Muscle loss??

If you don't get enough protien and do some sort of resistence training and eat too little food yes you will lose muscle.

Even when you do it all right there is still muscle loss...it can't be helped.

Depending on what you ate your husband is correct...not all 20lbs...but there was muscle loss.

Yup, sorry he's right ...

Your kinetic chain is bottom-heavy from running. If you do an assessment (or better, have one done), it will probably reveal areas where you've added muscle (Quads and Calfs) but you probably have lost some upper body strength. The yoga will help with some overall strength, particularly down and upward dog and so forth...but if you're in the usual runner-group dynamic, your friend may be right---you may have actually lost some muscle.

As you said, you really just wanted to tone up to fit in those pants better---losing 20 pounds means you dropped nearly 14% of your body weight. I doubt if you had that much fat to lose, right? Get your BFP checked and make sure it's 12 or higher---less than that for you would not be ideal more than likely. Then add some upper-body resistance and add some muscle back there---you'll look fabulous!

For a woman that would be very hard to acheive. Most women who are fit aim for 18-20%.

I'm cutting at the min and if i didn't lift weights i'd lose a lot of muscle mass . When you bulk you gain muscle and fat,when you lose weight you lose fat and muscle

If you are not using it, you are losing it. The 20+ weight loss was definitely muscle. Guaranteed!

When I started out here, I weighed 145 pounds (I'm 5' 5"). I wasn't really trying to lose much weight, I just wanted my capri pants to fit better. I could button them, but they were a little snug. Anyway, at the time I was training for a 1/2 marathon (I've done two since then). I now weigh 124 pounds and my capri pants are too big now.

DH and I were wrestling the other day, and, as he flipped me over his shoulder and pinned me to the ground, he said, "I couldn't do this before you lost 20 pounds. You've lost a lot of muscle."

I argue that I've not really lost muscle; there's just 20+ pounds less of me to throw around.

I don't lift weights, but I swim, run, and do yoga.

Thoughts about muscle loss due to weight loss? I think he's full of crap.

Weight loss will include lean muscle tissue to an extent. To what extent will depend on whether or not one tried to retain the muscle and that's usually done by doing moderate resistance training while losing weight. Just doing cardio and body weight exercises (losing weight reduces resistance) can accelerate lean muscle loss.

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I am a runner mysely and will be competeing in my second Marathon at the end of the month. I still lift weights every once in a while but overall I am pretty lean or skinny I guess. I have been in two different body types when I have been at wat I considered optimal fitness levels but both had different goals. When I was in the Marines and felt I was most fit I weiged 195 lbs and was storng as all get out but I lifted all the time with very little cardio probably close to about 14-15 % body fat if not a little less (i didn't keep track back then). I am now 168 lbs and can run a marathon with no issues and I feel I am once again at an optimal fitness level and I am sitting right around the same body fat I was when I was at 195 lbs. The increased cardio and less muscle mass does not mean you are less fit just that your muslces are trained for what you are doing. If you were to lift wieghts all the time instead of train for running yes you would have more muscle weight but you would still be able to have the same body fat and lean muscle mass percentages.

Is it bad you lost muscle, not neccissarily because your goals seem to include a lot of running and you do not need a ton of muscle to run long distances, your muscles just have to be super efficient at burning oxygen and calories. I think as a runner you are doing good with the yoga and swimming but if you do want some MORE upper body strength back a light weight lifting program will always benefit you in keeping your body in balance. If you want more muscle weight in general run shorter distances and lift more weights and try and eat all your calories back that you burn. It depends on your goals and how you feel about yourself.

Personally I am shortening distances myself after this marathon but I am looking to gain speed for a few months and then changing over to half marathons again so I don't expect to gain a huge amount of muslce myself overall but I think I will gain a little as I incorporate more wieght lifting and I almost always eat my calories back.

Swimming, running and yoga are not enough to maintain muscle while on a deficit. You most likely did lose some muscle.

Start lifting weights.

If you lost that much weight without lifting, then yeah, you lost muscle. When you lose weight it doesn't discriminate so much between which weight in your body you lose and muscle tissue is expensive, especially if you are doing a lot of cardio which is catabolic itself. Start lifting! You wont regret it.