Frusterated and confused

aimladuke

When I first started losing weight 5 months ago I purchased an omron body fat analyzer to track my body fat %. I was looking for another method to track my progress so that I wasn't just relying on the scale for results. At that time I weighed 170 and was at 33.2 % body fat. I am now down to 149 lbs. and have 27 %. If I am doing the math right this means that I have lost 16lbs of body fat even though my total weightloss is 21 lbs. This would mean that I lost 5 lbs. of lean body mass (muscle?)

I am so annoyed about this because I never before went to a gym. I started going in November, and am much stronger now then I was then ( at 170 lbs.) When I did the math I was hoping I would see more like 22 lbs of fat loss and 21 lbs total loss equaling a 1 lb. muscle gain.

Am I understanding this all wrong?

skthibert

Don't forget about the water weight being lost as well.

Phrick

If your'e eating in a deficit you're not going to gain muscle, so in that sense yes you're misunderstanding how it works. It takes food, a lot of food, and lifting heavy weights, a lot, to build muscle. Furthermore women build muscle at an absolutely astonishingly LOW rate compared to men. Just some things to consider (as well as water weight being lost as the other poster mentioned)

ETA: Being STRONGER does not equal having built up additional muscle MASS, it just means the muscle you have is stronger.

aimladuke

But does this mean that I have lost muscle? And what exactly is water weight?

Phrick

But does this mean that I have lost muscle? And what exactly is water weight?

Yes, you've likely lost a little muscle, it's normal. All you can do is, do all you can to make it minimal (eat enough protein, lift heavy).

Water weight. Also called water retention. Well first, most women retain water around their time of the month, hormones will do that to ya. It's why we notice feeling bloated, feeling fat, our clothes not fitting right even when we know we have been eating right and exercising. It's temporary and will usually stop within the first day or two of your flow. That water that you're retaining weighs something so even though you haven't gained actual FAT you will likely still show an increase on the scale.

Also a diet high in sodium (or heck, even one meal high in sodium) can cause you to retain water, so if you notice an increase on the scale but realize you had, say, a chicken wings appetizer for dinner the day before, you can probably chalk it up to the sodium (most processed food and especially restaurant food is crazy high in sodium).

A third cause, any new exercise program is going to cause a temporary time of water retention. This is due to to several factors, one of them being that muscles often sustain micro-damage during many exercises and retain water as a buffer to those micro-injuries, to cushion and repair them. This is also temporary and will diminish as your body adjusts to your new exercise routine.

HTH

aimladuke

But does this mean that I have lost muscle? And what exactly is water weight?

Yes, you've likely lost a little muscle, it's normal. All you can do is, do all you can to make it minimal (eat enough protein, lift heavy).

Water weight. Also called water retention. Well first, most women retain water around their time of the month, hormones will do that to ya. It's why we notice feeling bloated, feeling fat, our clothes not fitting right even when we know we have been eating right and exercising. It's temporary and will usually stop within the first day or two of your flow. That water that you're retaining weighs something so even though you haven't gained actual FAT you will likely still show an increase on the scale.

Also a diet high in sodium (or heck, even one meal high in sodium) can cause you to retain water, so if you notice an increase on the scale but realize you had, say, a chicken wings appetizer for dinner the day before, you can probably chalk it up to the sodium (most processed food and especially restaurant food is crazy high in sodium).

A third cause, any new exercise program is going to cause a temporary time of water retention. This is due to to several factors, one of them being that muscles often sustain micro-damage during many exercises and retain water as a buffer to those micro-injuries, to cushion and repair them. This is also temporary and will diminish as your body adjusts to your new exercise routine.

HTH

I don't understand why eating healthy and going to the gym should cause you to lose muscle. I can understand if i was eating all crap (but still at a deficit) and not going to the gym, then yeah..... But thats not the case here. I am also not talking about temporary weight flucuations. This is more of the general trend.

SezxyStef

I don't understand why eating healthy and going to the gym should cause you to lose muscle. I can understand if i was eating all crap (but still at a deficit) and not going to the gym, then yeah..... But thats not the case here. I am also not talking about temporary weight flucuations. This is more of the general trend.

going to the gym and eating healthy does not guarantee you maintain muscle...you have to eat enough protien and do a progressive load lifting program to maintain the LBM.

Amelia7779

I don't understand why eating healthy and going to the gym should cause you to lose muscle. I can understand if i was eating all crap (but still at a deficit) and not going to the gym, then yeah..... But thats not the case here. I am also not talking about temporary weight flucuations. This is more of the general trend.

going to the gym and eating healthy does not guarantee you maintain muscle...you have to eat enough protien and do a progressive load lifting program to maintain the LBM.

Also, almost everyone will lose SOME muscle while cutting. Even if your protein is high and you are lifting heavy, you will lose a bit of muscle. It's hard to pin down an appropriate number, but my understanding is that keeping it to under 10% is pretty decent. If you are mostly doing cardio or circuit training, you will lose more. This is one of the reasons it's not a good idea to have a large deficit (I.e. More than tdee-20%). My best advice is to focus on (heavy) strength training, eating enough protein (about 1g/lb lean body mass) and making sure your deficit is not too large