Muscle, 30 day shred ect. So confused

Arexxx
Arexxx Posts: 486 Member
edited December 2024 in Fitness and Exercise
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/699286-how-many-pounds-of-muscle-could-i-really-put-on

I read this topic, and it states that you can only realistically put on 7-10 pounds of muscle a year. So my question is; why have I lost like 4 inches doing the 30 day shred?

I thought I was gaining muscle and toning up a bit doing this circuit training... as previously I hardly ever got out of bed. (depression.) So am I really not gaining any muscle? WHAT IS GOING ON THEN. IT ALL FEELS SO POINTLESS.
JEEEZZ D;

Replies

  • opuntia
    opuntia Posts: 860 Member
    Surely if you're gaining muscle, you will be losing inches, because you're also losing fat, and muscle takes up less space than fat, because it's denser. I'm gaining muscle from the 30-day shred and also losing inches. Can't you feel the muscle in your arms and legs and tummy? I keep touching my biceps and flexing them to feel the new muscle in there! It's such a novelty to feel firm muscles - my arms were all soft and squishy before!
  • mirandamayhem
    mirandamayhem Posts: 772
    Why is it pointless if you've lost 4inches? I don't understand. You're seeing good results.
    Are you going to be accurately measuring your body composition and knowing exactly how much muscle you have at any point in the future?
    We can become so fixated in fat to muscle etc etc, we can literally miss out on the successes we have right in front of us.
  • AnvilHead
    AnvilHead Posts: 18,343 Member
    It's difficult to gain muscle while in a caloric deficit, but weight training (and adequate protein intake) helps preserve your lean body mass (i.e., your muscle) as you lose fat. Losing fat means losing inches. The weight training is very beneficial by helping you keep your existing muscle (and maybe put on small amounts of "newbie gains") as you lose the fat - therefore, you shrink in inches and the fat that's blurring your muscle definition goes away, making your muscles look better and more defined, and not feel so "squishy". Without the weight training, you tend to lose more muscle in proportion to the fat, which heads you toward the "skinny fat" look (slender, but with high body fat and no visible muscles) - basically a smaller, but equally squishy version of what you were before you lost the weight.
  • iammegs
    iammegs Posts: 38 Member
    I can't believe one can only put on 7-10 pounds of muscle in a year. Think about people in traumatic accidents who are bedridden for weeks, can hardly stand or walk, and then after a few months of therapy, can walk and move normally again. There's no way they could make all those changes without gaining a lot of muscle back.

    Even if it weren't possible, if your waist line is going down but the scale isn't (and if you don't have access to a fat/water percentage scale), you might be retaining more water due to having more muscle.

    I'm doing the 30-day shred myself and even if I couldn't tell from other ways (seeing more muscle on my arms!) that I'm gaining muscle, I can tell I'm getting stronger because the same actions are coming more easily. :) Losing inches, getting stronger... that's really what I've been trying to lose weight for, anyway!
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