-Diablo's Journal, 19 Mar 19

Thank you for the informative post 🧐 

Yes, I feel that this fits me well. Last summer I lost fat rapidly but also lost muscle. From November to now I gained a lost of muscle back and got leaner at the same time. A way smaller deficit or maybe I was eating at maintenance. 

LOL, not sure I have any muscle to lose but this is very interesting! I love the articles you find and I always go read them. I think I've learned more about my body since I started following you than I had in all the rest of my years! I would be interested in how that applies to people like me though...not just athletes. I wish they did more of these studies but including people who are morbidly obese like myself. Because at first I kind of felt like even the little bit of exercise I was doing was really building the muscle but as I have lost weight (even though I've increased the exercise) I feel like that has tapered off. At my higher weight with less exercise I was feeling stronger much more quickly than I am now at my lower weight with more exercise...does that make sense...it's hard to explain I guess. But the increases in what I was able to do just came faster before. 

Good post for me to see. This time around is going so so slow compared to past experiences. I'm telling myself that as long as it stays off this time it's worth it. 

Katie, for you muscle loss would be very minimal but lifting would surely cause a good amount of lean mass gain since you're a novice and also starting at a higher body fat percentage. 

Lzenn, I know that when I go from a 1k deficit to a 1.5k it makes a huge difference in energy and I seem to lose more muscle as well. I know that is a bigger difference but considering my much higher than average intake it is probably close to the same percentage. 

Oh, and don't chase a scale number so much that you sacrifice protein. Please. 

Nice input, Chris! Agreed! 

Also, this was for athletes, who break down the muscle tissues on a regular basis. Without the proper amount of nutrition to rebuild what is being torn down, it's also sort of a 'well duh!' thing. 

Getting enough protein is important, but especially important while in a calorie deficit to prevent to much muscle loss. Chris I agree 100%, when I started my journey I was chasing a number on the scale, lost weight rapidly but still didn't look good. I started lifting weights last year and in December raised my calories. I haven't lost "weight" well scale weight since, but went from a 36 pants size to a 32. So I am definitely losing body fat. In the past not seeing the scale go down would have freaked me out, but now have come to realize there comes a point in the journey when that number on the scale can be very misleading and not so important, especially when doing resistance training. 

Yay Kennyn 👍🏻 Good job learning how to appropriately nourish your body  

Thanks for the clarification D! 

Too bad you can't correct your initial comment, D. It's a huge difference, what you said and what the article said. If someone doesn't bother to check your facts, they'll come away with mistaken info. 

Hmm, I just copied and pasted that from FB. I didn't see there was a mistake. It would be nice if we could edit. 

⚖️Is rapid weight loss bad for body composition? . 🔥Energy balance is the most important factor to lose weight; energy expenditure must exceed energy intake. . 👊🏻While aggressively dieting may increase fat loss, it may also increase muscle mass loss.Therefore, it can be questioned if losing weight as fast as possible is the best strategy. . 🚀The current study investigated the effect of two different rates of weight loss on body composition. One group lost weight pretty fast (1.4% of bodyweight per week), the other group lost is more slowly (0.7% bodyweight per week). . ⏱It took the aggressive dieting group ~5.3 weeks to lose 4.2 kg bodyweight. It took the slower dieting group ~8.5 weeks to lose this amount. . 💪🏻While both groups lost the same amount of weight, the composition of the lost weight was different. The aggressively dieting group gained less muscle and lost less fat compared to the slower dieting group. . ❗️Therefore, this study suggests that more aggressive weight loss goes at the expensive of muscle mass gains. . 💡In conclusion, aggressive dieting is effective for rapid weight loss, but suboptimal for muscle mass. . 📄Study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21558571 . 🗂Other references: 1) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12831697 

What's the mistake? Is the post wrong? 

I deleted the mistake. It said that the fat loss was only 1% of total bodyweight per week but it was 1.4%. 

As you get closer to a healthy weight I agree. However, if you start off as morbidly obese and insulin resistant, etc... and you make a radical change in your diet, eliminating grains and sugars and eating lean meats, vegetables, and fruits... you most certainly can and do lose weight hand over fist and very quickly too.  

Not if calories are equal. Insulin resistance matters not. 

I do think that if one is morbidly obese getting the unhealthy fat off more quickly than normal at first is a good thing.