tried protein for 24 weeks. here is what happened.
Something I keep coming back to: tried protein for 24 weeks. here is what happened.
Pulling the figures out of the title: 24 weeks. All of it is written down as it happened rather than reconstructed.
Reduced appetite makes hitting a protein target a logistics problem rather than a motivation problem, which is why the practical advice here is about timing and food choice rather than willpower.
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.
Not medical advice, obviously, and nothing here is approved for human use. One person with a spreadsheet.
best — the order this archive was captured in
Left up. Same machine, stated conditions, honest about the error margin.
Two scans on the same machine 10 months apart. Lean mass held better than I expected and the lifts told the same story for free.
Disagree — slower loss does not automatically preserve lean mass. Protein and training do the work, not the rate on its own.
Some lean mass loss accompanies weight loss in any deficit. Resistance training and adequate protein intake are the two interventions with the best evidence for limiting the proportion.
Have the lifts held, dropped, or moved around?
Hydration status and fasting state affect the lean mass estimate. Standardising both is the difference between a comparison and a coin toss.
What was the rate of weight change over that window?
Nothing here is a training or nutrition prescription. Targets and programmes are matters for somebody who knows your history and your training background.
Nothing here is a training or nutrition prescription.
Disagreeing with this line: rate alone does not preserve lean mass. The training does.
Three scans over eighteen months, same machine, same conditions. Only the third one made the first two interpretable.
Cosigning that protein gets harder precisely when appetite drops. That is the actual difficulty and it is logistical.
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.
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.
Small fix — that is fat-free mass, not muscle mass. The scan cannot separate them the way the post assumes.
Lost slower for six months deliberately and my composition change was not obviously different. Training was what mattered.
Compared two scans from different clinics and panicked over a difference that was inside the error margin.
Push back: strength dropping in a deficit is not the same as lean mass loss. Related, not identical.
What the evidence actually supports, stripped of the arguing.
Some lean mass is lost in any weight-loss deficit. Resistance training and adequate protein intake are the two interventions with real support for limiting the proportion. Nearly everything else discussed on this board is a rounding error on those two.
The complication specific to this site is that appetite reduction makes protein intake a logistics problem: you are being asked to eat a fixed amount of something at exactly the point when eating anything is less appealing. That is why the practical threads here are about timing and food choice rather than motivation, and why measuring intake rather than estimating it is the single most common useful correction.
What the evidence actually supports, stripped of the arguing.
Agreed — and same machine, same conditions, or the two scans are not comparable.
grip strength and lift numbers are cheap longitudinal markers
resistance training first, cardio if there is time left
- 1Left up. Same machine, stated conditions, honest about the error margin.6 comments in this branch · started by u/lift_heavy_things
- 2DEXA has a meaningful coefficient of variation, and it differs between…6 comments in this branch · started by u/viktor_girard