Losing muscle mass along with fat

Is it just part of the course that as you lose excess fat, you lose some lean weight?

I know all about doing resistance exercise to maintain muscle mass and all that, but is it inevitable that as you are asking your muscles to cart around less bodyweight overall your muscles will decrease in mass as they don't have so much work to do across the active day?

Up that protein my man! It's imperative to muscle building. Usually people look at their macro nutrients - protein/carb/fat. These are all energy sources the body loves to feed on. Typically the body will favor the carb resource and fat. This is the consensus I've seen. Protein helps maintain and build muscle mass, it is also on the latter for energy source. Meaning, up your protein to hold onto that muscle without losing it. You may still accumulate FAT from carbs and fat consumption but if you keep your protein up then you should hold onto that sweet sweet muscle. GOOD LUCK!

The weight your carrying makes little difference but it is part of the course to a large extent.
You could try having 0.8+ grams of protein per pound of body weight and take amino acids also. Whey protein would be very useful.

This will give you a lot more chance of retaining muscle or losing less.

Nutrition is a basic must but it is more to do with eating quite abit below maintenance and in a catabolic state which by definition is breaking down/getting smaller. You must over long term at least eat maintenance or above to hold on to any muscle above your natural level, you may even go below your natural muscle level, depends.

If you eat maintenance or above your giving your body what it needs and more, this allows you to be in a anabolic state which you guessed it, in the definition is growing or getting larger and with hypertrophy workouts, protein, maintenance and sleep that is exactly what would happen.


It is very hard, some argue impossible (I found this not to be entirely true) to gain or maintain muscle whilst on a fat losing mission and whilst I managed it, it took along time and still had some way to go so I am losing my fat first now, muscle memory is your friend so don't get disheartened!


Hope this was useful!


-Blake

I lost more muscle than I wanted to, now I'm eating 250 or so over maintenance to get some back.


Things I may have done wrong:

Overtraining (calorie deficit means recovery deficit)
Too much cardio (happy with the conditioning gains though)
Deficits too steep


Things I did right:
I ate tons of protein, often 1.5 g per lb TOTAL body mass


Now I am doing resistance four times a week, upper/lower split,but that is with the surplus! On my next cut, I will be doing three days a week only, full body (and lower volume than I am now)


I did need the exercise to keep myself focused, so perhaps this couldn't be helped, so I am thinking of this as gaining experience, neurological training, and increasing my patience and grit

I've lossed a crazy amount of muscle in 2 weeks of being on the calorie deficit, Its not great but I accepted it would happen and made no attempt to stop it, as long as I am feeling okay in myself that's the main thing.
Having said that I am lucky to be a bigger built/muscle mass naturally than most so I don't look small.
If i was a little smaller naturally i don't think i could have such a lax attitude to the muscle and would definitely be stuffing myself with protein, amino acids and not training every single day as I am.


Thing is. Muscle memory is genuine and once you return to eating maintenance and doing the right things for lean muscle support, it will absolutely fly back on you so my advise is to work on your cardio & fitness levels & get them up for the time you ready to move from the calorie deficit - You will be fitter for it, lose body fat faster & will appreciate the muscle you gain back so much more

This is just what I would do though, will be different for everyone no doubt.

-Blake

Lots of great info...just wondering if it is the same for women?

Disagree, you can do both at once. These are my recent stats:

April 10:
weight of 64.1kg
32.5% bf%
17.9kg muscle

May 21:
weight of 63.8kg
30.1% bf%
18.6kg muscle

The two weeks leading up to the second test I had let myself go a little as well... but given you aim to have lots of protein and really push your muscles, you can maintain/gain, whilst losing body fat. It simply depends on your goals

edit: I was eating at a net of 1600cals most days (weekends are hard to track for me as I like my fine dining), and I have a BMR of 1430 with some cycling to university and I like to walk a fair bit. It is a small deficit, but changed my body a lot none the less!

That's an increase in lean mass, not an increase in muscle. Big difference, sorry to burst your bubble. Some of it is muscle, but am I correct in guessing you have been lifting less than six months?


Newbie gains are awesome, but it doesn't keep up forever. I wound up losing lots of my newbie gains by the time I was done with this first cut (six months on a deficit).


Lean body mass is all mass in your body not made of fat. It's not the same as muscle mass.

Disagree, you can do both at once. These are my recent stats:

April 10:
weight of 64.1kg
32.5% bf%
17.9kg muscle

May 21:
weight of 63.8kg
30.1% bf%
18.6kg muscle

The two weeks leading up to the second test I had let myself go a little as well... but given you aim to have lots of protein and really push your muscles, you can maintain/gain, whilst losing body fat. It simply depends on your goals

edit: I was eating at a net of 1600cals most days (weekends are hard to track for me as I like my fine dining), and I have a BMR of 1430 with some cycling to university and I like to walk a fair bit. It is a small deficit, but changed my body a lot none the less!

That's an increase in lean mass, not an increase in muscle. Big difference, sorry to burst your bubble. Some of it is muscle, but am I correct in guessing you have been lifting less than six months?


Newbie gains are awesome, but it doesn't keep up forever. I wound up losing lots of my newbie gains by the time I was done with this first cut (six months on a deficit).


Lean body mass is all mass in your body not made of fat. It's not the same as muscle mass.

yeah it definitely depends where you are in your journey - I am a 21 year old female, I am not starting with large amounts of muscle. And this is muscle mass which I have had measured... (sorry my reports are in Japanese otherwise I'd happily link a photo), which I also discussed with the trainer. Depends your definition of lean mass vs muscle? I naively had always felt it was generally the same thing in a casual context. My strength has greatly improved (leg pressing over 100kgs now).

I just don't think it's all doom and gloom if you don't try to rush the loss. That being said, starting yesterday I decided I wanted to kick off at least another 3% in the next 2 months so time for my eating habits to get much stricter (and not be disappointed with reduced lean mass).

Jess

I have no idea how much of my weight is "muscle mass" and really i don't care, other then in my arms and legs which is obvious i have definitiion there, but doing core my stomach has reduced considerably and underneath feels alot stronger and tighter then the bloated flab it was b4

Now initially i was doing all cardio and eating at a deficit of 1000 + not eating back any exercise calories and i wasn't overdoing proteins or carbs, i lost alot of weight really fast, water and no doubt some muscle, how much i dunno i was still taking protein b4 each session

Then i swapped around to doing more weights and core + more intense cardio and try to eat more protein and a moderate amount of carbs and i've slowed down weight loss but my core and muscles are enabling me to lift heavier and go longer and stronger on the bike and jogging so it must be working.

according to my biometric scales my Fat % has reduced from 40ish% to currently sitting around 30% and water level is stable around 50-51% in 3 months but obviously thats not an exact science

Disagree, you can do both at once. These are my recent stats:

April 10:
weight of 64.1kg
32.5% bf%
17.9kg muscle

May 21:
weight of 63.8kg
30.1% bf%
18.6kg muscle

The two weeks leading up to the second test I had let myself go a little as well... but given you aim to have lots of protein and really push your muscles, you can maintain/gain, whilst losing body fat. It simply depends on your goals

edit: I was eating at a net of 1600cals most days (weekends are hard to track for me as I like my fine dining), and I have a BMR of 1430 with some cycling to university and I like to walk a fair bit. It is a small deficit, but changed my body a lot none the less!

That's an increase in lean mass, not an increase in muscle. Big difference, sorry to burst your bubble. Some of it is muscle, but am I correct in guessing you have been lifting less than six months?


Newbie gains are awesome, but it doesn't keep up forever. I wound up losing lots of my newbie gains by the time I was done with this first cut (six months on a deficit).


Lean body mass is all mass in your body not made of fat. It's not the same as muscle mass.

yeah it definitely depends where you are in your journey - I am a 21 year old female, I am not starting with large amounts of muscle. And this is muscle mass which I have had measured... (sorry my reports are in Japanese otherwise I'd happily link a photo), which I also discussed with the trainer. Depends your definition of lean mass vs muscle? I naively had always felt it was generally the same thing in a casual context. My strength has greatly improved (leg pressing over 100kgs now).

I just don't think it's all doom and gloom if you don't try to rush the loss. That being said, starting yesterday I decided I wanted to kick off at least another 3% in the next 2 months so time for my eating habits to get much stricter (and not be disappointed with reduced lean mass).

Jess

A better way to think of your gain is as "non fat mass". Your trainer simply measured fat, subtracted that estimate from total mass, and got a number. It's not a measurement of muscle.

You're doing the right thing!

But your strength gains are mostly neurological, and this recomposition you are experiencing will probably slow down, and depending on how long and how hard you cut, you may start to lose muscle, or at the very least, stop building non fat mass.

Electrical impedance? Those machines SUCK for accuracy.


Even so, and even if it is right, lean mass is not the same as muscle. It's everything in your body that isn't fat. As in, everything.

You absolutely should be strength training while losing weight. The idea that you can lose it all using cardio and then easily put it back on is utter rubbish. Eat at a slight calorie deficit,, strength train and add some cardio for conditioning and to allow yourself some more calories. Real muscle gains are hard won even for men. Yes, you get some easy gains in the beginning but that stops quite quickly.

If you want to chat about this I am happy to respond to PMs. My wife is also on here and she has been through the cutting and bulking with me, is also 40, and is quite lean and strong.

If you are at a calorific deficit you will lose definition noticeably. This is a mixture of loss of water and glycogen stores from the muscles. This is why when people start dieting they see such a dramatic loss initially.

When you go to maintenance/surplus you will get more definition back.

.

Actually when you're in calorie deficit you gain definition (loss of fat revealing muscle). You're speaking of losing lean body mass which is normal when losing weight. To what degree depends on your nutrition and training program.

A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
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Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

..... is it inevitable that as you are asking your muscles to cart around less bodyweight overall your muscles will decrease in mass as they don't have so much work to do across the active day?

Some LBM will always be lost when you're cutting. How much is completely up to you. If you challenge the muscles with enough of a load, you're body will hold on to as much LBM as possible. If you aren't challenging the muscles, your body will release LBM fairly quickly. This is why we lift heavy things.

..... is it inevitable that as you are asking your muscles to cart around less bodyweight overall your muscles will decrease in mass as they don't have so much work to do across the active day?

Some LBM will always be lost when you're cutting. How much is completely up to you. If you challenge the muscles with enough of a load, you're body will hold on to as much LBM as possible. If you aren't challenging the muscles, your body will release LBM fairly quickly. This is why we lift heavy things.

QFT