Acceptable muscle loss when losing while lifting?

fivethreeone

You can safely lose up to 1% of your body weight per week, assuming your protein is adequate for your needs.

So a body builder with current 7% BF weighing 240 lbs could go for 2.4 lbs weekly with a 1200 cal deficit to say a TDEE of 3500 (5 days lifting 1 hr and 5 days walking 30 min)? In other words a 34% deficit amount?

Actually, you didn't even clarify if lifting was needed in that safe loss, or what is safe about it, or what is adequate protein.

I'll agree 1% is decent starting place with certain amount of fat to lose, but the extremes prove out it's not universally a good recommendation without more facts.

When I said "you," I was speaking to the OP.

threnjen

@threnjen you and I are the same height and BF%, and you are actually at my desired weight goal but I can see how at 28% you still want to lose some bf. I am not an expert by any means but it seems to me that you are over doing it in terms of cardio and not eating enough
I think if I was in your shoes (135lbs) I would concentrate on lifting because it is so close to goal and you can still lose fat/weight with a small deficit

Hey! Good luck You can do it!

I don't do a lot of cardio deliberately, it's just because the gym is only a mile away, so I usually run there and then run (or briskly walk) home afterward. So it just kinda happens. And I am embarrassingly slow >.< So it takes me a while.

I've already started eating more (although haybales' spreadsheet told me to eat exactly what I was eating before, almost to the calorie, so that was funny. Can only assume I am underestimating my activity). I've added on 100 cal/day so I should not lose quite as aggressively.

I'm kind of torn between switching to .5lb/week vs being too vain, as I still want to lose a good amount, and there is a dress I would love to wear on Halloween if I happen to get there (but it is NOT a fixed "required" goal, just a hope). We also have a vacation in December and I want to look super badass in our vacation pictures. Vanity might get the best of me =/

7aneena

I've already started eating more (although haybales' spreadsheet told me to eat exactly what I was eating before, almost to the calorie, so that was funny. Can only assume I am underestimating my activity). I've added on 100 cal/day so I should not lose quite as aggressively.

I'm kind of torn between switching to .5lb/week vs being too vain, as I still want to lose a good amount, and there is a dress I would love to wear on Halloween if I happen to get there (but it is NOT a fixed "required" goal, just a hope). We also have a vacation in December and I want to look super badass in our vacation pictures. Vanity might get the best of me =/

Good luck, I am interested how things work out for you

Azdak

There is no such thing as "lean" muscle, that's a cut of beef basically. Any site you see talking about lean muscle is silly, you can no more control that then you can control where you lose the fat first and last.
Some muscle has more fat in (encouraged with endurance cardio), some doesn't.

You have fat mass, and you have non-fat mass, otherwise called Lean Body Mass (LBM - because no fat in it). That's where the "lean" applies.

But LBM is EVERYTHING but fat - so organs, muscle, bones, water, ect.

You are starting from the wrong premise and discussion so far isn't about the right thing.

When you first start a diet, some of the initial water weight lost is sodium retained because usually people eat less sodium.
But other of it is less water stored with carbs in the muscle.

All of that lack of water is LBM.

Now, the water with carbs in the muscle did take energy to manage, so metabolism does drop with less of that to take care of.

But come out of the diet and eat up your carbs and gain 1-2 lbs of water weight - metabolism for that reason is back again.

Strength training is going to help retain muscle mass - with reasonable deficit and enough protein studies have shown all can be retained.

Make the deficit too extreme and despite using most of the muscle with lifting, some can be lost. Most used is last lost. Least used first lost.
Rather, with lack of calories some just doesn't get built back up to prior levels - body is always breaking down muscle, using it just tells body to build it back up.

^^this. Also, 17 days is too son to reliably measure anything. This is a complete non-issue.

meerkat70

I thought you should eat back all exercise calories if using a HRM because that's as close to accurate burn as you will get

No. Take your sedentary cals off first. I normally work to about 60% of burnt cals, when I'm working out properly.

RHachicho

It's 17 days in all likelihood the vast majority of your lean mass loss is accounted for by your muscles releasing glycogen. When you are in a caloric surplus your muscles fill their tanks. And hold a lot of water to counterbalance it. But when you are running a negative calorie balance your muscles are a bit more conservative in how much fuel they ask for. This is why often at the start of a weight loss plan someone loses a lot of weight in a short amount of time. And this is also why someone who goes from a diet to a surplus or maintenance sometimes freaks out because they suddenly gain 2/3lbs. It's not fat but your muscles have decided there's enough energy to go around again.