Fat / muscle composition moving the wrong direction

KajKandler

Hi there,
my muscle mass drops and my fat portion rises after 3.5 months of strength exercise in the gym (2x / wk) and 2x / wk 1h+ cardio.

My Overall, weight stayed around the same +- 3 pounds.

I'm just surprised that it moves this way. After 3 months I'd expected the opposite movement, more muscle mass and less fat.

Overall, I'm gaining strength and increasing the weights. That is alright.

Any idea what is going on?

claireychn074

Can I ask how you’re tracking your body composition? If it’s using a bio impedance scale, they are notoriously unreliable (I’ve got one). I can “change” my fat / muscle ratio by having a hot bath. Weighed before a bath and my BF is about 23%. Weighed after I’m about 19%. The heat affects the impedance and so skews the results.

If you are getting stronger, not losing weight and increasing your lifting ability, that suggests you are recomping. That’s a very slow process and won’t show quick results on any body fat monitor (it’s kind of what I do, but with a very very slow weight gain, c 2kgs over 2 years).

Retroguy2000

Like Claire said, I'd be very skeptical of body comp measurements, especially if they're from scales.

It's encouraging that your lifting volume is going up. This suggests muscle growth.

You don't say how lean you are. If you're quite lean and maintaining weight, then the body has no extra fuel to build much muscle.

As well as the weight on the scale, consider how your clothes fit, your belt fit, take progress pics, take measurements.

You say you're strength training 2x per week. If I take that literally, then strength training is 1-5 reps and won't trigger as much muscle growth as hypertrophy training at higher rep ranges. It's also unclear if you're doing enough weekly volume with enough intensity to get the change you seek. Assuming you're a new lifter, at least 10-12 working sets (close to failure) per muscle group per week is a good min target, preferably mostly compound exercises.

AnnPT77

The above posts have said the major things: If the body fat/muscle estimate is from BIA, ignore it, especially over short time periods. Short = maybe as long as 6 months, even. Trend direction matters more than absolute value, but still can mislead. DEXA is probably better, but even then small changes may not be accurate; there's still an error bar.

The one thing no one has mentioned: How's your nutrition, especially but not exclusively protein intake? That matters.

It's not clear to me whether you're wanting to stay at constant weight, or gain/lose, as a goal. The fact that you're not losing a material amount is somewhat positive for muscle gain, if the strength program and nutrition are on point. Calorie surplus would be more favorable for muscle gain.

I'd listen to Retro about lifting volume, frequency, and other specifics. That's not my wheelhouse.

I'd also ask what the cardio is, how intense it is, and how you're scheduling it with respect to the lifting. I'm more knowledgeable about cardio generically and in my sport (rowing) specifically. How intense your cardio is, whether it stresses the same muscle groups as your lifting, and when it's done with respect to your lifting, could also potentially somewhat negatively affect muscle gain rates through hindering recovery. IMO, some in the lifting community wildly oversell the "cardio kills muscle gains" idea, but there are definitely practices that are better or worse for cardio and lifting supporting each other, or interfering with progress in either/both.