…and I’ve lost 8 pounds, and 1% of my body fat. I did a weigh-in at the start and at the 30-day mark using the Inbody scale at GNC. My only concern is that of that 8 pounds, I lost 1 pound of muscle. And that’s with me lifting weights 4-5 days a week this whole time.
I started with 7-hour eating windows, then 6, then 5, and I’ve been at 4 for two weeks now. I read “Fast. Feast. Repeat.” before I started.
I’m trying to focus on getting more protein in my windows, but any tips on not losing muscle would be appreciated.
Do take anything relying on bioelectrical impedance with a grain of salt. It’s not terribly accurate.
>I’m trying to focus on getting more protein in my windows, but any tips on not losing muscle would be appreciated.
As long as you’re using the muscles working out, not cutting too aggressively, and providing enough protein, the loss of muscle mass should be minimal. The number I’ve seen thrown around is anything below losing .5-1% total body weight a week is going to more or less maintain lean body mass.
Something to help is to get really familiar with all the high protein per calorie foods. Each gram of protein is 4 calories and lots of foods are high in protein, but they come with a bunch of extra fat and carbs too, making it harder to stick to weigh loss goals. A lot of seafood, egg whites, nonfat yogurt, and such are almost pure protein per calorie. Shrimp for instance has more protein per calorie than a lot of protein powders. Though a good lean powder is still a great way to get more grams in.
Here are a few items to maybe put some perspective on this…
When you lose weight via calorie restrictions, regardless if it’s straight CICO or IF assisted or something else, you will lose some muscle. The science is pretty conclusive on this but there is emerging context about this that is heartening. This is related to muscle mass/quality vs. muscle strength as you cut weight. (I will refer to an article later on that explains this)
The scale you refer to is based on electrical conductivity to estimate body comp. I’ve looked into it and the accuracy range on those for muscle percentage is usually +- 20% when a vendor is willing to publish it. A lot of people report alarming muscle mass loss as they start to lose weight. If it’s within the accuracy range of the scale, you can’t really put that much stock in it.
If you’re eating high quality calories at your target and getting even moderate exercise, you’ll do fine.
Here’s an NIH article on this that I’ve found really helpful in understanding this whole muscle mass thing. The tl;dr of it is obese, sedentary people have a certain muscle mass forced by carrying that weight around, but it’s a low quality of muscle. As people exercise while losing weight they lose a fair amount of muscle mass, but they simultaneously can gain muscle strength because the muscle mass that’s there becomes higher quality muscle. i.e. You can lose muscle mass while gaining strength.
Hope this helps.