[Meta] proposal — a flair for protein posts
proposal — a flair for protein posts — posting the reasoning in public because a policy you cannot inspect is just a preference.
Strength retention is an imperfect but free longitudinal proxy: it is affected by neural factors and by being in a deficit, so it tracks tissue change loosely rather than exactly.
Two scans on the same machine 15 months apart. Lean mass held better than I expected and the lifts told the same story for free.
Kept the same programme for a year instead of changing it every six weeks. That was the change that worked.
Research-use-only material is not approved for human use and nothing here should be read as a recommendation to use it.
best — the order this archive was captured in
Fat-free mass index is a ratio of fat-free mass to height squared. It moves when either term does, which makes it awkward to interpret during active weight change.
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Careful, that is a nutrition prescription aimed at another member and this board does not do those.
Three scans over eighteen months, same machine, same conditions. Only the third one made the first two interpretable.
Retitled — the original claimed a composition change the scans cannot distinguish.
FFMI is a ratio and it moves when either term moves
On comparing yourself to composition figures from trials.
Published composition data comes from supervised populations with structured protocols, standardised scanning, and analysis populations that have been defined in advance. Your two scans at a local clinic, taken in different states of hydration, are not the same measurement.
Use your own baseline. The question worth asking is whether your own trajectory is going the way you want given what you are actually doing, and the honest answer usually requires measuring protein rather than estimating it and being truthful about training frequency. Neither of those is advice — a programme and a target are things to work out with somebody who knows your history.
DEXA has a meaningful coefficient of variation, and it differs between machines and protocols. Comparing scans from different clinics adds a systematic offset that is invisible on the report.
strength retention is a decent proxy and it is free
nothing on this board is a training or nutrition prescription
Push back: strength dropping in a deficit is not the same as lean mass loss. Related, not identical.