After my first month of exercising and eating clean. I find I am losing inches, but not many pounds. I am excited about the change in my body composition, but I am wondering if this is typical?

I am 30 years old. I started off weighing 298.5 I am currently 286. I have lost 12.5 lbs, but I lost 10lbs the first week.

Other measurements:

Neck: 17" (-1.25)
Waist: 49.25 (@ Belly Button) (-1.25)
Chest: 48.25 (@ nipples) (-1.25)

Everything I have read on these forums says you don't put muscle on while cutting. I am obviously slimming down, but the scale isn't really showing it. I am guessing that I am putting on some muscle.

Any thoughts?

-- Jeremy

You can definitely gain muscle while cutting, especially when you are new to it all.

Keep up the good work! Go by the mirror, not the scale.

Go by the mirror, not the scale.
Great advice. Plus taking photos of yourself every two weeks really helps seeing results when you line them up chronologically. You might not notice changes since you see yourself in the mirror everyday. But if you stagger the photos you will see changes much more clearly.

of course you can make muscle while cutting, it will be fast in the beginning and slow down (but slowly and surely, you'll gain muscle, but very slowly :-p). Well, weight isn't everything. There could be many reasons, such as eating habbits. Maybe your drinking more water now, therefore you weigh more! There are MANY possibilities :-D, but as logn as you look good, that's all that matters. Would you rather weigh 200 pounds and have a 6 pack or 150 pounds and a beer belly? Even if you weigh the same/more doesn't mean your doing something wrong unless you are actually getting bigger in your measurements.

but I am wondering if this is typical?

What you are describing is what I went through. Don't worry too much about it. And you certainly can gain muscle while cutting. I did, ilbeit, not as much as if I had been bulking.

Here's an article I found a few days ago on this very topic:

http://www.muscletalk.co.uk/losing-fat.asp

This article lists two sample eating routines: one focused more on supplements than the other. Shopping for groceries is my typical Friday night ritual. I brought a copy of this article with me tonight to try and figure out how much more this type/volume of food would add to my weekly grocery bill... :eat:

Freddy

Most diffently you can put on muscle faster then losing fat..
for 30 days ..My stats:
10/22 BF 24.13% Weight 206.2 Fat 49.75 LBM 156.44
10/29 BF 23.3% Weight 207.8 Fat 48.41 LBM 159.39
11/5 BF 22.75 Weight 207 Fat 47.09 LBM 159.90
Started SGX 11/10
11/12 BF 22.05% weight 205.8 Fat 45.51 LBM 160.42
11/19 BF 20.97% weight 206.2 Fat 43.24 LBM 162.95

Notice a tread here ? What can be frustrating is like whats happening to me.. I'm gaining muscle faster then losing fat..So I'm not really losing alot of weight..just exchanging fat for muscle..

damn, you put on muscle pretty nicely :-D, that's good :-)