Low Carb high fat & Muscle Loss

Just a couple thoughts.

LCHF, done correctly, isn't extreme. The 9 lbs in 14 days is a result of losing a significant amount of water weight as your deplete the glycogen out of your system. You won't sustain anywhere near that rate of actual fat loss.

As far as minimizing muscle loss - that is done primarily by incorporating a good weightlifting regimen while you shed the pounds. There's no way to lose 100% fat and 0% lean mass, but by lifting (or continuing to lift) heavy as you go.

oh, and don't mess with carb cycling until later on.

A study was published this year by Dr. GM Tinsley (and others) which was a review of 13 low-carb (fewer than 55g/day), high protein high fat diets found the majority of the studies reported a decrease in lean body mass, with few reporting an increase in lean body mass. "Fat-Free Mass Changes During Ketogenic Diets and the Potential Role of Resistance Training." International Journal of Sports Nutrition and Exercise, August 2015.

If you're doing traditional keto, which usually means lower protein as well, and the diets in the study were high protein, there are some interesting points to consider if building lean body mass is your goal as opposed to losing weight.

The initial loss is probably due to water weight, not fat loss. Not in two weeks. Though my understanding is unless you're planning on maintaining keto forever, using it for weight-loss may not be a really sustainable plan. You may gain once you reintroduce more carbs.

Maybe carb cycling could be a good in between option. (?)

I agree with the other comments. I'm not currently on LCHF diet, but I did use it to both lean down and preserve muscle. I lost over 40 lbs and actually gained some muscle. For me, the challenge was energy to fuel my workouts, especially given a caloric deficit. But like the others say, get enough protein, and do progressive overload with your resistance training. As far as cycling carbs I say listen to your body. There are several different ways to deal with carbs, and given you are low carb but probably not low enough to be on the ketogenic diet, chances are you will need to replenish from time to time to keep your muscle and liver glycogen high enough. What I did, during that weight loss period, was have carb refeed days. You can google that (see muscleforlife.com). Another way is to eat more carbs after your workouts on workout days, and less carbs on off days and also on training days prior to workout--in other words, eating very few carbs before workouts and on days off, and eating the lion's share of your carbs on workout days, but after your workout. I'm sure there are other ways, but those are two methods I have used while on generally low carb diets. Good luck to you.

Carb cycling is used by experienced lifter who already have low bf trying to get leaner. There is no need to do carb cycling to lose weight.

How do you minimize muscle loss? lift heavy and eat protein.