Gymcels/Diet Experts Help Wtf? Losing 40% Muscle Leanmaxxing?

[Moneymaxxed]

I measured my waist throughout my leanmaxxing.

You can calculate your bodyfat percentage with it and your height and sometimes your neck circumference. Navy method

I went from 260 pounds 31.5% bf to 205 pounds 23% bf. If this is true then I lost only 34.75 pounds of fat out of a total of 55 pounds lost.

This means I lost ALOT of fat free mass. Like 37%, maybe more if you count things conservatively.

I ate adequate protein, started with high bf, cut slowly (took me over a year), and worked out upper body 2-3 times a week with lots of long distance walks. According to this should not have lost so much muscle. I even lift the same weight as before (though at the beginning of the cut I didn’t do the max possible or anything)

Possibilities:
-Measurement was not accurate
-Low T
-Fat storage/distribution is atypical
-Sites online claiming 5-25% muscle loss during a cut or recomposition being typical are cope and this is somewhat normal
-Was coming off a cycle so might have lost extra muscle (however I have been off for 2 years and the past 6 months I lost 40% muscle too)
-Abdominal/other liposuction skewed the result. Though they only decreased my waist like half an inch when they did it
-Lots of muscle lost from core/lower body as I did not train them other than walking and daily life

At this rate I won’t even be that lean at 175 pounds which was my original target. I will need to become very small to get to 10-12% if I don’t improve the ratio of fat to muscle lost. Which won’t be aesthetic and will be extremely difficult to achieve.

 

[LordNorwood]

>coming off of a cycle
One other thing you aren't considering is water weight

 

[Deleted member 3328]

Genetics

 

[Madhate]

How fast did you cut? Also how do you know exactly what BF you are?

 

[Moneymaxxed]

>coming off of a cycle
One other thing you aren't considering is water weight

If you start it off excluding water weight it was prob 40% muscle lost

 

[LordNorwood]

If you start it off excluding water weight it was prob 40% muscle lost

How are your lifts compared to before

 

[Moneymaxxed]

How fast did you cut? Also how do you know exactly what BF you are?

Very slowly with unintentional breaks. I don’t know exactly but using the same method these are the numbers I came with. Plz read thread bro need help

How are your lifts compared to before

They are the same though might feel harder than before. I started off doing less than my max possible so might not have maintained. It’s hard to tell. I definitely did not get that much weaker

 

[Madhate]

Very slowly with unintentional breaks. I don’t know exactly but using the same method these are the numbers I came with. Plz read thread bro need help

They are the same though might feel harder than before. I started off doing less than my max possible so might not have maintained. It’s hard to tell. I definitely did not get that much weaker

paypal me $50 and i'll coach you for 1 hour

 

[LordNorwood]

Very slowly with unintentional breaks. I don’t know exactly but using the same method these are the numbers I came with. Plz read thread bro need help

They are the same though might feel harder than before. I started off doing less than my max possible so might not have maintained. It’s hard to tell. I definitely did not get that much weaker

Sounds to me like a sign you haven't lost pounds on pounds of muscle

 

[Moneymaxxed]

Sounds to me like a sign you haven't lost pounds on pounds of muscle

Yeah none of it makes any sense to me. Though I do seem around 23% dexa right now. So only explanation would be that I started off higher bf than I thought and measurement is inaccurate

 

[je3oe]

DO U LOOK BETTER THAN BEFORE, YES?
no problemo

 

[Ocelot]

I measured my waist throughout my leanmaxxing.

You can calculate your bodyfat percentage with it and your height and sometimes your neck circumference. Navy method

I went from 260 pounds 31.5% bf to 205 pounds 23% bf. If this is true then I lost only 34.75 pounds of fat out of a total of 55 pounds lost.

This means I lost ALOT of fat free mass. Like 37%, maybe more if you count things conservatively.

I ate adequate protein, started with high bf, cut slowly (took me over a year), and worked out upper body 2-3 times a week with lots of long distance walks. According to this should not have lost so much muscle. I even lift the same weight as before (though at the beginning of the cut I didn’t do the max possible or anything)

Possibilities:
-Measurement was not accurate
-Low T
-Fat storage/distribution is atypical
-Sites online claiming 5-25% muscle loss during a cut or recomposition being typical are cope and this is somewhat normal
-Was coming off a cycle so might have lost extra muscle (however I have been off for 2 years and the past 6 months I lost 40% muscle too)
-Abdominal/other liposuction skewed the result. Though they only decreased my waist like half an inch when they did it
-Lots of muscle lost from core/lower body as I did not train them other than walking and daily life

At this rate I won’t even be that lean at 175 pounds which was my original target. I will need to become very small to get to 10-12% if I don’t improve the ratio of fat to muscle lost. Which won’t be aesthetic and will be extremely difficult to achieve.

Legit overdose on protein. Maintaining a positive nitrogen balance is a must while cutting, and is also ideal to have at all times. Try high intakes like 1.6 - 2.2 g/lb of bodyweight.

 

[Piro]

DO U LOOK BETTER THAN BEFORE, YES?
no problemo

This.

I measured my waist throughout my leanmaxxing.

You can calculate your bodyfat percentage with it and your height and sometimes your neck circumference. Navy method

I went from 260 pounds 31.5% bf to 205 pounds 23% bf. If this is true then I lost only 34.75 pounds of fat out of a total of 55 pounds lost.

This means I lost ALOT of fat free mass. Like 37%, maybe more if you count things conservatively.

I ate adequate protein, started with high bf, cut slowly (took me over a year), and worked out upper body 2-3 times a week with lots of long distance walks. According to this should not have lost so much muscle. I even lift the same weight as before (though at the beginning of the cut I didn’t do the max possible or anything)

Possibilities:
-Measurement was not accurate
-Low T
-Fat storage/distribution is atypical
-Sites online claiming 5-25% muscle loss during a cut or recomposition being typical are cope and this is somewhat normal
-Was coming off a cycle so might have lost extra muscle (however I have been off for 2 years and the past 6 months I lost 40% muscle too)
-Abdominal/other liposuction skewed the result. Though they only decreased my waist like half an inch when they did it
-Lots of muscle lost from core/lower body as I did not train them other than walking and daily life

At this rate I won’t even be that lean at 175 pounds which was my original target. I will need to become very small to get to 10-12% if I don’t improve the ratio of fat to muscle lost. Which won’t be aesthetic and will be extremely difficult to achieve.

That being said, this could be your first cut, so you might be unexperienced.
1. Your bf% shouldn't really matter, as long as your goal is getting lean and numbers are utterly useless, but as you get fatter the % error goes up, there's a huge difference between 5% and 8% but not as huge between 33% and 36% for example.
2. No you weren't that big before, I'm sorry but all fat guys think they're the shit and that they have to lose way less than needed, usually under that water/glycogen substrate there is a LOT of fat, like way more than you could've thought
3. >Fat storage/distribution is atypical
Kinda true, it is due genetics and hormones (there are probably smarter niqqers on this forum that could explain on a more accurated way)
4. You cycled at 30%bf
5. If you set a weight goal rather than a physique one, you're dumb dumb, like really dumb
You can't account for water retention, glycogen storages, muscle insertions and so on

Please educate yourself more, also no you did not have 40lbs of muscle to begin with and no, if you cut correctly you will not lose muscle but just deplete them
If your lifts are the same as before everything is okay.

 

[Moneymaxxed]

This.



That being said, this could be your first cut, so you might be unexperienced.
1. Your bf% shouldn't really matter, as long as your goal is getting lean and numbers are utterly useless, but as you get fatter the % error goes up, there's a huge difference between 5% and 8% but not as huge between 33% and 36% for example.
2. No you weren't that big before, I'm sorry but all fat guys think they're the shit and that they have to lose way less than needed, usually under that water/glycogen substrate there is a LOT of fat, like way more than you could've thought
3. >Fat storage/distribution is atypical
Kinda true, it is due genetics and hormones (there are probably smarter niqqers on this forum that could explain on a more accurated way)
4. You cycled at 30%bf
5. If you set a weight goal rather than a physique one, you're dumb dumb, like really dumb
You can't account for water retention, glycogen storages, muscle insertions and so on

Please educate yourself more, also no you did not have 40lbs of muscle to begin with and no, if you cut correctly you will not lose muscle but just deplete them
If your lifts are the same as before everything is okay.

This.



That being said, this could be your first cut, so you might be unexperienced.
1. Your bf% shouldn't really matter, as long as your goal is getting lean and numbers are utterly useless, but as you get fatter the % error goes up, there's a huge difference between 5% and 8% but not as huge between 33% and 36% for example.
2. No you weren't that big before, I'm sorry but all fat guys think they're the shit and that they have to lose way less than needed, usually under that water/glycogen substrate there is a LOT of fat, like way more than you could've thought
3. >Fat storage/distribution is atypical
Kinda true, it is due genetics and hormones (there are probably smarter niqqers on this forum that could explain on a more accurated way)
4. You cycled at 30%bf
5. If you set a weight goal rather than a physique one, you're dumb dumb, like really dumb
You can't account for water retention, glycogen storages, muscle insertions and so on

Please educate yourself more, also no you did not have 40lbs of muscle to begin with and no, if you cut correctly you will not lose muscle but just deplete them
If your lifts are the same as before everything is okay.

the %s I got were from plugging in waist measurements, not just guessing so if it’s inaccurate it’s due to methodology and not opinion

I never had a weight goal just knew that around that weight with mostly fat lost I’d reach the correct bf%, but it seems I lost more muscle than I thought unless I started off at higher bf than expected as you said. In fact if you wanted my opinion at the time I’d say I was 34% bf or maybe more but when I plug things in now it’s only 31.5

not sure why you think I didn’t have 40lb of muscle the average man is 75% muscle

It’s interesting what you said about error % when fatter do you have a source for that? I hope you are correct.

Lifts definitely didnt get that much worse but I never pushed to failure to begin with and have been doing same weight whole time so not sure how much strength was lost

 

[zq336]

the %s I got were from plugging in waist measurements, not just guessing so if it’s inaccurate it’s due to methodology and not opinion

I never had a weight goal just knew that around that weight with mostly fat lost I’d reach the correct bf%, but it seems I lost more muscle than I thought unless I started off at higher bf than expected as you said. In fact if you wanted my opinion at the time I’d say I was 34% bf or maybe more but when I plug things in now it’s only 31.5

not sure why you think I didn’t have 40lb of muscle the average man is 75% muscle

View attachment 345969
It’s interesting what you said about error % when fatter do you have a source for that? I hope you are correct.

Lifts definitely didnt get that much worse but I never pushed to failure to begin with and have been doing same weight whole time so not sure how much strength was lost

If your lifts are the same, you probably did not lose much muscle, if any. Maybe some in the areas you did not train. Almost all body fat measures are quite inaccurate, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.

 

[Piro]

the %s I got were from plugging in waist measurements, not just guessing so if it’s inaccurate it’s due to methodology and not opinion

I never had a weight goal just knew that around that weight with mostly fat lost I’d reach the correct bf%, but it seems I lost more muscle than I thought unless I started off at higher bf than expected as you said. In fact if you wanted my opinion at the time I’d say I was 34% bf or maybe more but when I plug things in now it’s only 31.5

not sure why you think I didn’t have 40lb of muscle the average man is 75% muscle

View attachment 345969
It’s interesting what you said about error % when fatter do you have a source for that? I hope you are correct.

Lifts definitely didnt get that much worse but I never pushed to failure to begin with and have been doing same weight whole time so not sure how much strength was lost

I do not have a source but every caliper, scan, balance or w/e is KINDA right, but never spot on, even Greg Doucette would agree with me.
The error margin goes along with your body fat percentage, but there are so many variables that you should focus on your aesthetics rather than the numbers even if you're gonna compete to the Olympia.

That being said even the human hearth is made of muscles and accounted in that average man muscle percentage.

I'll be honest with you, if you had 40lbs of muscle you probably would know what you're doing at the gym.
You lost fat, glycogen, water and a bit of muscle if you're unlucky

Also, you look bigger when you're fat of course, but as long as you're moving the same weights you shouldn't really care.
If you're a newbie at the gym (and it seems it is the case) you could even gain muscle while cutting, this is called a body recomp and is probably what you should do.

If your lifts are the same, you probably did not lose much muscle, if any. Maybe some in the areas you did not train. Almost all body fat measures are quite inaccurate, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.

^He's right

Also if you stayed in a cut for a year, take a break eating at maintenance for some weeks, it's a marathon not a sprint
If you have any question feel free to pm me

 

[Moneymaxxed]

I do not have a source but every caliper, scan, balance or w/e is KINDA right, but never spot on, even Greg Doucette would agree with me.
The error margin goes along with your body fat percentage, but there are so many variables that you should focus on your aesthetics rather than the numbers even if you're gonna compete to the Olympia.

That being said even the human hearth is made of muscles and accounted in that average man muscle percentage.

I'll be honest with you, if you had 40lbs of muscle you probably would know what you're doing at the gym.
You lost fat, glycogen, water and a bit of muscle if you're unlucky

Also, you look bigger when you're fat of course, but as long as you're moving the same weights you shouldn't really care.
If you're a newbie at the gym (and it seems it is the case) you could even gain muscle while cutting, this is called a body recomp and is probably what you should do.


^He's right

Also if you stayed in a cut for a year, take a break eating at maintenance for some weeks, it's a marathon not a sprint
If you have any question feel free to pm me

I think you guys must be right that I was higher BF% than I thought maybe

If correct, I'll look way leaner at ~180 than I thought

I hope this is correct.

I do take breaks at times, for up to a few weeks at maintenance or even a slight surplus

If your lifts are the same, you probably did not lose much muscle, if any. Maybe some in the areas you did not train. Almost all body fat measures are quite inaccurate, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.

The tricky part is I'm not sure if my lifts are the same since I changed locations/gyms so many times, and when I started I wasn't pushing for max every time. It was sort of a light workout (can't handle much more when cutting tbh) that I've been maintaining the entire time

 

[wolfgaiden]

body fat percentage readings are highly inaccurate, unless you used a dexascan for body fat measurement, it's bullshit. The best way to view your progress is to see how much weight you lost per week. For healthy weight loss, assuming you're doing everything else right you wanna lose around 1-2lbs a week. Majority of that weight loss will be fat, assuming that you have adequate protein intake, which I'm sure you did and you didn't cut ur calories too fast. Even when you lose `1-2 lbs a week, that is not pure fat loss, you will lose some muscle in the progress. Just keep cutting till you look like you want to in the mirror, and make sure to keep lifting heavy to prevent muscle loss as our bodies view muscle as metabolically expensive.

 

[Moneymaxxed]

body fat percentage readings are highly inaccurate, unless you used a dexascan for body fat measurement, it's bullshit. The best way to view your progress is to see how much weight you lost per week. For healthy weight loss, assuming you're doing everything else right you wanna lose around 1-2lbs a week. Majority of that weight loss will be fat, assuming that you have adequate protein intake, which I'm sure you did and you didn't cut ur calories too fast. Even when you lose `1-2 lbs a week, that is not pure fat loss, you will lose some muscle in the progress. Just keep cutting till you look like you want to in the mirror, and make sure to keep lifting heavy to prevent muscle loss as our bodies view muscle as metabolically expensive.

Yes this is the advice I’ve been following for a long time, was worried that the result wasn’t really too great given high muscle loss but I think you guys are right and I lost more fat than the waist measurement would suggest

 

[Moggy]

You have very little muscle mass, it's over for you.

 

[Moneymaxxed]

You have very little muscle mass, it's over for you.

I don’t look skinny or small at all

 

[Moggy]

I went from 260 pounds 31.5% bf to 205 pounds 23% bf. If this is true then I lost only 34.75 pounds of fat out of a total of 55 pounds lost.

 

[Moneymaxxed]

I do not have a source but every caliper, scan, balance or w/e is KINDA right, but never spot on, even Greg Doucette would agree with me.
The error margin goes along with your body fat percentage, but there are so many variables that you should focus on your aesthetics rather than the numbers even if you're gonna compete to the Olympia.

That being said even the human hearth is made of muscles and accounted in that average man muscle percentage.

I'll be honest with you, if you had 40lbs of muscle you probably would know what you're doing at the gym.
You lost fat, glycogen, water and a bit of muscle if you're unlucky

Also, you look bigger when you're fat of course, but as long as you're moving the same weights you shouldn't really care.
If you're a newbie at the gym (and it seems it is the case) you could even gain muscle while cutting, this is called a body recomp and is probably what you should do.


^He's right

Also if you stayed in a cut for a year, take a break eating at maintenance for some weeks, it's a marathon not a sprint
If you have any question feel free to pm me

So it turns out that basically the reason for all this was I was higher bf% dxa (true bf) than I thought. I actually only have only ~140lb LBM which fits my lackluster yet somewhat consistent training over many years and lowish T levels (not even close to the 165+ I thought I had at one point while heavier which would be closer to genetic FFMI)

Also as many others mentioned the waist measurement method was simply too inaccurate. As mentioned I probably never had that much muscle to begin with. And I could eat a bit more protein.

Bodyfat%with waist measurements + 5% is probably dxa.

Current dxa is 27% at 205lb (like 22% calipers etc) I probably lost maybe 10-15 pounds of muscle out of 55 pounds of weight loss meaning I started out as maybe ~38%bf and dropped to ~27% and ~25% of the weight lost was muscle.

 

[Piro]

So it turns out that basically the reason for all this was I was higher bf% dxa (true bf) than I thought. I actually only have only ~140lb LBM which fits my lackluster yet somewhat consistent training over many years and lowish T levels (not even close to the 165+ I thought I had at one point while heavier which would be closer to genetic FFMI)

Also as many others mentioned the waist measurement method was simply too inaccurate. As mentioned I probably never had that much muscle to begin with. And I could eat a bit more protein.

Bodyfat%with waist measurements + 5% is probably dxa.

Current dxa is 27% at 205lb (like 22% calipers etc) I probably lost maybe 10-15 pounds of muscle out of 55 pounds of weight loss meaning I started out as maybe ~38%bf and dropped to ~27% and ~25% of the weight lost was muscle.

Mate don’t worry about muscle loss
Once you’ll get to a normal bf% imma help you out with a cycle if you’re pro AAS

Just eat high protein (>120/140g a day) for now and don’t stress too much on it
You’ll lose way less muscle than you think and probably everyone around you is a twink rn since the quarantine

Get to 12/15% bf for now