Help! Losing lean mass during cutting diet!

[Xixor]

Hi all,

I am a 27 year old male, 6'2".

I have developed a cutting diet and exercise routine for myself which I have been on for the past seven weeks. I started my diet at 212.6lbs and 14.1% bf. I have lost a total of 12.8lbs in this time with about 5.8lbs of it being lean mass (at least according to my tanita bodyfat scale) This equates to about 54% fat loss and 46% muscle loss.

Assuming that the scale is at least somewhat accurate, I think this is probably too much muscle loss. What is strange is that tend to lose weight in spurts. Even though my diet and exercise is exactly the same from week to week, some weeks I dont lose anything, and other weeks I have lost greater than 4lbs. I never know what to expect.

First questions: Should I expect even moderately accurate readings from the scale? I do my weigh in every week at the exact same time in the morning. This past week it said I lost 4.2lbs and ZERO bodyfat. I then did a tape measure around my waist and found that I lost 2.5cm from my waist in a week. How could I lose inches around my waist without at least some reduction in bodyfat? Since I do the reading first thing in the morning when I am somewhat dehydrated, will it give a higher bf reading than if I did it later in the day when I am normally hydrated?

I have an online journal that I keep all my diet and workout logs in but I cant post a hyperlink here because I dont have enough posts. I'll try to get more posts and then come back and post the hyperlink so you all can see my exact diet and workout logs.

Thanks for the preliminary opinions/advice, etc.

 

[Xixor]

Link to online journal here:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AhgzHl4zduePdEpJRDBieHB6bWszejF6ZEVYVDRYRXc&hl=en#gid=13

 

[Xixor]

It loks like it actually let me post the hyperlink!

I know its a lot of info there but my diet info is contained in the "Nutrition Plans" tab at the bottom. Click on that then scroll down to the portion highlighted yellow for all my stats, food, macronutrient ratios, etc. There is some additional information in the "Comestibles + Meals" tab.

My body composition stats are under the "Body Composition Log" tab.

The workouts I am currently doing are found under the "Conditioning" tab. Basically 6 days a week of a variety of strength, cardio, and GPP circuits.

Hopefully its not an information overload and navigating to the specific tabs is not too difficult. I really would like feedback on by cutting diet and see if it might be the reason I am losing so much lean mass on my cut.

Thanks!

 

[ihateschoolmt]

That scale can not accurately predict body fat. The best thing for you to do it take measurements and see if you are loosing size anywhere besides the waist. If you are loosing muscle up the protein you eat.

 

[sassy69]

Agree - Tanita scale is IMO, crap for trying to determine progress. It is heavily dependent on the amount of water in your system (i.e bioimpedence) and unless you are very careful about being in the exact same state of water in your system each time you use that thing to measure progress, its probably going to vary based on things other than what you are interested in measuring.

IMO toss it. Go by how your clothes fit & the scale. The scale in general is only going to tell you the sum total of skeleton, lean muscle mass, bodyfat & water, so it doesn't necessarily tell you about how much 'fat' you lost. How your clothes fit will tell you that. You should be losing in the areas where people typically carry their fat, and you should also see more detail in your muscles.

That said, it is part of a cutting diet to expect it to cost some lean muscle mass. Even if supported by steroids, people can expect to lose some lean muscle mass during an aggressive cut.

I think because you're using a Tanita scale to draw your conclusions, you probably don't need to worry too much. Generally to support muscle maintenance you should be consuming 1.5 - 2 x your weight in grams of protein. If you feel you are sacrificing lean mass, then up your protein, but still pay attention to how much - stupid amounts aren't going to fix it either.

 

[Xixor]

Thanks for the responses. I actually used the scale again when I got home yesterday from work when I was fully hydrated and it showed that I was a full 1.5% bodfat lower than that morning (11.5% down to 10%). I then used the plastic accumeasure device and found that it showed another 1.6% lower than the scale. So that is a range of between 8.4% with the calipers and 11.5% with the scale in the morning dehydrated.

I think I am going to update my chart to show the lower bodyfat percentage (split the difference at about 9%?) and increase my protein. I am definitely losing a lot of fat around my stomach from what the tape measure has been reading.

 

[ihateschoolmt]

If you were 8% body fat you would probably be satisfied with how lean you are. I'm about 10-11% in my avatar. What are trying to get to?

 

[Xixor]

My ultimate goal is to maintain sub 10% bodyfat in the long term at about 200-205lbs with excellent cardiovasular abilities and a good amount of functional strength.

I am not sure that I will ever be satisfied with my appearance since I was very obese about 10 years ago. I lost nearly 100lbs of fat and put on a good bit of muscle, but the skin around my midsection never tightened back up again. I have a permanent little pouch of loose skin and "dead" fat - fat that no matter how low I diet down to, it never goes away even though the rest of my body is really lean and "cut" looking. Perhaps it got cut off from the blood supply or something so my body is not able to catabolize it for fuel? I dont really know for sure.

 

[sassy69]

My ultimate goal is to maintain sub 10% bodyfat in the long term at about 200-205lbs with excellent cardiovasular abilities and a good amount of functional strength.

I am not sure that I will ever be satisfied with my appearance since I was very obese about 10 years ago. I lost nearly 100lbs of fat and put on a good bit of muscle, but the skin around my midsection never tightened back up again. I have a permanent little pouch of loose skin and "dead" fat - fat that no matter how low I diet down to, it never goes away even though the rest of my body is really lean and "cut" looking. Perhaps it got cut off from the blood supply or something so my body is not able to catabolize it for fuel? I dont really know for sure.

How long have you been really lean? When I diet down the bodyfat in the midsection usually goes, but then I get deflated look while the skin is still catching up. Keeping in mind that skin is made up of pockets of fat & water - so in the extreme, e.g. for competition, it takes continuing dieting past where you generally think you look great on the rest of your body, to get the one spot to tighten up, and further you might be looking at water being held in there too. Generally the best you can do is when you get to where you like, keep going to see if that will tighten up that area - it also then becomes part of 'training' or conditioning your body to maintain that body composition.

You're primarily limited by the elasticity of your skin - i.e. its just been stretched too far for it to recover. I dont' know if you've gone past that limit, but to diet it down you do need to go a little further to get that area to also tighten up.