the lean mass thing finally clicked for me and I want to write it down
Thinking out loud about this: the lean mass thing finally clicked for me and I want to write it down.
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.
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.
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.
If two or three other people have done the same thing we might actually learn something. Alone it is an anecdote.
best — the order this archive was captured in
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.
Yes. Nobody here is prescribing training or nutrition and the good posts say so.
Right — strength retention is a free proxy and it tracks better than most people expect.
protein and resistance training, that is the entire intervention
DEXA has a real error margin and people quote it to one decimal
Small fix — that is fat-free mass, not muscle mass. The scan cannot separate them the way the post assumes.
a single DEXA is a number, two is a comparison, three is a trend
Hydration status and fasting state affect the lean mass estimate. Standardising both is the difference between a comparison and a coin toss.
Resistance training, and at what frequency?
How many weeks between the two scans?
Reminder that nobody here is prescribing training and the sidebar says so.
Reminder that nobody here is prescribing training and the sidebar says so.
Disagreeing with this line: rate alone does not preserve lean mass. The training does.
That protein figure is grams per day, not grams per kilogram. Different claim entirely.
training volume matters more than training novelty
Cosigning that protein gets harder precisely when appetite drops. That is the actual difficulty and it is logistical.
the appetite effect makes eating enough protein a logistics problem
That is a trial average in a supervised population and you are comparing your own scan to it.
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.
Push back: strength dropping in a deficit is not the same as lean mass loss. Related, not identical.
Agreed on the error margin. Quoting a DEXA to one decimal implies a precision the method does not have.
Not convinced by that DEXA comparison. Different machine, different protocol, and the difference is inside the error.
Careful, that is a nutrition prescription aimed at another member and this board does not do those.
- 1Right — strength retention is a free proxy and it tracks better than most…9 comments in this branch · started by u/annika_fonseca