Cannonball72 said:
Awesome progress and numbers!
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Thanks!
Cannonball72 said:
I think your point is key, and it raises an important question: what is actually being measured?
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I didn't mean to make a particular point. The hinkiness in my data is with a couple numbers changing from the day of report (1/30) vs the comparison report made on 4/30. I corrected the data to the most logically rational results, but I'd like to harass them a bit since I've paid $600 for the data so far.
DEXA measures fat, bone mineral content (BMC), and "everything else" (lean mass). That "everything else" is volatile, primarily to fluid shifts but also food weight. For example, drinking a .5L bottle of water before scanning will make your lean mass increase ~1lb. Stomach contents (food) will show up as lean mass as well. Lean mass≠muscle fiber. Some advanced DEXAs can give a value for dry lean mass, or lean mass minus water mass.
Cannonball72 said:
...Pre-carbs = depleted muscle. Post-carbs = full muscle. DEXA would register that as a 10 lb muscle gain — but it’s clearly not new muscle fiber.
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Probably hyperbole, but 10lb of weight gain from carbs would take 1000-1500g or 4000-6000 calories of carbs to accomplish. DEXA would show that as +10lb of lean mass, it does not show muscle fiber explicitly.
Cannonball72 said:
...Under the right conditions, small increases are even possible with a well-designed program...
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I posit that for the average person cutting significant weight, the effort spent gaining that theoretically possible very small increase of muscle fiber would be better spent preserving their lean mass, cutting weight, and enjoying life. Once the weight is cut it is far easier and more practical to have meaningful fiber gains while at maintenance or preferably a surplus of calories.
I think quality of life and 2 year recomposition outlook significantly favors separating the cutting/maintaining from a protracted conservative cut + an effort to gain. I admit I have not specifically researched the time efficiency aspect.
Cannonball72 said:
Bottom line: We should worry a lot less about muscle loss on GLPs, as long as strength stays consistent.
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Speed of weight loss, resistance training, and protein intake matters. Turning a blind eye to any of that is a great way to be disappointed with the outcome. I wanted scans as my typical weights I'm lifting aren't in the gym and noticing at work that I'm weaker would be harder to adjust for. Noticeable strength loss would be a lagging indicator for me beyond what I find acceptable.
Between my second and third scans I didn't go to the gym, didn't track macros, etc... mostly because I was being lazy, partly because I wanted to see what would happen between scans (which is why I took the third scan a month before I originally planned). It's no surprise I lost a higher percentage of lean mass during that period... but the loss was acceptable to me and significantly better than the Quarter Rule.
Loss speed and supplements can help with catabolism and be lean sparing, which I think my data illustrates.
I specifically target 1-1.1% weight loss per week... slower is more conservative than I want, while faster is more likely to be detrimental to my lean mass without additional efforts. If I'm losing 92/8 fat to lean, that implies I've been running a ~1260 calorie daily deficit for 21 weeks and counting.
I take consistently (doses have changed) took/take:
4mg HMB-FA daily (split 2x or 3x)
180mg Test C weekly (split 3x)
16mg Reta weekly (split 2x)
Since the 3rd scan I have added creatine. I'm loading at around 20g/day for ~10 days and will transition to 10g/day for the duration.
Holy moly this turned into a half/half length post!
