For men: weight maintenance/ fat loss

During weight loss, our bodies have a tendency to attack muscle-tissue while it's getting the fat. This is because it's easier for it to break down the protein in our muscles for fuel/energy rather than going to the food and carbs that we consume during times of dieting where we have a caloric deficit to compensate for the shortcoming of such energy into the body.

So here's a couple of things that I would recommend for you, to help ensure that you are keeping all of that hard-earned muscle:
- Consume Casein protein each night before bed. It's a slower-digested protein as compared to Whey. But during the night, while your body enters a catabolic state, you wouldn't want a faster digested protein such as Whey because once your body takes in that Whey, it's just going to go for your muscles again. So because the breakdown of Casein protein takes such a long time, it's highly advised for you to consume that before bed each night. This is why you'll see many fitness models and body builders consume cottage cheese before bed as well, because it's full of Casein protein! The protein in milk is about 80% Casein as well.
- Drink lots of protein throughout the day. I usually start with a protein shake first thing in the morning after I wake up to give my metabolism a jumpstart (*edit, forgot to add this part*) as your body is still in a catabolic state and feeding off your lovely muscular physique (/edit). Consume protein right after your workouts, etc. I'm sure you're aware of the benefits of protein a this point.
- Don't restrict the intake of carbohydrates in an effort to lose weight. I'd recommend balancing out your diet, making sure you get in spread out amounts of Carbs, Protein, and Fat in your daily nutrition.

I'm pretty sure that I'm burning through muscle as well at this point because protein is so damn expensive for a college student trying to cut! Once I reach my goal weight, I'm just going to build up from there. (*Edit*) If you want to lose weight really fast, try not to concentrate on muscle. If you're more disciplined (I'm not), then you should expect to lose very, very slowly in an effort to preserve as much muscle as possible. So, if anything, if you can't/won't do everything in your ability to lose slowly to preserve muscle, then you can take the other steps that I've recommended to reduce as much muscle-breakdown as possible (/edit). I hope this response has helped you out some!

Here's something a competition bodybuilder messaged me here, on MFP, regarding a similar question (except mine was about HIIT/LISS and muscle-breakdown):
"Just depends on your body; my guess is for you to concentrate on losing weight real, real slowly. Nothing more than 1 pound. Simply because you won't feel the "hunger" and two it will "help" preserve as much muscle. I hate it when people state, 3500 calories in 1 pound of fat so you "should" strive for that deficit. What they are ignorant of is that about 550-600 calories is in 1 pound of muscle. So if you diet quickly and weight just falls off you, well then, it may as well be muscle. But the downside is if you have a lot of weight to lose, it may take a while, so it's a trade off. If you have 50 lbs to lose, then target 1-year. I think that's prudent right? Don't go for that I need to lose all 50lbs or so in 6 months. It probably took awhile to pack on whatever or however much weight you've put on over the years, so the best and prudent thing is to take it slow. Slow sucks but in the end you will have a physique most people would dream of. There's a difference between losing 50lbs and being fit-looking with clothes ON and losing 50lbs and being fit-looking with clothes OFF. I really don't know how much you need to lose, I just chose 50 because it equates easy with 1 year's worth of dieting."

bump for later

I love cottage cheese. I used to avoid it, because I thought cottage cheese caused people to be fat.
I mean, who else but fat people ever eat the stuff - right?:laugh:

Seriously, thanks!

You are very welcome! I, personally, think cottage cheese tastes disgusting and I have a hard time getting it down. A really hard time!
If you look at my diary from Saturday evening, you'll notice "Friendship - All Natural Low Fat Cottage Cheese 1% Milkfat No Salt Added, 1/2 cup (113g)". The worst part in the nutrition of this particular cottage cheese was the sugar, when sifting through all of the brands of cottage cheese you see at the store, I would recommend picking out whatever one you can afford to eat. When I eat the cottage cheese at night, I don't have many calories left to afford eating one of higher calories, sodium, etc. I've never been concerned with calories from protein, as you can see I hit 100g+ of protein each day! (I strive for 150+ but protein gets expensive after a while)

Strength training is a great way to burn off fat while preserving/building muscle, depending you what you want.