Should I skip my rest days??? Am I losing muscle???

mtweety33
mtweety33 Posts: 29
edited September 20 in Health and Weight Loss
Hello everyone. I could sure use some advice. This week I decided to workout 5 days a week instead of my usual 6 just to see if the extra day of rest in between workouts would make a difference. So I did not work out yesterday (Friday) and I never workout on Mondays. I weighed myself this morning and lost 1.2lbs since yesterday with no exercise! It's not too uncommon for me to lose that amount in one day every now and then but it's usually after a long day or good workout. Anyway, my question is, Should I be worried that I'm losing muscle and not fat??? Should I go back to working out 6 days a week instead of 5???

Thanks for the feedback.

P.S. I do eat healthy even on my rest days...

143295.png
Created by MyFitnessPal.com - Free Calorie Chart

(I've lost more than that but I don't update til Monday:wink: )

Replies

  • savvystephy
    savvystephy Posts: 4,151 Member
    If you take an extra day to rest and eat well, I don't think there will be a negative effect. Just listen to your body and if you need that extra day, take it.

    If you are working out, you shouldn't be too worried about losing muscle. From my understanding, that can happen if you are only dieting. You are making yourself stronger through exercise, therefore gaining muscle. If you want to gain more muscle, then add strength training to your workout regimen.

    Just listen to your body! :flowerforyou:
  • dewdrop
    dewdrop Posts: 1,715 Member
    Actually from what I know, your muscles need a break in order to recover. So doing strength training two days in a row is not a good idea anyhow. In fact, I was told by a trainer that I need a two days break :huh: :smile: . So I'd reccomend you alternate workouts (you are probably doing this already). Cardio 3 times a week, strenght 2 - or vice versa, depending on goal.

    I would suspect it's water weight. An observation I've made is that after hard workouts I gain! (and I think it's the muscles retaining fluid to recover, but I am not documented on this).

    Congrats on the weight loss! I had a look at your profile (checking to see if you have a public food diary and you're not undereating :smile: ) and I must say you do look amazing in the pic at 190lbs! Good luck with the rest of the journey, and make sure you eat healthy. :flowerforyou:
  • mtweety33
    mtweety33 Posts: 29
    Thank you for responding!!! Sad that my post had over 100 views and only 2 people were kind enough to reply. Thank you for your advice and support. :flowerforyou:

    143295.png
    Created by MyFitnessPal.com - Free Calorie Chart
  • dewdrop
    dewdrop Posts: 1,715 Member
    Thank you for responding!!! Sad that my post had over 100 views and only 2 people were kind enough to reply. Thank you for your advice and support. :flowerforyou:

    I almost deleted mine, because I felt I had no entitled opinion (as I did not read much on building muscle, neither have I done research on it). And then I hit the "Back" botton on my browser thinking that even if I'm wrong, the more knowledgeable people will get to see your post this way :wink: and will correct me.

    So don't take it personally. The other 90 viewers might be just shy or not have enough experience yet. And the ones who do, might just be outdoors on Saturday, at the gym or maybe just at the Cinema :smile: . Probably by the time they checked the new posts, yours had jumped off sight (since the site functions on a most recent viewed basis, only the last ones stay on the first page).

    :flowerforyou: Keep asking, at times you get luckier (talking from experience :happy: :ohwell: :glasses: ) I sometimes bumped my own threads, to make them jump on the view page :blushing: :laugh:

    Another hint: try browsing for key words regarding what bothers you: the subjects might've already been discussed on the boards.

    Good luck and keep up the good work! :flowerforyou:
  • SHBoss1673
    SHBoss1673 Posts: 7,161 Member
    Dew is right, weekends, (for me at least) are "doing stuff" days, so I rarely come on MFP on Saturday or Sunday.

    As to the rest day, keep it, it's good to rest your muscles, you don't decrease muscle size in one day, or two days, or even (for all practical purposes) a week. Muscle reduces very slowly, unless you are starving yourself, then it'll happen quicker, but even then, a couple of days won't do much damage (nothing really noticable muscle-wise). This concept is doubly important for anaerobic work (weight lifting, HIIT training...etc) as if you don't allow your muscles healing time, they will not work at peak efficiency. This has two major down sides, first is that you get less of a muscle burn during and after the workout, and 2nd you can't work out as long, or at the same rate as you would when you are rested and strong. The rule of thumb is, for anaerobic work, you need 2 days off for every day you work the muscle group.

    For example, if I did a weight training session on monday for my upper body (which I do), I don't work that group again until either Thursday or Friday. While you don't want to work those muscles too often, you can work other groups, like I'll do legs on wednesday. And in between do some pretty hardcore HIIT training. Then I take Saturday off, every week.
  • Pattyisgr8
    Pattyisgr8 Posts: 104 Member
    I don't know about losing muscle, but I do work in two rest days and I lift 3 out of the 5. I usually eat the same way as the workout days, but after almost all workouts I drink a protein shake (I've read that it helps muscles). Hope it helps!:smile:
  • mtweety33
    mtweety33 Posts: 29
    Thank you everyone for replying!!! All of your advice is very much appreciated and it really helped. Also, thank you for the tips regarding searching similar problems in the message boards and people being shy, busy, etc. I appreciate you giving me a better perspective on things. Thank you again so much. . :smile:
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