Fear of Losing Muscle Tone

Flixie00

This is my first year of strength training, and I have been doing upper and lower body strength work outs twice each a week fairly religiously. During the holiday period, my gym was closed for a few days, and I went 4 days where my only exercise was walking, and on the 5th day, I went for a run (wow that hurt). I hit the gym again yesterday (whoopee) and did an upper body work out, and a lower body work out today.

I look in the mirror and I reckon I have lost some muscle tone. I suspect that this is not actually true, and this is all in my mind and linked to my guilt at over indulging over the holidays. Also, my PT had mentioned to me a while ago that muscle tone goes quickly, and this may also be feeding my paranoia.

My query is, would I see deterioration that quickly, and how long could you go without working out before losing significant muscle tone?

wellbert

Depends. If it's actual muscle growth, it will stick around for a while. Takes way less effort to maintain than to create.
If your muscles are just full of water, that will 'woosh' quick.

but 'tone' comes from a reduction in body fat. Increase in bodyfat will reduce 'tone'

Just be careful not to get muscle tone-deaf because then you can't hear the difference between barbells.

mustgetmuscles1

Muscle atrophy would only happen after days of under eating and would still be a fairly slow loss. You are most likely seeing some water retention from the holiday eating. It will go away on its own once you resume your normal activity and diet.

titi4j

My husband has a chronic illness that keeps him from eating more than 40 grams of protein a day or he can go into a coma. What we learned from all of his nutritionists and his doctors is that lack of protein equals muscle wasting and there's no way around it even with exercise. Even with this drastic change in diet he did not start having muscle wasting for about 3 months. I definitely think you'll be fine. You're doing great and you'll be back with it so you'll be ok. Go easy on yourself.

lilpoindexter

No way you lost muscle that fat. You probably ate some foods which caused you to retain water and look a little puffier and less defined. NOTHING to worry about.