Losing fat, but losing lean mass too :(

[Hraklea]

I recently made my evaluation (not sure if that is how it's called in english) at the gym, and while I got the good news that I've lost 15 pounds, only 9 of these were fat - I've lost 6 pounds of lean mass too (but I'm lifting heavier weights compared to 3 months ago). The guy at my gym told me to look for a nutricionist, but I was wondering if any one of you would have any tip for me, because it is really hard to find a good nutricionist where I live.

Some basic info about me:
- 27 years old, 173 pounds, 20,7% body fat
- Gym twice a week (I don't have time to do it more often)
- Eat ~1.600 kcal per day, ~160g protein

Thanks in advance, any advice is welcome.

[Deleted]

Lose weight slowly to maintain most muscle (unless you're really fat, then it doesn't matter).

Be patient!

[Tommy T]

Lose weight slowly to maintain most muscle (unless you're really fat, then it doesn't matter).

Be patient!

How would you describe losing weight 'slowly'? When you say weight I'm assuming you mean fat.

Correct me if I'm wrong (I'm not an expert by any means) but shouldn't you be aiming to lose that fat as quickly as possible via HIIT / Cardio?

For example, most articles I've seen aim for you to do seven weeks of 'bulking' and three weeks of 'cutting'. Build up the muscle (and fat) and then burn the fat (and muscle?)

By bulking I mean, weight lifting five times a week and eating excess calories. After doing seven weeks of bulking you now move onto cutting which aims to shred the fat as quickly as possible through less weight resistance workouts, (three times a week instead of five) HIIT twice a week and consuming less calories.

As I said, I'm not an expert. This could be bro science for all I know.

Cheers.

[Sathnick]

If you want to have a perfect cutting cycle (and yes the cycles are actually what you want to go for) then look into Keto diets....works wonders for me

[Spectral]

If you only have two snapshots, it's entirely possible that this is skewed significantly by water weight. If you're concerned about this, you should track it more tightly than once every few months.

[Badpaladin]

Correct me if I'm wrong (I'm not an expert by any means) but shouldn't you be aiming to lose that fat as quickly as possible via HIIT / Cardio?

Not necessarily. Every person is different, and some bodies just aren't suited toward rapid weight loss. The only constant thing people should do is aim to live a healthier lifestyle. That doesn't imply any specific workout, any specific diet plan, or any specific set of goals. Living healthier will inevitably produce results, and the pace is set by what feels "right".

Whenever talk about weight loss comes up I try to drive people into a non-specific, more general sensibility. Honestly, it's really analogous to developing a relationship with someone - there's no specific set of rules to abide by; just do what feels right and make sure you're enjoying yourself.

[igniter]

Lose weight slowly. Eat lots of protein. You will lose less lean muscle mass that way. Remember, you can always regain muscle fairly easy once you're done cutting.

[Deleted]

How would you describe losing weight 'slowly'? When you say weight I'm assuming you mean fat.

Anything above 1 pound a week (average) change in weight is to "fast", doesn't matter wether you trying to bulk or cut. The point is to let your metabolism adjust instead of just going into starvation mode or storage mode.

Lose weight to fast and you'll drop muscle mass, gain weight to fast and you'll gain excess fat.

[Aldred]

Anything above 1 pound a week (average) change in weight is to "fast", doesn't matter wether you trying to bulk or cut. The point is to let your metabolism adjust instead of just going into starvation mode or storage mode.

Lose weight to fast and you'll drop muscle mass, gain weight to fast and you'll gain excess fat.

Yep - I'd pretty much go with this. No more than 1-2lb a week, depending on how much fat you have to lose to begin with. Getting your diet in order is important, so the guy at the gym is right to mention that. Make sure you're still taking in some carbs though, as I'm sure you will be. If you strip out pretty much all carbohydrates, your body will just end up using muscle in its place. Otherwise you're already lifting weights to help hold on to the muscle, so that's covered with a proper program I'd imagine.

Are you doing any cardio at all? You mentioned you don't have time to go to the gym more than twice a week. I'd try and fit at least some cardio in. Even just short bursts of higher intensity (which can actually be the most effective method).

You'll always lose at least a little muscle when working off fat, the same way you'll always put on at least a little fat when gaining muscle. But you don't have to be losing anywhere as much as 40% of the weight as muscle. Also make sure you're making any bodyfat measurements consistently and - as mentioned - weigh yourself more often than just twice. Your weight can vary quite a bit over a short term.

[Matthyew]

the first thing i see when i read your post is that your at 1600 kcal a day AND your lifting heavier weights in which i assume you do in order to lift even heavier weights eventually. my advice is to eat more carbs and a bit more protein. you weigh 173 pounds and the mark you should set is a gram of protien for each pound you weigh if you plan to get more muscle mass developed. all in all you should progressively increase your diet to around 2500kcal while maintaining 1 gram of protein per pound on your body. all this info i learned while playing sports so it might not work, but good luck!

[Vetis]

seems silly to be on a calorie restricted diet and increase work. muscles need protein yes but the body needs energy to repair them properly. not enough calories will lead to muscle wasting.

[Tommy T]

Anything above 1 pound a week (average) change in weight is to "fast", doesn't matter wether you trying to bulk or cut. The point is to let your metabolism adjust instead of just going into starvation mode or storage mode.

Lose weight to fast and you'll drop muscle mass, gain weight to fast and you'll gain excess fat.

Then I must lose weight very fast.

If I go on a diet, I eat 4 or 5 meals a day, and do 30 minutes of HIIT. I lose a steady 2-3 pounds a week until I get to the twelve stone mark. No starvation here.

[Deleted]

Then I must lose weight very fast.

If I go on a diet, I eat 4 or 5 meals a day, and do 30 minutes of HIIT. I lose a steady 2-3 pounds a week until I get to the twelve stone mark. No starvation here.

Once the diet ends you'll end up putting weight back on again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yo-yo_effect

[Hraklea]

Thanks for all the answers.
I'll increase my calorie intake and see what happens.

If you only have two snapshots, it's entirely possible that this is skewed significantly by water weight. If you're concerned about this, you should track it more tightly than once every few months.

I weight myself every week, but I only check my body fat % once every three months because I don't know how to do it at home, and the guy at my gym charges for it (it is cheap, but it still is money).

[Tommy T]

Once the diet ends you'll end up putting weight back on again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yo-yo_effect

I'm not on a hypo caloric diet for one. I eat around 2k cals a day and burn around 300~ though exercise.

and when I say 'diet' I mean more of a change of eating habits permanently. I don't believe in starving yourself or avoiding carbs. I eat a lot of carbs.

[Deleted]

I recently made my evaluation (not sure if that is how it's called in english) at the gym, and while I got the good news that I've lost 15 pounds, only 9 of these were fat - I've lost 6 pounds of lean mass too (but I'm lifting heavier weights compared to 3 months ago). The guy at my gym told me to look for a nutricionist, but I was wondering if any one of you would have any tip for me, because it is really hard to find a good nutricionist where I live.

Some basic info about me:
- 27 years old, 173 pounds, 20,7% body fat
- Gym twice a week (I don't have time to do it more often)
- Eat ~1.600 kcal per day, ~160g protein

Thanks in advance, any advice is welcome.

How have you measured the loss of lean body mass? If your using a scale at the gym to measure this, then you should ignore the result and just look in the mirror for progress. The scales are highly inaccurate as a slight differation in water retention can skew the results by a large margin.

If you want to have a perfect cutting cycle (and yes the cycles are actually what you want to go for) then look into Keto diets....works wonders for me

Keto diets are useless in most situations. They are not in any way more effective than a regular calorie restricted diet. I would never recommend it to an exercising person.

seems silly to be on a calorie restricted diet and increase work. muscles need protein yes but the body needs energy to repair them properly. not enough calories will lead to muscle wasting.

Lift heavy during a cut for least strength and muscle loses. Lowering intensity might increase muscle loss and performance.

[Greektoast]

I suggest eating 6 meals a day. Aim for 1,450 calories. No meal should consist of more than 300 calories (obviously this rule is a little bit easier to bend. For instance if you only eat 200 calories for breakfast, feel free to eat 400 for lunch). DON'T SPLURGE! Saving up 600 calories from the morning does not mean you can eat three donuts.

Each meal must have 2 superfoods. Google them. Oatmeal is a superfood, so that is usually my breakfast. I mix it with almonds (best snack when dieting) and some sort of berries for a whopping 3 superfoods in one tiny meal. NEVER SKIP BREAKFAST.

Meal break ups should be Big. Small. Big. Small. Big. Small.

Build muscle. Don't focus on HIIT or cardio. Honestly, just focus on building muscle. Muscle burns fat. Each pound of muscle burns 50cals a day, on standby. So think of yourself as building a calorie burning machine. I run a mile before my workout. Just to get everything going. I love running, so I do it for the fun of it, but honestly only try to do five minutes of it before a workout. It's just not super necessary. The shock of burning calories quickly sometimes tricks your body into thinking your in a sort of survival mode. That's why you may see people who are larger constantly running or using a cardio machine, but not really resulting in anything.

I can't stress enough that it's 80% diet, 20% exercise.

Sorry this was so staggered and sloppy, but it's a lot of info! I just want to break it down quickly and efficiently!

[Spectral]

I suggest eating 6 meals a day.... <snip>

Ignore this whole post. It's solid broscience laced through the whole thing. There's at least a half dozen things that have zero scientific validity there.

[Dakara]

Yep, gotta filter out the Bro science as it's just that. Spend some time on the internet or talking to guys at the gym and you'll find 101 different methods that work. Bottom line is, they all work, and they're all crap. Do what works for you.

For me, that's not trying to do 2 things at once. I either burn fat or build muscle, I don't do both. Obviously there's going to be some overlap, but I simply accept that if I want to burn off the Winter flab, I'll lose some lean muscle in the process.... which is easily re-gained. If I try to burn and build at the same time, just doesn't work for me.

However, for what it's worth, I burn fat via intermittent fasting and cutting cardio (yes you read that right). And when I'm not "cutting" I eat normally, meaning 3 meals a day and healthy snacking.

[Lockstatus]

I dunno. That whole superfood thing he mentioned sounded pretttyy pretttyyy pretttyyy good.

Body Recomp (lose fat + gain muscle "simultaneously") is VERY hard. Strict diet, strict lifting schedule, solid understanding of how your body reacts to food and exercises and probably a period of time most are willing to wait.

It works best for 1)obese people 2) absolute beginners or those who are coming back from a long period of inactivity(lost significant muscle and gained fat) 3) those using illegal substances.

No idea what your past history is but it's most likely better to cycle a bulk and cut and it will be faster. The only advantage of a proper body recomp is the avoidance of fat gain.

Thus, because of the cut, your only hope is to preserve as much muscle as you can. Maybe gain some strength.

Side note - Unless you got a Dexa Scan or to a lesser extent a BodPod assessment, numbers of how much fat/muscle you loss or gained are going to be way off. Dexa is not even 100%. Just go by the mirror.