass when losing fat, I might as well just wait until the end, right?

My inclination is to lose weight first and then start rebuilding my muscle mass.

4) Is there a type of doctor that can answer this question? Apparently GPs do not calculate that.


BTW burning a pound of fat not muscle is 3500 calories.
I'm sure there are a lot of people who just kind of do whatever, but if any of you do know, please speak up even if there have been a number of posts already.

(I numbered the questions in the hopes of making them easier to refer to.)

Countandsubtract

Also go ahead and let me know of one of those theories have since been proven wrong.

Resources
Loss of muscle during weight loss/fat loss.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6315740/


Resitance training preserves muscle mass during caloric-restrictive weight loss.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5946208/
(Not my original resource)

Exercise preserves muscle mass
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK221839/

Resistance training preserves muscle mass during weight loss
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18356845/

Can't find my original source for weight control registry, so take the source with a grain of salt unless I find the journal article again.


Hmm...even though my prior source was from a medical journal, this source says it is possible to gain muscle during weight loss which is more encouraging. Anecdotally I've heard it's only true of "newbie gains."
And elsewhere this same article appears to cite that they lost lean tissue, so... Idk it doesn't show the whole article
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8379514/


Edit:
Just found this, my editing window might end before I finish reading it.
It's on myfittnesspal from 2020
https://blog.myfitnesspal.com/experts-debate-should-you-lose-fat-or-build-muscle-first/

Lietchi

I don't really keep up with the science, but all of this seems to pretty much confirm what we commonly recommend on these boards.

To reduce the risk/amount of muscle loss (or even gain a little):
- adequate protein intake (this is a calculator based on scientific findings: https://examine.com/nutrition/protein-intake-calculator/)
- losing weight slowly rather than quickly: looking at the weight loss rate per week compared to your bodyweight - generally recommended to lose max 0.5-1% bodyweight per week, with a bias towards the lower end for those who are already fairly lean
- doing some form of resistance training

There is no way to calculate this, it's highly individual. All you can do is reduce the risk.

Also, it's a lot easier to keep existing muscle mass, than to regain it after it is lost, so I really would not recommend only starting strength training after losing weight.

Generally speaking, it's not recommended to bulk when 'overfat'. The proportion of fat you gain while bulking varies according to how high large your calorie surplus is and simply your individual body (some build muscle more easily than others, and a newbie won't respond the same way as an experienced lifter, for example).

All this is abstract, since you don't tell us anything about yourself: your current stats and goal?

sijomial

"So I've heard that when people lose weight (fat), they will necessarily lose muscle. "
An exaggeration, it's a danger but not a given and people's personal situation and strategies will change the outcome. How much fat over what timescale for example? Plus of course many people add muscle/lose fat while maintaining weight.
A highly trained body builder cutting to very lean levels is completely different to an overweight and un-trained person who starts training while losing. The BB needs everything to be optimal to progress but the vast majority of ordinary people just need to train consistently.


"I've heard that if you gain muscle, you'll gain fat (presumably not enough to undo your prior work). "
Depends on your calorie balance - you don't have to gain weight to gain muscle. Again very situational and varied using the same two examples above. Far easier for untrained people to gain muscle and a surplus can be helpful but is not a requirement for all.


"Finally, the weight control registry highlighted that weight lifting is one of the best predictors of a person's ability to keep weight off."
It's one of the great things to do for long term health. As are many other exercise choices. Great that you are thinking ahead BTW.


"Other factors - Weight lifting while losing fat is supposed to help preserve muscle but doesn't protect it all."
Numbers matter - that statement could be true for someone losing just 1% of their muscle mass!
Again situational and personal.


"A larger muscle mass should help burn calories. "
True but vastly exaggerated. Again numbers are important and just 6cals/day per pound of muscle at rest is pretty insignificant considering most people will not add many pounds of muscle in their lifetime. Being more active in daily life and exercise are far more significant in term of calories burned. Almost as significant as simply eating a bit less......


"So should I bulk now and lose fat later or the reverse"
Highly unlikely that is a good strategy but I don't know anything about you. Vast majority of overweight people are better off cutting first but cutting as best they can.


"If I'm going to lose most of my muscle mass when losing fat, I might as well just wait until the end, right?"
Unless you crash diet while going from active and exercising to sedentary and no exercise that's not going to happen.


"My inclination is to lose weight first and then start rebuilding my muscle mass."
My advice would be to cut as well as you can and there's a good chance no rebuiding will be required. But you might develop a pasion for self-improvement and choose to keep building.


"Is there a type of doctor that can answer this question? Apparently GPs do not calculate that. "
There's no type of person or Doctor that can calculate a future outcome that is highly variable and subject to enormous influences.
Good strategies give you your personal best result but that result is going to be very varied.


My advice would be to concentrate on you and what you can do rather than worry about extreme outcomes that can be prevented by simply cutting at a sensible rate, training well and keeping protein higher than usual

AnnPT77

I'd encourage you to organize you thinking about this as pros/cons of behavior choices, not free-floating abstract ideas, whether myths or research findings. You need to make a behavioral choice, not write a research paper.

I'm assuming you have a material amount of fat to lose (say 10+ pounds), since you mention cutting alone as one of your options.

So, for example:

If you eat at a calorie deficit (cut) and strength train:

* Strength gains (from better recruiting using existing muscle tissue) that are useful in daily life
* Decent chance of better appearance (via things like pump, posture, etc.) even if no mass gain
* Possible slow muscle-mass gain (especially if you don't try to lose fat super fast), but at least better protection for pre-existing muscle, which is slow/difficult to regain (especially for us women)
* Burns a few calories, but probably fewer than devoting the same time budget to cardio

If you eat at a calorie deficit and don't strength train:

* Higher risk of muscle loss (more risk if cutting super fast, less if slow)
* No strength gains, maybe even strength losses
* For sure no muscle-mass gains
* More time for cardio, which tends to burn calories faster so let you eat a little more for the same fat loss rate
* Not necessarily faster fat loss - that depends entirely on calorie balance

If you strength train and eat at a calorie surplus (bulk):

* Fat gain (which you'd presumably want to lose eventually, cue the same pros/cons analysis)
* Fastest potential for muscle mass gain (for us women, a pound a month of new mass would be a good result, under ideal conditions like good progressive strength program, relative youth, sound nutrition, good genetic potential, and more)

You could also eat at maintenance calories to very slowly gain strength/muscle, and very slowly lose fat (recomposition**). That's going to be somewhere in between bulking and cutting in terms of both muscle and fat.

Those aren't exhaustive lists above, but I think it's maybe a better way of analyzing the situation, as pros/cons of the behavior choices. I could do a decision table for it, but I'm too lazy to do that without personal motivation. FWIW, I dislike strength training, but made it a point to be somewhat more consistent with it during fat loss.

A couple of asides:

1. I've seen many people here on MFP saying they wish they'd started weight training sooner, even during weight loss. I can't recall ever having seen anyone say they wish they'd waited.

2. I presume you see that your research sources in your second posts invalidate some of the myths in your OP, like the one that if you lose fat you necessarily lose muscle.

It's true that obese people tend to have more muscle mass than otherwise similar always-thin people of the same activity level, just from carrying all that body weight through the world every day. Some of that is less needed with a lighter body, but keeping more of it via strength training during fat loss might be useful, since rebuilding is slow/hard.

There's another thing to think about here, in the realm of sloppy terminology: We do tend to and arguably want to lose lean mass alongside losing fat. There are lots of things in "lean mass" besides muscle: Connective tissue, skin, blood volume, more. Now that I'm at a healthy weight, I'm very happy not to have the same acreage of skin and the same amount of blood volume I had when obese, for example: It's scary to envision that blood-bloated skin-sack, y'know?

** https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/di'scussion/10177803/recomposition-maintaining-weight-while-losing-fat

Retroguy2000

It depends how much weight you want to lose, and where you're starting from. If your body fat is high and you're talking about bulking, what exactly is your goal?

If you have a lot to lose then you'll presumably be planning on a large deficit. Get plenty of protein and hope you don't lose much muscle.

If you're on a smaller deficit, 10% below maintenance say, then yes you can build muscle, especially if you are new to weights and getting enough protein.

Countandsubtract

Thanks for responding!
It was encouraging to hear that it's not impossible to do both at once, and it was reassuring that the info from all of you made sense together.

Generally speaking, it's not recommended to bulk when 'overfat.
Noted. Thanks, that helps.



Great that you are thinking ahead BTW.
😁😁😁


"A larger muscle mass should help burn calories. "
True but vastly exaggerated.

Good to know
I've heard it mentioned so often that I really would have thought it would have been more.


Vast majority of overweight people are better off cutting first but cutting as best they can.
That's good to know too. I wonder if it's because it would make stretch marks and loose skin worse...or maybe it's because people might get a little carried away when making sure they eat enough to have protein to spare for their muscles?


Unless you ...not going to happen.

Okay, it sounds like the muscle loss isn't so severe then.

Thanks again! I'll write the rest of my responses later. (I've been having a lot of site-glitch issues.)

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