Fit to sedentary: preserving muscles

yirara

I'm currently sick and extremely quickly out of breath. As I went from 5x per week exercise to couch potato I recalculated my TDEE and came out at around 1662kcal for my size and weight (69kg, 169cm) when choosing sedentary lifestyle. The medication I'm taking is doing something weird to my appetite and stomach but I'm still trying to eat as much as I can. Still I don't get more down than about (yesterday) 1470kcal. Right, so that's a small negative then. Still, I'm losing more weight than that.

I do love my muscles, and I really worked hard for them. Apart from working out, is there a way to preserve them? I just tried to do 10 goblet squats with an 8kg kettlebell, and was so out of breath afterwards, though my muscles didn't really register this exercise. It's all in my lungs