Many of the people who come to the forums for the first time and are looking to change their lifestyles and lose fat are very worried about muscle loss.

Most of the veterans on the site, uncluding its founder, Mr. Stone himself, are very worried about muscle loss.

I don't know about you guys, but I feel I know very little about muscle loss. It's a phantom flying around out there whenever you're trying to cut body fat. I try not to cut too fast, but sometimes that means I don't cut at all. I definitely lift, regardless. I lose weight and change shape, but I'm never quite sure how much is good and how much bad.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm underestimating the risk of muscle loss and have suffered from it, sometimes I wonder if I'm overestimating the risk of muscle loss and am not cutting aggresively enough because of it.

I'm not necessarily looking for science here - I'm looking for practical experience. How scared of muscle loss should somebody be at different times in a cut? Does anybody have any pictures that specifically illustrate muscle loss or its absence from a cut? Anybody have any tips or ideas backed by trial and error and experience for how to deal with it - both in terms of preventing it from happening and in terms of developing a reasonable perspective towards it?

I've been wondering the exact same thing. I almost started a thread -- I'm glad you did. I'm very interested in the discussion here, but I think I'm just as confused / skeptical as you.

Yeah, I think about this too.

As I see it, there is no way for the average Joe to accurately measure muscle mass. Bodyfat tests are inaccurate, and the only thing they do is approximate a lean-to-fat ratio...and of course muscle is just one part of a person's lean mass. If you can't quantify small changes in muscle weight, the whole thing becomes guesswork. You can measure by comparing pictures and the way clothing fits over time, and that may be the best real-world way to tell.

The best test is to compare pictures and measurements of the same person taken at different times (a year apart, for example), but at the same weight. This gives a very real-world, observable benchmark.

I'm not so sure John Stone lost much muscle in his first cut, even though he was at a very low caloric intake. I think that often, people are surprised at how little muscle mass they have when they cut down to a low BF%. This has been my personal experience, too. At the moment, I am strong as ever (increasing, actually), yet as I close in on my cutting goal, I am starting to feel 'small' and am getting really anxious to put some SIZE on.

I think strength gains, measurements, pictures, etc. are the best ways to determine if one is on track.

I worry about this as well. In fact, I took pictures recently, I was gonna post these recent pics, and my before pics to get some feedback. I know that mybodycomp.com is estimation, however, my measurements are way down, I lost 8" on my waist for example. It tells me that I am losing lean mass mostly, I don't know if this is accurate or not. To contradict this, I have increased my lifting capacity by more than 50% since I started, so I would think I am adding muscle mass, I am not sure. Also, to add to this, my calipers AND bodyfat measuring scale both tell me I am headed in the right direction. Unfortunately, I don't see much of a difference in my pics, but others tell me they do, that is why I was gonna ask the forum. I think my calories are ok, I am between 2200 and 2500 daily, 40/40/20, I eat 6 meals a day, and I do cardio every morning, and lift 4 days a week. I also now see veins popping out in my BICEP, this tells me I am losing fat right?

Didn't John lose a good deal of muscle? I know during his initial cut that he wanted to lose only a couple lbs per week, but looking at his graphs it looked like he would lose 5-6 lbs some weeks.

Looking at his June03 pix, it looks like he lost a good deal of muscle, or purhaps it was just fat and he didnt have much of a muscle base to begin with?

It must start with you knowing and continuing to measure your %BF in pounds. Once you know that, simple subtraction leaves you with the number of Lean Body Mass (LBM) in pounds. LBM is what isn't fat, a part of LBM is organs, skin, bones whose weight doesn't change much. The other part of LBM is muscle that can change with diet and exercise.

So if you lose weight and the %BF measure in pounds is less than the scale loss, we have reason to believe that you have lost muscle. If you don't measure %BF as JFS did, you don't know what you lost.

The reason muscle is important is its effect on BMR or metabolism. A pound of muscle burns 37.5 calories a day at rest. A pound of fat burns 2 calories. Do we all understand what that says? If we lose a pound of muscle our BMR goes down 37.5 calories, 10 pounds would be 375 calories. You also lose metabolism when you lose fat, 10 pounds would be 20 calories.

Big deal, someone says. Yes, it is, those 10 pounds of muscle lost could cause gaining a pound every 10 days if you didn't cut another 375 calories from diet. If you hadn't lost them, they were burning what people burn in the average 40 mins of exercise a day.

I think the majority here doesn't measure %BF. They don't know what they have done to body and metabolism, increased or deleted it. No wonder, many who lost weight, gain it all back so quickly, if they lost muscle. And why so many find themselves "skinny fat".

Add muscle or at least maintain it. The way to know what is happening? Get a acurate measure of %BF.

I'm not sure, I asked a similar question a couple of threads below this one.

I'm guessing that:

A) Lifting is good: You're going to lose muscle while you're cutting, but apparently (according to, well, me) you can keep strength. In my opinion, that's more important--for my particular goals at the moment. I plan on bulking a bit in the future.

B) Diet is important: Fourteen hundred calories is too low, 3000 is too high, but it all depends on your body. I'm seeing great results from a 2000 calorie diet right now, although I am losing relatively fast (just over 2 lbs a week, but only 12 in total over a month--so nothing too drastic).

My ratios have been good, and I can still go up a couple of pounds or reps everytime I go into the gym--so if muscle is being lost, it's just the size, not the strength.

Often the mirror will tell you if you have lost significant LBM or not. Or before-after pictures. If you are not starting to look much more ripped but you are losing weight fast something is probably wrong. And if arm muscles(or other muscles) are getting smaller but the fat surrounding them remains. You should be very critical and often check things like that. It´s very dangerous to start thinking that everything is fine just because you are losing weight. Because losing weight is only good if it´s fat. Losing weight is in itself not good enough and it´s not any real evidence that what you are doing is good or right.

Regards!

BTW: from January 2003 to june 2003, John Stone's %BF went from 30% to 8%, he lost 54.8 lbs of weight. Of the 54.8 lbs only 51.7 lbs was fat, he lost 3.1 lbs of muscle. Not bad for a first timer in anyone's book. After a bulk and a cut by january 2004, he had regained 7.3 lbs of muscle and only .7 pounds of fat

Everyone should look at John's progress records and remember the intense dedication he has shown.

great posts rtestes!

BTW: from January 2003 to june 2003, John Stone's %BF went from 30% to 8%, he lost 54.8 lbs of weight. Of the 54.8 lbs only 51.7 lbs was fat, he lost 3.1 lbs of muscle. Not bad for a first timer in anyone's book. After a bulk and a cut by january 2004, he had regained 7.3 lbs of muscle and only .7 pounds of fat

Everyone should look at John's progress records and remember the intense dedication he has shown.

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that he lost 3.1 lbs of lean body weight? Since lean body weight includes many components including water, it seems that it would be hard to say if he lost any muscle at all.

To answer that, we would need to have to track bone density, ligament/tendon weight, vascular weight, blood volume, etc. Not to mention, changes in subcutaneous water retention and water volume due to fat loss. Muscle weight is not the only component of lean mass that changes significantly because of exercise and nutrition (or the lack of).

And still, we are relying on inherently inaccurate means of measuring bodyfat percentages. These tests may show trends, but I wonder how well you can translate those trends to hard numbers.


BTW: from January 2003 to june 2003, John Stone's %BF went from 30% to 8%, he lost 54.8 lbs of weight. Of the 54.8 lbs only 51.7 lbs was fat, he lost 3.1 lbs of muscle. Not bad for a first timer in anyone's book. After a bulk and a cut by january 2004, he had regained 7.3 lbs of muscle and only .7 pounds of fat

Everyone should look at John's progress records and remember the intense dedication he has shown.

I'm not necessarily looking for science here - I'm looking for practical experience. How scared of muscle loss should somebody be at different times in a cut?

Keep the fat loss to around 1lb/week if you are not very overweight and you should be fine if you are eating OK and lifting. When you get below 10%BF you might need to reduce this to closer to 0.5lb/week (which is still a decent rate at 8-9%BF).

Personally I think this is the easiest rule-of-thumb to follow and the most likely to lead to permanent fat loss.

Of course there will always be exceptions. John is a great example, but he is also exceptional with regards to his transformation (maybe other things I don't know about as well).

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that he lost 3.1 lbs of lean body weight? Since lean body weight includes many components including water, it seems that it would be hard to say if he lost any muscle at all.

And still, we are relying on inherently inaccurate means of measuring bodyfat percentages. These tests may show trends, but I wonder how well you can translate those trends to hard numbers.

I used points in time, John checked his %bf every week, the trend and history gives insight to what it might be. Yes, things the average person can afford does have inaccuracies. Since it is the only means available, we are forced to use it. Most of the studies we read were dependent on the same estimations.

Man always attempts to measure, without measures we float around in a world of whim, never knowing how big, how far, how fat, etc.

We don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, that's for sure. We can usually measure well enough to identify trends. By using several methods of measurement (calipers, tape measure, scale weight), we can fill in enough blanks to evaluate progress in a general fashion.

The main point of my response was to emphasize the distinction between muscle and lean mass. The two terms are used interchangeably way too often. It seems that the best way we have of evaluating true muscle loss is with our naked eyeballs. And, there usually seems to be a loose correlation between muscle size and strength.

:)


I used points in time, John checked his %bf every week, the trend and history gives insight to what it might be. Yes, things the average person can afford does have inaccuracies. Since it is the only means available, we are forced to use it. Most of the studies we read were dependent on the same estimations.

Man always attempts to measure, without measures we float around in a world of whim, never knowing how big, how far, how fat, etc.

Don't get me wrong, but I think most people are way over concerned with losing muscle.

Yes it is a big deal, but if you can achieve lets say 20 pounds loss in 2 months, being 4 of those muscle mass opposed to 20 pounds loss in 4 months with only 1 pound of muscle loss, wouldn't it be better since then you have 2 extra months to build up those 3 pounds difference the way you want? (build the chest more, or the legs, whatever?)

This is specially true to folks that are over 30% bf with 200 pounds and more. I know skinny guys (low bf%) is differente and more care must be taken, but when you have 1/3 or more of fat in your body, I think some muscle loss to achieve a lower ammount of fat in you is more important.

I'm at around 10% bf and even I don't care about one or two pounds of muscle loss if I achieve my weight and bf goal. It will just leave a bit more room for me to work on the body part I'm not so happy with (for me its only the chest actually).

Muscle preservation is a good thing, but don't get so hanged up on it that you hinder (sp?) your fat loss as well.

Bruno

I always wondered about how fat and muscle, interact with eachother inside the body. And i think this pertains to the topic here. Let's say you have a lot of fat and muscle. Like an offensive lineman or something. How is the fat and muscle positioned on the body. Do they ever intermix? This sounds kind of gross, but can muscle be fatty? Can the fat actually run inside the muscle?

Or does the body always layer outward starting with bone, tendons, muscles, fat, skin?

Because if the muscle can contain fat inside, that probably makes a big difference for a lot of things. It could explain why your muscles might look smaller but you actually have more strength. Or you measure that your LBM decreases but your strength increases.

Also, what is the business with fat cells and muscle cells. I remember people saying that you never reduce the number of fat cells in your body, they just shrink. Is this true for muscles, too? Man I am clueless.

gravityhomer: I think you could figure out the answer to your question by looking at cuts of meat. Sounds funny, but if you look at a cut, you will see some of them are marblized with fat and muscle. I would think that a cow's body stores fat/muscle in a similar fashion to us. Probably a majority of fat is a sheath just under the skin, but fat is probably carried between organs, muscles, and sometimes within them?

Some cuts are lean, fat is not interspersed with muscle, but some cuts are not, and some of the fattiest cuts are multiple muscles, with the fat between them. I am not a butcher, but I read about cuts of meat, so I knew what to buy/order, and why they were lean etc.

I have also read elsewhere that fat is essential to the body, that is why you can't be 0% bf, the reason given was that fat is used around joints and bones as cushion and/or lubricant.

dunno, maybe someone knows more about this than I do.

Good thread guys! A thrilling read :cool:

Anywho, here's my opinion as someone who has done all three...cut too fast and lost a ton of muscle, bulked and gained some muscle (and fat) and thirdly, the elusive, oft-thought-impossible gaining muscle while loosing fat...

I started to cut a bit too aggresively several months ago, and from june to november I ate around 1200 cals per day along with HIIT three times per week.........bad idea. Oh, I lost weight all right...and fast...but it was muscle...nearly all of it. Still had my belly, still had saggy, undefined arms etc. This sucked...a lot. So I came here and got my diet into line and since have been eating MUCH better and getting awesome results because of it.

My experience with bulking was short, but several years ago I went on a 4000 kcal/day diet. It wasnt the cleanest bulk, and I wasnt very dedicated to the diet, so it had only marginal effects...however, I was able to feel a difference in the way my body reacted to the extra calories. I could almost feel the muscle growing...weird, I know, but thats what it felt like. Me and my body communicate rather well it seems...

The plan I'm following now has allowed me to loose fat while gaining muscle mass...this wasnt intentional, as I began the program as a dedicated cut. I was just coming off the 1200 or less diet though, so my metabolism got one hell of a kick start when i upped the cals. I have been at 163 pounds now for the last two months...but fat has been lost, and I have gotten wicked stronger. My clothes all fit better, I'm getting complimented by everyone who sees me...its great. I eat extremely clean, with only a very rare and occasional cheat here and there. I bring in about 1900 calories per day (more on weight training days...PWO shakes)

I think I'm loosing the fat slower than I could be, and perhaps I am loosing a bit of muscle mass along the way as well, but I could care less on either aspect. I feel great, I'm starting to look great and I'm stronger than I have ever been...yesterday, I got out of the shower and saw abs :D

Wow, that was a long post. But there's my experience with all of the various stages of cutting, bulking and both at once. I prefer the last one, but I seem to be lucky to be able to do this, as it seems almost impossible for most. I also doubt I'll be able to get away with it forever...as good as its been going lately, I feel a plateau coming on :p

Anywho, I hope some of this made sense, and that someone, somewhere got some usefull info out of it.

Regards,
Tanis

I always wondered about how fat and muscle, interact with eachother inside the body. And i think this pertains to the topic here. .


Here is one doctor's view (http://www.ultimate-exercise.com/fat.html) of things.

It must start with you knowing and continuing to measure your %BF in pounds. Once you know that, simple subtraction leaves you with the number of Lean Body Mass (LBM) in pounds. LBM is what isn't fat, a part of LBM is organs, skin, bones whose weight doesn't change much. The other part of LBM is muscle that can change with diet and exercise.

So if you lose weight and the %BF measure in pounds is less than the scale loss, we have reason to believe that you have lost muscle. If you don't measure %BF as JFS did, you don't know what you lost.

The reason muscle is important is its effect on BMR or metabolism. A pound of muscle burns 37.5 calories a day at rest. A pound of fat burns 2 calories. Do we all understand what that says? If we lose a pound of muscle our BMR goes down 37.5 calories, 10 pounds would be 375 calories. You also lose metabolism when you lose fat, 10 pounds would be 20 calories.

Big deal, someone says. Yes, it is, those 10 pounds of muscle lost could cause gaining a pound every 10 days if you didn't cut another 375 calories from diet. If you hadn't lost them, they were burning what people burn in the average 40 mins of exercise a day.

I think the majority here doesn't measure %BF. They don't know what they have done to body and metabolism, increased or deleted it. No wonder, many who lost weight, gain it all back so quickly, if they lost muscle. And why so many find themselves "skinny fat".

Add muscle or at least maintain it. The way to know what is happening? Get a acurate measure of %BF.

Sure... but a big piece of LBM is WATER, and that changes all the time, sometimes by pounds at a time, especially in women and people with more body fat. Even if you are weighing yourself and measuring yourself dehydrated after peeing first thing in the morning...

Here is one doctor's view (http://www.ultimate-exercise.com/fat.html) of things.

:confused: interesting read. He definitely paints a picture of no steady state exercise at all for weight loss. I want to look more into the way he says the body loses muscle during steady state exercise. It makes sense that the extra muscle not be used for the repetitive "slow twitch" exercise, would be reclaimed by the body. I want to learn more about how it happens exactly.

Especially because I am walking to work everyday right now, and it takes about 40 minutes. I'd hate to think I'm walking my muscles away.

btimby: about your meat analogy. I was wondering about that when I posted. It really is a bit gross, but it makes sense. I bet different parts of our body, are kind of like different cuts of meat. I wonder how that can be changed. Is the fat cells stuck inside Muscle tissue just as easy to break down as the subcutenous fat? :confused: more to learn.

Sure... but a big piece of LBM is WATER, and that changes all the time, sometimes by pounds at a time, especially in women and people with more body fat. Even if you are weighing yourself and measuring yourself dehydrated after peeing first thing in the morning...

Yes everything in body has water even bone. Fat is 15%, Skin is 71%, Muscle is 77%. A lean 180 lb man might have 14 gallons in him. A gallon weights 8 pounds. I think we overestimate water loss. But remember you are obtaining the measure over time and trends should show themselves. If it is impossible to estimate LBM then everything is up in the air, I am not ready to believe that.

Why not test it, by weighting yourself each waking hour, see how many pounds you flux.

:confused: interesting read. He definitely paints a picture of no steady state exercise at all for weight loss.

btimby: about your meat analogy. Is the fat cells stuck inside Muscle tissue just as easy to break down as the subcutenous fat?

No, very hard, one of reasons for big belly problems and why they are such a sign of insulin resistance.

No, very hard, one of reasons for big belly problems and why they are such a sign of insulin resistance.

I was reading about muscles on howstuffworks.com (http://howstuffworks.com), and saw this picture

http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/muscle3.jpg

Definitely have a better idea of how muscles work. They are complicated. Just search for muscles and choose the first result "how muscles work".

So if your muscles are laced with fat like this, it would make sense, that in order to lose some of this fat, you most likely have to breakdown some muscle. That way you don't end up with holes inside of you. :confused:

So if your muscles are laced with fat like this, it would make sense, that in order to lose some of this fat, you most likely have to breakdown some muscle. That way you don't end up with holes inside of you.

Wrong, your fats cells contract or just empty themselves. They are always present. Remember if that is a true picture, it is tru an electronic microscope. After thousands of years, we still are guessing at what happens and how. our knowledge changes a little each year.

Wrong, your fats cells contract or just empty themselves. They are always present. Remember if that is a true picture, it is tru an electronic microscope. After thousands of years, we still are guessing at what happens and how. our knowledge changes a little each year.

Aha, yes, I am glad you pointed out the misconception I had. I knew that fat cells never go away, but I guess I didn't know it well enough to apply it in this case. The picture is listed as 200X taken with an optical microscope. They said polarized light was used to distinguish the difference between fat and muscle.

[QUOTE=btimby] I lost 8" on my waist for example. It tells me that I am losing lean mass mostly,QUOTE]

???
It should be mostly fat loss.