DuringCutting, Why Do We Lose Muscle...

[Key Of David]

So say you go on a cutting cycle and you want to lose the fat you gained recently, or even say you are cutting during SD or whatever.

Why would you lose muscle IF you're taking in enough protein to maintain muscle?

I realize this may be a stupid question and has a really simple answer, but its just something I've never seen explained directly before.

Does it have something to do with cortisol release?

 

[vagrant]

It has more to do with the body looking for the easiest fuel source. If we reduce our calories the body has to burn something for fuel. Once it's glycogen stores are depleted it wants to replenish them. Putting body fat through glucogenesis is difficult. Protein is more easily converted than fat. If we are eating plenty of protein it becomes the preferred fuel source. Calories are still restricted so the body looks to it's self for fuel. Muscle is the most readily available stuff that is turned into energy more easily than fat. Hence - we get muscle loss.

For me, the key to sparing muscle is to get carbs very low, protein moderate at the same level as bulking, and increase my fat to 40% for a TCD to acclimate to lower carbs, then 60% when I drop them extremely low. Since the body is getting mostly fat - it starts burning fat for fuel. End result is muscle sparing fat loss.

I lost 160lbs of fat and added 30 pounds of muscle doing this.

 

[Key Of David]

That was excellent info thanks vagrant.

I guess I just find it hard to comprehend why the body would burn muscle if glycogen stores weren't depleted and there was fat to use as well. It was my understanding that we don't easily deplete glycogen stores accept during hard work, so a slight calorie deficiency wouldn't readily do this as long as we're not lifting/working hard. Maybe I was wrong.

I had read that the reason the body turns to glycogen stores during weight lifting is because you're doing too much work too fast for your body to use the available amount of oxygen to burn fat. Therefore, it was only natural that I thought as long as you stay near maintenance with higher protein intake and not busting your butt all the time that your muscles and glycogen stores would be safe and the next thing your body would look to would be fat.

Sorry for the ignorance but if I'm wrong about this that's why I'm asking.....so I can learn.

Your taking in more fat to burn more fat was a technique I knew existed but had not thought of that (say during SD when taking in actual carbs is not as important). Obviously it worked impressively for you.

The reason I ask all of this is because my body used to be very good at burning fat but since I'm getting older (35 now) its getting harder and harder to get rid of the little spare tire I do get from time to time.

I'll be taking in a lot of carbs soon since I'll be starting my 3rd cycle and am just finding out the options/possibilities in keeping as much muscle as possible, but with as little fat as possilble.

 

[Peak_Power]

Yeah the body does the strange things sometimes, like if you eat above maintaince and don't workout you'll put on fat, but actually still lose muscle... Its a case of "use it or lose it", the body is just lazy I guess.

 

[Aaron_F]

WHen people measure their BF during a diet they measure fat free mass and fat mass.

If losing no muscle at all you will still lose some fat free mass/lean body mass.

Ultimately you will not know if you lose muscle or not, apart from subjective measures like the mirror.

 

[Aaron_F]

<div>
(Peak_Power @ Oct. 12 2006,16:20)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Yeah the body does the strange things sometimes, like if you eat above maintaince and don't workout you'll put on fat, but actually still lose muscle... Its a case of &quot;use it or lose it&quot;, the body is just lazy I guess.</div>
maybe in trained people who have just stopped training

a normal person who has never trained will put on muscle as they get fatter. Becuase carrying around extra fat is like carting around your own personal weight stack all day.

 

[Sniggel]

Dont forget that strength training is the most potent stimulator of protein synthesis / balance. So strength training should be done during cutting to lose as little muscle mass as possible, i guess its quite obvious though

 

[vagrant]

The post about losing fat free mass not necessarily being muscle loss is very true. Remember FFM is EVERYTHING that isn't fat. This includes water. Every time you pee - you lose FFM. FFM is a term used interchangably with LBM by most.

About the glycogen. Our body runs on glucose. Glycogen is just stored energy - sugar that isn't in the blood yet to put it simply. When you use your blood sugar from weight training, running, walking, picking your nose - even thinking uses glucose you dip into the glycogen stores.

We try to keep glycogen stores full to keep from losing muscle, however if glycogen stores are always full - we cannot lose fat.

The body needs a certain amount of fat to survive - fat preservation is a survival mechanism. Muscle takes more energy to move around so the body is willing to give up fat more easily for a time, then when it realizes it has given it up, it will start sacrificing that big old energy wasting muscle to preserve fat.

That's the reason I do a high fat diet when I cut - to force the body to use fat for fuel against it's will. Sadly, it's simply not possible to preserve all muscle when we diet down and believe it or not, the less fat we have to lose, the harder it is to get rid of. When I was 300lbs of lard, I had a much easier time losing fat than I do when I cut now. It's not worth getting obese just to lose it easily though. That's why I believe in long, slow, controlled bulking diets with minimal fat gain then a slow cut for amonth to acclimate - then 2 months of hardcore, high fat, cutting. Remember the old bodybuilders meat and eggs diet that had rice the first month, then just meat and eggs the next 2? I do a more modern version of that.

 

[Sniggel]

<div>
(vagrant @ Oct. 13 2006,17:09)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">believe it or not, the less fat we have to lose, the harder it is to get rid of.  When I was 300lbs of lard, I had a much easier time losing fat than I do when I cut now.</div>
I read on another forum that in untrained individuals. The body can use 70kcal/kg bodyfat per day. Which is roughly 35kcal/lbs bodyfat per day
So if you have lets say 20 lbs of fat. You can use about 700 kcal per day from this energy storage (max) if you are not training. Trained individuals can use a little more.
So if you're lean and have 10 lbs of fat you can use 350 kcal from fat per day. So it really gets harder the leaner you are, just like vagrant has experienced. Because if you have a calorie intake that is below -350 (of your energy need) kcal per day there is no way that you will lose ONLY fat.
Still the numbers seem quite high anyway but im sure you just dont burn fat ONLY, its always a combination of energy storages, fat, muscle/protein, glycogen, its just that if you go too low more muscle will be burnt.

 

[Key Of David]

Thanks for the explanations. Its making more and more sense. Obviously it really all just comes down to the body preferring to burn muscle over fat. And that does make sense. After all, if you're starving and need energy, fat has more calories.

 

[robefc]

Given my ahem vast scientific knowledge (!) I could be wrong about this but the body burning muscle mass rather than fat actually makes perfect sense if you follow your body's logic...the body doesn't know we live in a world during which obesity is a much bigger problem than lack of food...it thinks we need to hang on to fat in case we don't find another meal for a long time (as obviously was the case throughout our evolution)and as someone stated before fat stores a lot more calories than muscle...it can afford to spare muscle mass because there's no biological necessity to walk around with a 200lb plus frame...that's just us being vain!

Weight training I guess is a way of fooling your body into thinking that greater muscle mass is necessary as everyday activities for our body now include lifting heavy weights...

That's why I think those cases of constant loading (either experiments or anecdotes about people with manual labour jobs) produce hypertrophy...because if the body is constantly having to lift heavy things it 'realises' that it needs greater muscle mass and responds appropriately...

Just my ramblings

Cheers

Rob