losing muscle instead of fat??
 

Hi. I have been losing muscle on this diet and I am concerned. The center can't tell me why this is happening. Does anyone know? Lost 3 pounds this week but 2.2 of it was muscle.

For one thing, if they are "measuring" lean mass off of a scale or from holding a couple of sensors, you have to understand how completely inaccurate those measurements are. The ONLY accurate ways to measure lean mass are via calipers (read by someone properly trained, like your doctor), a DEXA scan, or a water displacement test. Those scales do some fancy calculations but the numbers aren't accurate.

For another, you WILL lose 1lb of lean mass for every 4lbs you drop on the scale - lean mass is not just muscle, it is EVERYTHING in your body that isn't fat - including skin and connective tissue, which reduce as you have less fat on your body. Your coach should be aware of this.

I can promise you that you did NOT lose 2lbs of muscle in a week out of 3lbs lost.

If you want to insure that you're not losing muscle, make sure to do some sort of weight training exercise, like lifting weights, TRX, Pilates. The only way to maintain your or increase your muscle mass is to do that sort of exercise. Just eating protein doesn't maintain muscle. You must work it.

I know..I do work out 2 days 45 min of cardio and 2 days weights. They said that I was losing muscle because I was working out which made no sense to me. Plus I have a lot of muscle and not that much weight to lose. They keep telling me not to work out but I can't!!

Thank you!!! You know everything...you should be teaching these coaches...they know nothing and it frustrates me. I feel like I know more than the trained people!! You have made me feel so much better!!

One more question..what are your feelings about excercise on this diet? I eat eggs or extra packet the days I excercise.

This is correct but I wouldn't assume a doctor knows what they're doing with calipers. Most fitness trainers don't either. Basically if it isn't a little painful then they're probably not using them right. You really need to pinch pretty hard to pull the fat away from the muscle. Also, calipers are useless for someone seriously overweight other than a tool to measure progress.

If you don't have a lot to lose, and you want to keep your muscle, you're probably on the wrong program. That said - the best way to keep your hard earned muscle on any program when you're dieting is to hit the muscle with intensity (high weight) but low volume. So if you normally do 10 reps and 3 sets, increase the weight and do 5 reps and 2 sets. Heavy weight, low volume.

I wouldn't advise anything above brisk walking a couple times a week when they're in a big deficit and trying to keep all their muscle. (Such as IP)

OK..now I'm going to ask you another question. My coach said that I am not losing enough weight. This past week was good, but other weeks its like 1.5 to 2 pounds. She said everyone else loses more. I said to her, but aren"t those people losing 3 to 5 pounds a week larger than me ? I would think since I have less to lose I would lose slower..she said yes they are bigger but I still should lose 3 to 5 a week??? I'm happy losing what I'm losing, I kind of felt defeated.

So I'm curious...Why would you say IP is not for me?I'm losing and feel good. In total I want to lose 45 pounds. When I say not much weight I mean it compared to most doing this diet. Will try heavier weight smaller reps and see how it goes.

i dont know how they're phrasing that to you but i really cant think of any way to phrase it and make it ok. i feel like you have to be able to not take those comments worth a grain or find someone else to meet with if possible. Defeat is just not a good motivator.

Everyone loses at different rates, but you and I have pretty similar stats and I've been losing more in the range you have...3 to 5 pounds/week has not been my experience at all.

1.5 - 2 lbs a week has also been my pattern. I am just happy to feel good and loose consistently.

Keep doing what you are doing!

Your coach is way off base. IP has been REMOVING the 3-5lb per week statement from their marketing BECAUSE it's not really accurate for most people. A more appropriate AVERAGE weight loss is 2-3lbs per week - and that is an AVERAGE. Meaning, you will have high weeks and low weeks, but at the end it averages out. Including my first week on IP (When I dropped 10lbs), I averaged about 2.7lbs per week over the course of 29 weeks - and if you look at my signature you can see clearly that some weeks were barely any loss on the scale. But it averages out.

You need to remind your coach that you are not "Everyone else" - your body chemistry is not the same as someone else's, your muscle makeup is not the same, nor is the amount of weight you want to lose. If they want to fit you in a cookie cutter, you need to find another coach who will treat your journey as an individual not comparing it with other random people.

Regarding exercise, my personal take is that you may be overdoing it on the cardio a bit - you really shouldn't be raising your heart rate much when on IP because the calorie intake simply doesn't support it. If you were an avid exerciser before IP, your body can handle more than someone who didn't do much physical activity before IP. But the trade-off is still a bit of a slowdown in your losses - partially from building muscle (which weighs more than fat) and partially from water retention (muscles in recovery from exercise retain water). Just something to be aware of.

I didn't see your stats. For a goal of 45 lbs I see no problem with the IP diet except that if you're already trained it very likely if you diet down 45 lbs without break that you'll lose some muscle. If you don't want to lose any muscle you should probably take a break after six weeks and then resume for another six weeks and then evaluate. Just my opinion but on such a low calorie diet muscle loss is going to happen if you just plow through till the end.

Also, 45 lbs is an arbitrary number. I wouldn't fixate on it.

Finally, IP coaches are for the most part, not well educated on fitness nor nutrition. Yours seems to be a good example of one that knows very little based on their comments to you.

If you just want to lose weight, and don't care about keeping your muscle, you should definately cease all exercise. Weight loss will increase as catabolized muscle turned to energy provides far less energy than fat utilized for energy. This increases WEIGHT loss. Not fat loss.

If you care about fat loss, and want to keep your muscles, don't stop lifting. You just need to keep the volume low so your body can recover. The lower your caloric intake the more difficult it is for your body to recover.

If you really want better information, specific to YOUR situation, I would highly reccomend Lyle Mcdonald's forum. Just be aware they are not very nice so you should research any questions you have before asking.