What is worst/typical/best fat loss to muscle loss ratio during weight loss period

[erifly]

I been working out for a while now, dropped about 20 lbs so far doing the basics of lifting, running, eating right(fell off a lot of times tho, but i just got back up and continued). I was at around 195 lbs at 33% bodyfat(using a weight scale..i know its not %100 accurate but gave me a basic idea) and now I am at 175 lbs at 28% bodyfat. According to my calculations it comes out to:

Total Weight(lbs), BodyFat(%), Muscle(lbs), Fat(lbs),
195, 33, 131, 64
175, 28, 126, 49

LOSS,20 lbs, 5%, 5lbs, 15lbs

Which gives me a ratio of 3 to 1.

I understand under any weight loss program muscle will be lost, but how much is too much muscle loss and what is considered typical? To be honest I did feel a little muscle loss but nothing dramatic and my cardiovascular strength dramatically improved.

So three questions:
What is typical muscle loss ratio?
What is worst muscle loss to fat loss ratio(Assuming huge calorie deficit and nothing but cardio)?
What is best muscle loss to fat loss ratio(Assuming 500 cal. deficit and strictly lifting)?

[tfpriest]

I think this is kind of a golden question. Honestly, I dont think many of the people here would have a good answer for it. If they did, I doubt any of them can back it with personal experience and most of their answer would be broscience. Someone would have to provide stats from a bod pod or other "mostly" accurate BF test at the very start of their weightloss journey and again at the end, and still try to guess water weight differences, ect.

The answer you'll get from most people is generic but well intended. Eat 1g of protein per lb of lean bodymass and lift hard and you will minimize muscle loss, and dont over extend your calorie deficit.

[Chalifour]

Losing muscle during a cut is no longer an option.

Do work in the gym and in the kitchen and you won't lose muscles

[tfpriest]

Do work in the gym and in the kitchen and you won't lose muscles

If only it was that simple.

I think its well understood it would be a defiance of physics to not lose muscle during a cut. Cut, by definition, means a calorie deficit. A calorie deficit, by definition, means your body is going to burn the fat, carb, and protein it has to support its own functions.

The idea is to minimize it of course with protein intake and lifts. But you cant prevent it entirely, even if the percentage of loss is small.

[Chalifour]

If only it was that simple.

I think its well understood it would be a defiance of physics to not lose muscle during a cut. Cut, by definition, means a calorie deficit. A calorie deficit, by definition, means your body is going to burn the fat, carb, and protein it has to support its own functions.

The idea is to minimize it of course with protein intake and lifts. But you cant prevent it entirely, even if the percentage of loss is small.

Losing Muscle is No Longer An Option
Let's keep it simple and recap the key points to preventing muscle loss while dieting:

? Cut your carbs and keep them low.
? Increase your protein intake.
? Add supplemental amino acids (BCAA, EAA, or just Leucine) to your diet.
? Start each workout with 3 to 4 sets of 4 to 6 reps of a compound movement.

Do these four things and you'll never have to worry about losing muscle while dieting, and the beast that is your body will work with you instead of against you.

[erifly]

I completely agree to an extent. But I think even generic bodyfat measurement from start to finish for someone's weight loss journey would be substantial enough to help me gage what is typical. But you right all i can do is follow the basic plan to minimize muscle loss.

I think this is kind of a golden question. Honestly, I dont think many of the people here would have a good answer for it. If they did, I doubt any of them can back it with personal experience and most of their answer would be broscience. Someone would have to provide stats from a bod pod or other "mostly" accurate BF test at the very start of their weightloss journey and again at the end, and still try to guess water weight differences, ect.

The answer you'll get from most people is generic but well intended. Eat 1g of protein per lb of lean bodymass and lift hard and you will minimize muscle loss, and dont over extend your calorie deficit.

[erifly]

No offense but it feels like you are about to follow this post up with a link with a book you are selling "BLAST THE FAT..KEEP THE MUSCLE!!"...loljk. But I do know that newbies can actually gain muscle, and lose fat for a temporary time period but I haven't heard of not losing any muscle at all during a cut for a typical person who is usually in gym regularly.

Losing Muscle is No Longer An Option
Let's keep it simple and recap the key points to preventing muscle loss while dieting:

? Cut your carbs and keep them low.
? Increase your protein intake.
? Add supplemental amino acids (BCAA, EAA, or just Leucine) to your diet.
? Start each workout with 3 to 4 sets of 4 to 6 reps of a compound movement.

Do these four things and you'll never have to worry about losing muscle while dieting, and the beast that is your body will work with you instead of against you.

[SUPERM4N]

Doubt that such ratio exists, lifting heavy/eating sufficient protein will minimise muscle loss, strength is a good indicator of muscle gain/loss.

[genesismachine]

I did no strength work at all, and basically just a pure calorie cut. I went from 210@23% to 160@8%. That works out to be 71% fat loss.

I can say for sure though that my strength definitely decreased. It was very noticeable, especially in the upper body. At this point, I'm working on putting on muscle, but that's pretty slow going. Been at it for about a month or two.

EDIT: By the way, I was cutting about 500 calories per day, and lost the 50 pounds over a year or so with about 3 months of plateau in there. That's pretty slow fat loss, but slow and steady wins the game I guess. No saggy skin, no bizarre effects, so I think it's the best way to go unless you are really morbidly obese (100+ pounds overweight).

I was told to expect 65% fat loss, which is pretty much in line with what I experienced and with what I've seen on these forums.

[erifly]

Wow great job. Really no strength work? You attained a pretty minimized muscle loss. I wonder what it would have been like if you had added routine lifting.

I did no strength work at all, and basically just a pure calorie cut. I went from 210@23% to 160@8%. That works out to be 71% fat loss.

I can say for sure though that my strength definitely decreased. It was very noticeable, especially in the upper body. At this point, I'm working on putting on muscle, but that's pretty slow going. Been at it for about a month or two.

EDIT: By the way, I was cutting about 500 calories per day, and lost the 50 pounds over a year or so with about 3 months of plateau in there. That's pretty slow fat loss, but slow and steady wins the game I guess. No saggy skin, no bizarre effects, so I think it's the best way to go unless you are really morbidly obese (100+ pounds overweight).

I was told to expect 65% fat loss, which is pretty much in line with what I experienced and with what I've seen on these forums.

[genesismachine]

Wow great job. Really no strength work? You attained a pretty minimized muscle loss. I wonder what it would have been like if you had added routine lifting.

I didn't overload on protein either, pretty much just ate like normal, except just a bit less every day. Everyone on here says that it's basically not possible to do what I did. Maybe I'm just a special case, I really don't know. I do think that the low deficit (~500 calorie per day deficit) contributed to not losing as much muscle as people would've expected.

[Opies]

varies greatly between people, and between diets and workout regimes.

Eat 1g/lb of lean mass in protein, get your EFAs, eat a small caloric deficit, lift heavy a few times a week, and the rest is up to your genetics.

[zither]

Total Weight(lbs), BodyFat(%), Muscle(lbs), Fat(lbs),
195, 33, 131, 64
175, 28, 126, 49

You can't just subtract your bodyfat and assume the rest of your weight is "muscle." In addition to your organs and skeletal system (which won't change) you also have a ton of water weight (which will change). So you can't just assume that a decrease in lean body mass is a decrease in muscle. Alot of people coming off a cut will quickly gain back a few pounds - this isn't from gorging themselves (that takes a while to add up), it's from water weight rebounding.


Alot of this seems to depend on your level of hypertrophy. If you are a beginner, you can probably keep almost all of your muscle mass by just working your muscles hard - you might even increase it slightly.

[Tiffany_P]

There are tons of factors that influence the P-ratio - hormones, genetics, etc., but the number one factor is bodyfat. Unfortunately, the less bodyfat you have, the more protein you will lose on a diet (which is why it becomes so difficult to get leaner once you're already lean). People with a lot of bodyfat don't have to worry too much because nearly all of what they lose will be fat. Lyle McDonald has a good article about calorie partitioning on his website:

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/mus...ng-part-1.html

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/unc...ng-part-2.html

[erifly]

Yeah I'm more focused on fat loss, but you are right I should just repalce "Muscle(lbs)" with "General Weight(lbs)"

You can't just subtract your bodyfat and assume the rest of your weight is "muscle." In addition to your organs and skeletal system (which won't change) you also have a ton of water weight (which will change). So you can't just assume that a decrease in lean body mass is a decrease in muscle. Alot of people coming off a cut will quickly gain back a few pounds - this isn't from gorging themselves (that takes a while to add up), it's from water weight rebounding.


Alot of this seems to depend on your level of hypertrophy. If you are a beginner, you can probably keep almost all of your muscle mass by just working your muscles hard - you might even increase it slightly.

[erifly]

Thanks for the link...very interesting read. He was going good...had my eyes glued in the article and then he ends with:

Ultimately, all of this introductory stuff, brings us to the final question: how do we optimize the entire system to maximize fat loss and either muscle maintenance or muscle gain (or, if you?re a performance athlete, how do we generate fat loss while maintaining performance). To understand that, I need to get into a few more details regarding muscle gain and fat loss, which will help you to understand the overall system.


Dang, he almost but didn't answer the question..lol. Is their a part three, i didn't see it in the article or he was trying to promote his book http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/ultimate-diet-20 .

There are tons of factors that influence the P-ratio - hormones, genetics, etc., but the number one factor is bodyfat. Unfortunately, the less bodyfat you have, the more protein you will lose on a diet (which is why it becomes so difficult to get leaner once you're already lean). People with a lot of bodyfat don't have to worry too much because nearly all of what they lose will be fat. Lyle McDonald has a good article about calorie partitioning on his website:

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/mus...ng-part-1.html

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/unc...ng-part-2.html

[Hrithan2020]

According to my calculations it comes out to:

Total Weight(lbs), BodyFat(%), Muscle(lbs), Fat(lbs),
195, 33, 131, 64
175, 28, 126, 49

LOSS,20 lbs, 5%, 5lbs, 15lbs

Which gives me a ratio of 3 to 1.

Good going.
Regarding your questions, I truly don't know as I don't have enough experience or know enough details about others I know who cut.

But, I would like to point out one thing, you basically equated LBM(Lean Body Mass) same as Muscle Weight, but LBM would be Muscle+Water + Skeleton frame etc. So, even if there was a LBM decrease which is to be expected when you are cutting, it can be mostly "Water Loss".


For me, I think I started at over 25% bf for sure and currently stand at around 18.6% or so. I don't think I haven't lost much muscle weight. (In fact the first 8 weeks, my stats. ie. Biceps, Chest,Shoulder were unchanged while Thighs,Hip, Waist (esp) size considerably decreased ).

[Tiffany_P]

Thanks for the link...very interesting read. He was going good...had my eyes glued in the article and then he ends with:

Ultimately, all of this introductory stuff, brings us to the final question: how do we optimize the entire system to maximize fat loss and either muscle maintenance or muscle gain (or, if you?re a performance athlete, how do we generate fat loss while maintaining performance). To understand that, I need to get into a few more details regarding muscle gain and fat loss, which will help you to understand the overall system.


Dang, he almost but didn't answer the question..lol. Is their a part three, i didn't see it in the article or he was trying to promote his book http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/ultimate-diet-20 .

Haha... sorry! The article was an excerpt from his book, and he gets into those details over several chapters. For what it's worth, it's a great book and a great program (although you have to be *very* disciplined on it because it's a very structured program).

[w8shark]

Well, the trade off for muscle and fat is a tricky one and is individualized. If your 2lbs of fat loss for 1 lbs of muscle loss is true. I'd say that a pretty damn good trade off. I went from 192 to 177 in three weeks. I was very careful to measure my body fat with a caliper and seven points of measurements. I dropped 10lbs of fat and 5lbs of muscle, and I thought that was a pretty fair trade. What you did, beat the pants off of me. My loss was a bit too accelerated, though, at 5 lbs of body weight per week. I was on a 2,000 calories allowance. .fBefore I started, I was maintaining on 3,300 calories, not gaining or losing for a month str8. I think some of this weight was water. So, I dropped 5% body fat, which, at 192lbs shout equate to almost 10 lbs. Total weight was 15 lbs, so, I'm assuming, the rest was muscle. I don't think you can really know for sure.

I've heard that gaining one lbs of muscle usually come with one lbs of fat. If so, going forward kind of sucks. But, once you go backwards you, in my case, loose 1 lbs of fat and 1/2 lbs of muscle. So, you have one step forward with 1/2 step back, for fat. Keeep making this kind of trade, and you will be rich in no time.

I been working out



for a while now, dropped about 20 lbs so far doing the basics of lifting, running, eating right(fell off a lot of times tho, but i just got back up and continued). I was at around 195 lbs at 33% bodyfat(using a weight scale..i know its not %100 accurate but gave me a basic idea) and now I am at 175 lbs at 28% bodyfat. According to my calculations it comes out to:

Total Weight(lbs), BodyFat(%), Muscle(lbs), Fat(lbs),
195, 33, 131, 64
175, 28, 126, 49

LOSS,20 lbs, 5%, 5lbs, 15lbs

Which gives me a ratio of 3 to 1.

I understand under any weight loss program muscle will be lost, but how much is too much muscle loss and what is considered typical? To be honest I did feel a little muscle loss but nothing dramatic and my cardiovascular strength dramatically improved.

So three questions:
What is typical muscle loss ratio?
What is worst muscle loss to fat loss ratio(Assuming huge calorie deficit and nothing but cardio)?
What is best muscle loss to fat loss ratio(Assuming 500 cal. deficit and strictly lifting)?