Injury and maintaining muscle

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sarahlockhart0522
sarahlockhart0522 Posts: 4 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
So I've recently been sidelined from pretty much all exercise with a knee and shoulder injury. I'm left with just walking basically and even that hurts.
My question is how do I continue to lose fat without losing my hard earned muscle?
I am 6ft, 188 pounds. 26.4% bf, wanting to lose 8 more pounds of fat, and I eat about 1800 calories.

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  • SonyaCele
    SonyaCele Posts: 2,841 Member
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    you can continue to lose fat by eating at a deficit. but sadly depending on your injuries you may lose muscle. atrophy is very common with injuries and takes lots of rehab to bring back, that's just the nature of the beast. Talk to your PT about ways you can minimize any atrophy, even simple things like routinely flexing the muscles around the injury can help
  • jham2017
    jham2017 Posts: 8 Member
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    I went through something very similar. Except I let myself lose all my gains. But remembee that it will be much easier to achieve them once youve lost them because your body has already peaked there. I got all my gains back and got stronger even after tearing my acl and having surgery
  • Willbenchforcupcakes
    Willbenchforcupcakes Posts: 4,955 Member
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    What I did was just eat at maintenance. I worked incredibly hard to build up the muscle and strength in my legs, and I wasn't going to allow being sidelined with an SI separation to take back my work. My strength feels like it's still there in that 65-70% on squats and deadlifts still feels like 65-70%, but we will see how my higher range is when I get to reload completely after my next competition.
  • roninviiirs
    roninviiirs Posts: 8 Member
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    If I was hurt and can't train but still have a weight loss goal, I think I would stay with a deficit. Lose that 8 lbs of fat. You can't do much due to being hurt so you can still win as a couch potato. Build back some mass later when you can train. That's what I would do. You could also just go in maintenance mode I guess. But then you'll just be an average couch potato. :smiley:

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