What's wrong with losing lean muscle?

If you dislike someones body type -- please don't use terms like UGLY and DISGUSTING. There are other people who look like that model and the sporty girl out in the world and those words can cut like a knife.

So we can't have opinons anymore unless they contain nice terms? Awesome.

While everyone is entitled to their own choice to encourage you to lose any more weight would be to encourage an eating disorder. Sorry. Please seek help and take care of yourself.

Thank you for the concern, but as i have stated before I am naturally lanky, I didn't join MFP to lose weight and I have not lost or plan to lose any weight. I just wanted to make sure I'm eating healthy. I have been the same weight since I stopped growing and I do not / have not ever had an ED. It is a bit offensive when people tell me to 'seek help' for being born this way.

If you don't have an ED, then you don't have an ED. However, you are underweight. Without a bf% it's hard to know the whole picture. You might consider getting an estimate of it from one of these bf% calculators: http://www.fat2fitradio.com/tools/

While everyone is entitled to their own choice to encourage you to lose any more weight would be to encourage an eating disorder. Sorry. Please seek help and take care of yourself.

Thank you for the concern, but as i have stated before I am naturally lanky, I didn't join MFP to lose weight and I have not lost or plan to lose any weight. I just wanted to make sure I'm eating healthy. I have been the same weight since I stopped growing and I do not / have not ever had an ED. It is a bit offensive when people tell me to 'seek help' for being born this way.

You are over 10 kilos under a healthy weight. That isn't "lanky." That's unhealthy. You have some serious body dysmorphia issues if you see yourself as "too muscly." and if you think you're muscly, it's probably due to the fact that you don't have enough body fat on your body.

Sorry, but your posts scream eating disorder/body dysmorphia, which also screams professional therapy and help.

If you dislike someones body type -- please don't use terms like UGLY and DISGUSTING. There are other people who look like that model and the sporty girl out in the world and those words can cut like a knife.

So we can't have opinons anymore unless they contain nice terms? Awesome.

Everyone has opinions.. some people are just more respectful in how they deliver theirs.

There are many health risk factors if you lose LBM, these are:

1. slower metabolism - since muscles are metabolically active & needed more calories to sustain itself
2. osteoperosis - lack of muscle will make our bones do less work & therefore lose bone density.
3. it can lead to disease like heart disease, diabetes, cancer, etc. (not to mention that our heart is a muscle too)
4. it just won't look good on our body. Those Hollywood celebrities you mention does a lot of exercise to keep their muscles. I even read that Scarlett Johansson rocks a kettlebell. Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel & others also do strength training workouts. You would end up looking more like Nicole Richie or Lindsay Lohan if you lose muscle.
5. you will feel weak since it is our muscles that keeps us strong

Finally having muscle doesn't equate to having bodybuilder like body. Those gals who are like that do HOURS of training everyday & with some "help". It is impossible for a woman to grow big muscles like a man since we don't have enough testosterone levels for it. What we can only get from having more muscles is a toned, shapely body.

Glad you wrote this out so I could just be lazy and quote you.

Op: it is true that many women would need to lose lean mass to get the number really low on the scale, like I prob can't weigh much less than 130 due to lean mass... But nobody has ever in my life when I was fatter or skinnier been able to guess my weight because I have muscle so I look smaller than if I were the same weight and more fat. Building muscle is hard, so just try losing weight and maintaining your muscle through adequate nutrition and resistance training. If you don't like what you see, muscle suicide later

Half the battle in the body image game is choosing realistic goals.

The only way anyone is ever going to look like Abbey is if they are very tall in the first place, and still very young - that low body fat and low muscle combination can only really look good on a very long frame, and you'll note that most former supermodels - the Cindys, Lindas etc of this world, have actually increased their weight and muscle mass as they have got older as that look can tend to be aging once you get out of your twenties.

I am quoting this one, because I feel the OP is more concerned about looking a certain way.

So, in your 20s....you can look great with not much muscle tone and being super skinny. But, as you age, you start looking sick. Your sin is not as tight, the muscles start looking more loose, your metabolism has dropped, so you have to eat less. Sooo, these models that have starved themselves to stay so thin by the time they hit my age (42), look like crap. If you keep your muscles healthier, you will look better as you age.

If a woman in naturally underweight and thin, then that is fine...you can not help what your body looks like and you should embrace a thin body. But, if you want to starve yourself and lose muscle mass to look super thin, I think that is wrong...but it is your body, so do what you want...I don't care! :drinker:

Every word of this.

That's ok. I wasn't trying to offend when I said I thought she was too muscly, I am sure in many people's eyes she has an ideal body, it was just my personal opinion. I'm not trying to promote the model look, everybody is different and find different things attractive, it's just that I have always felt my body was different so I can relate to their skinny bodies and don't feel so abnormal.

Ok, please just understand that the responses you will see over and over in this thread come from a place of concern. Please just strive to be healthy. Eat well and eat plenty, you don't need to lose any weight. You can even set your goals to gain a few pounds. You can certainly do that in a healthy way and you won't look bad at all. You never need to feel abnormal, losing muscle won't make anything better.

Just take care of your health. Eat and know that you don't need to lose any weight. :flowerforyou:

To the OP... I don't know at what point you are starting from, but if you have a lot to lose and you don't strength train, you will end up with a lot of loose skin. Muscle supports the space that the fat leaves behind, and the actions of resistance and movement in strength training help to restore skin elasticity.

Read her replies, she is 5'10, 109, at that weight and height, there is not much fat or muscle to lose.

see ^^ that 'musclyness' is exactly what I want to avoid. I think Snejana looks amazing, so ethereal.

She is too skinny, very low muscle mass. Her body looks loke a 10 yr olds not a woman. How old is she?

Considering she is, in fact, a woman, it seems she does look like a woman.

I'm all for educating someone on the benefits of maintaining a healthy amount of muscle, but can we please stop insulting any woman who isn't YOUR ideal? Thanks.

Her body looks like a child's. I think from later pics she's put on some weight and looks better. I like the thin look but that is too thin. Intentionally done by under-eating.

And some women (yes, ADULT WOMEN) look like that without trying. I know several. I don't get why so many people here have to be insulting because another woman looks different than their particular goal.

How about some respect that we're not clones?

The runway is nothing but clones , why are you defending it? Seriously, you talk about respect and not bowing to other people's ideal images, yet the professional modeling world is nothing if not the epitome of bowing to an ideal image. Instead, you're getting snippy on people who support women being at a comfortable body fat % with a healthy muscle tone to promote a healthier way of living that reaps benefits even into old age.

I'm not defending the runway. I'm defending all the "real women" out there who don't fit the ideal of the people in this thread who have called them "ugly" and "disgusting."

Believe it or not, there are women -- REAL WOMEN -- who are very thin and not because they starve themselves or don't work out or whatever. Some women really are just very thin. And, you know what? Some people -- men and women -- actually find that look attractive.

Just imagine if I came on here and said any women with a body fat percentage below 25 were "disgusting" and "ugly." Would you be upset about that? I think so.

Thank you. Up until a couple of years ago I was VERY thin...naturally. I ate pizza and chilled on the couch. I looked just like the run way model only because of my natural build but my hip bones showed more. HOW EMBARRASSING! I didn't even want to see myself naked much less have anyone else see me that way. I simply could not gain weight. Now that I'm older, that's not an issue anymore and I LOVE fitness.

I can't even count how many times I was insulted and put down and accused of having an ED. That's as terrible as putting down a heavy person and accusing them of having an ED. I would never!

With that said, I have never, NOT once in my life, suffered a lack of male interest. People can say what they want here but men like ALL different types of women, even the skinny ones

That's ok. I wasn't trying to offend when I said I thought she was too muscly, I am sure in many people's eyes she has an ideal body, it was just my personal opinion. I'm not trying to promote the model look, everybody is different and find different things attractive, it's just that I have always felt my body was different so I can relate to their skinny bodies and don't feel so abnormal.

Ok, please just understand that the responses you will see over and over in this thread come from a place of concern. Please just strive to be healthy. Eat well and eat plenty, you don't need to lose any weight. You can even set your goals to gain a few pounds. You can certainly do that in a healthy way and you won't look bad at all. You never need to feel abnormal, losing muscle won't make anything better.

Just take care of your health. Eat and know that you don't need to lose any weight. :flowerforyou:

Well said

see ^^ that 'musclyness' is exactly what I want to avoid. I think Snejana looks amazing, so ethereal.

She is too skinny, very low muscle mass. Her body looks loke a 10 yr olds not a woman. How old is she?

Considering she is, in fact, a woman, it seems she does look like a woman.

I'm all for educating someone on the benefits of maintaining a healthy amount of muscle, but can we please stop insulting any woman who isn't YOUR ideal? Thanks.

Her body looks like a child's. I think from later pics she's put on some weight and looks better. I like the thin look but that is too thin. Intentionally done by under-eating.

And some women (yes, ADULT WOMEN) look like that without trying. I know several. I don't get why so many people here have to be insulting because another woman looks different than their particular goal.

How about some respect that we're not clones?

The runway is nothing but clones , why are you defending it? Seriously, you talk about respect and not bowing to other people's ideal images, yet the professional modeling world is nothing if not the epitome of bowing to an ideal image. Instead, you're getting snippy on people who support women being at a comfortable body fat % with a healthy muscle tone to promote a healthier way of living that reaps benefits even into old age.

I'm not defending the runway. I'm defending all the "real women" out there who don't fit the ideal of the people in this thread who have called them "ugly" and "disgusting."

Believe it or not, there are women -- REAL WOMEN -- who are very thin and not because they starve themselves or don't work out or whatever. Some women really are just very thin. And, you know what? Some people -- men and women -- actually find that look attractive.

Just imagine if I came on here and said any women with a body fat percentage below 25 were "disgusting" and "ugly." Would you be upset about that? I think so.

25% body fat on a woman is already a borderline between ideal & overfatness. I'm close to 20% body fat but I don't look anywhere near skinny

I can eat like a pig. I'm only 21 so can still get away with it. I'm sorry if you think this thread is pro-ana or thinspo. I hate that culture and really feel sorry for the young girls who get caught up in it.

OK, my suggestion is that you should start exercising and working on eating the healthiest foods you can MOST OF THE TIME. Not because you need to lose weight and I'm with the others that I doubt your legs are very large (muscle or no) at your height and weight. I don't know how that's possible. But I will say that at your age, I was able to eat what I wanted and not exercise and be quite thin. And then a few years later, that was no longer the case and I had to totally relearn how to eat and start exercising more regularly.

That may or may not happen to you, but you can head it off now.

I'll take your word that you're not anorexic, especially at your young age. I have a good friend since high school who was 5'9" and 99 pounds and she WANTED to weigh more. She overate and lifted weights just to try and put on weight and she couldn't. She was also healthy. (According to the people in this thread, she was "ugly" and "disgusting.") So if you say you're eating and not ana, I'm not going to question it.

But I will say that muscle is a good thing to have. You need it for far more important reasons than how you look.

I know this will fall on deaf ears, but what the hell...

Current estimates of fat vs muscle in terms of energy expenditure are 2 calories per pound of fat and 6 per pound of muscle. So if you lost 20 pounds of fat and then gained 20 pounds of muscle (something I think a lot of us would *love* to do), you're looking at a net increase of 80 calories per day to your BMR.

In other words, there are a ton of reasons why muscle is good and fat is bad. But the idea that muscle is some kind of magical fat burner is, well... simply not true.

References:

http://muscleevo.net/muscle-metabolism/

http://www.dailyspark.com/blog.asp?post=how_many_calories_does_muscle_really_burn_not_as_much_as_you_think

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/how-many-calories-does-muscle-really-burn-and-why-its-not-about-calories-anyway/#axzz1uNVP9WzH