Ridiculous loss of mass

Minime

New Member
As the title states, the rate at which my metabolism eats up my muscle is completely ridiculous. I finished my last (third) HST-cycle at 74 kg (163 lbs), which is an increase in 6 kg, since I started the cycle at 68 kg (150 lbs). Got a little bit sick (meaning I probably ate a little bit under maintenance), so I took some extra SD (close to two weeks). Now, as I'll be starting my next round tomorrow, I checked my weight again - I lost it all, I'm back at 68, and in that also keeping the not insignificant amount of bf I gained. This all means that I lost more muscle on an almost two week SD, than I gained on the entire cycle.

So I'm starting to think, maybe it isn't worth the struggle. Maybe I should just give up. It hurts so much just thinking like this, I'm not normally a quitter. But this is just ridiculous.

What should I do? Should I just wait another twenty years for my metabolism to slow down, and try again then? Is there some other solution for the complete garbage that is somehow my excuse for a genetic makeup?

/Minime
 
<div>
(Minime @ Apr. 29 2008,2:37)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">This all means that I lost more muscle on an almost two week SD, than I gained on the entire cycle.</div>
Highly unlikely. Most of what you lost is probably fluid related.

Get back in the gym and, like Sci said, eat more. Oh, and eat more too!
smile.gif
 
Sure, some of it is fluid related. But still, I'm now (the day before starting my next cycle) at the same weight as when I started my last cycle, but with a significantly higher BF%. The &quot;fluid state&quot; must be same, since the weight comparison is made right at the end of SD in both cases.
sad.gif


Also, about eating - 3500-4000 kcal is where I'm aiming, and I'm usually in excess of that, except when I was a little sick in the beginning of this SD. At approximately 160 lbs, I just don't see how eating more will get me better results, since BF is also increasing quite rapidly. It's not a problem for me to gain muscle - I just tend to loose it whenever I SD. It was the same over christmas, which was SD after my first HST-cycle. I lost half of what I gained then - and christmas isn't exactly starvation holiday...
 
You NEED to eat more to gain and keep muscle. 160 lb.s is nothing unless you are 5' tall. Everyone gains some fat while gaining muscle, its normal. You sound like a typical skinny-guy who never gains muscle because he is too worried about fat gain. That is a great recipe for failure.
 
Also: since you've noticed SD causes some atrophy....stop doing it. At your stage you can probably just train week after week for months on end without needing to SD very often at all.
 
Actually, I'm not worried at all about gaining fat. Also, it's not that i cannot gain any weight - I have gained a total of 16 kg or 35 lbs since I started HST last fall, which I myself consider to be quite an accomplishment. What I meant was that since I, along with some great muscle gain, also gain significant amounts of fat, it can't really be that I'm not eating enough. According to the &quot;Eating for mass&quot;-article, at my weight I should be getting around 2500 kcal, while I am currently getting, as I said, 3500-4000 kcal daily.

My problem is not to gain mass, but to keep it when I SD. If I hadn't lost it so easily, the 35 lbs I gained so far, might have been a lot more. And now, to summarize, it seems as if I have lost every single pound I gained during the last cycle.

So I guess, as you said Sci, that I should just stop doing SD.
 
I don't understand how you could lose so much weight in under two weeks if you were eating at maintenance unless you shed a lot of fluid. Did you come off creatine?

Let's take your 35lb gains since last fall (Oct 2007?): if you reckon on adding one or two pounds of muscle a month since that time, that's about 15lb of lean mass (but it will depend on your P-ratio). An increase like that should see you getting a whole lot stronger. How much have your main lifts increased by over that time?

I would start a fresh cycle and guage how things are going by your strength levels.

Growing new muscle tissue is a relatively slow process once newbie gains have stopped. Sure, muscle will atrophy if you don't train it in a while but it's just not going to disappear in two weeks if you are eating at maintenance. It just doesn't make sense that your body would eat it up like that.

If you are still at the stage where you are able to add weight to the bar each week in a linear fashion and don't stall out, then you should continue to do that until you do. SD becomes much more important/useful when you have plateaued and need a reset (or you just feel thoroughly beaten up and need a break).
 
a couple of things concern me , a. you said u r getting enough calories, but is there enough from protein? and b. after ive been out of the gym a week i tend to flatten out a little, maybe it is the same for you.


to me, i think you are not getting enough protein cos theres no way you would go in to such a catabolic state after only a week or two. like the others said get back in the gym and eat.
 
<div>
(lcars @ Apr. 29 2008,8:43)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">you said u r getting enough calories, but is there enough from protein?</div>
Yup, you need to keep your protein at least as high as 1 gram per pound of bodyweight. When you are cutting or on SD, you might want to up that to 1.5g/lb or 2g/lb.

Protein saves lean body mass when you aren't working out, and builds muscle when you are.
 
Icars, I'm getting well of over 1g per pound of bodyweight, mainly from milk, eggs, whey and chicken. I also count the protein I get from my oats (which is a lot) - which does not have a complete amino acid profile. Might that be it? Or could I be getting to much phytoestrogens from the oats? Sounds strange, but I'm eating about a litre (350g) of oats a day.

Lol: I don't know if it is all newbie gains. Pre-HST I had been weightlifting for about two years, with some gains, but nothing fancy (went from 116 to 127 lbs). I have been gaining some pretty massive strength as well, mainly on the &quot;big lifts&quot;, the deadlift and the dumbbell press, and some on the squat. My 5RM on deads have gone from 200 lbs to 280 lbs, incline dumbbell press from 42 to 60 lbs/hand etc.

About creatine, I use Kre-Alkalyn (regular monohydrate makes my stomach upset), which is a pre-workout supplement. This means that I don't take it during SD. I haven't really seen any effect from it, so I'll stop using it for now. I also haven't gotten any of the fluid retention that I got from regular monohydrate, ie no &quot;flab&quot;, which probably also means it isn't very effective. Some of the weightloss could be related to the Kre-Alkalyn, but still, the situation is the same as after my last SD.

When I hit my pre-determined maxes, I usually cannot go heavier, which would mean I need to decondition, right? So how short is too short? Is a five day SD too short?
 
<div>
(Minime @ Apr. 29 2008,2:37)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">As the title states, the rate at which my metabolism eats up my muscle is completely ridiculous. I finished my last (third) HST-cycle at 74 kg (163 lbs), which is an increase in 6 kg, since I started the cycle at 68 kg (150 lbs). Got a little bit sick (meaning I probably ate a little bit under maintenance), so I took some extra SD (close to two weeks). Now, as I'll be starting my next round tomorrow, I checked my weight again - I lost it all, I'm back at 68, and in that also keeping the not insignificant amount of bf I gained. This all means that I lost more muscle on an almost two week SD, than I gained on the entire cycle.

So I'm starting to think, maybe it isn't worth the struggle. Maybe I should just give up. It hurts so much just thinking like this, I'm not normally a quitter. But this is just ridiculous.

What should I do? Should I just wait another twenty years for my metabolism to slow down, and try again then? Is there some other solution for the complete garbage that is somehow my excuse for a genetic makeup?

/Minime</div>
your body will only use muscle if there are no carbs available,so when you SD
1) do you stop carbs
2) do you do any other exercise
3) are you sure its muscle your losing
4) are you on any medicine
 
OK thanks for the info Minime. I do think that stopping taking the Kre-Alkalyn probably caused some of the weight loss.

One thing that might help next cycle is to keep using your new 5RM loads for several weeks more before you take a break. It can take quite a few weeks working with these loads before they become less effective. Then you can SD. I usually give it 9 days but others like to take a bit longer.

When you start a new cycle, your gauge to whether you have had any muscle loss will be how quickly you get your strength back regardless of your body weight (but bear in mind that the Kre-Alkalyn might well have been having an effect so the high rep stuff might be tougher than it was).
 
<div>
(Lol @ Apr. 29 2008,11:12)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">......... (but bear in mind that the Kre-Alkalyn might well have been having an effect so the high rep stuff might be tougher than it was).</div>
very true
 
<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Got a little bit sick.</div>

When a person is physically injured their metabolism increases to support tissue repair. Something similar occurs when you get sick. Where do you think all that heat comes from when you have a fever? Its entirely common to lose weight when ill. The more ill you are the more prone to weight loss you'll be. If you weren't eating at maintenance for your enhanced muscle mass the calories needed to keep you alive + the calories used to get you over it came from somewhere....

As for looking flat like some others have posted, that's partially due to the glycogen, electrolyte, and fluid levels in the muscle.

If doing an SD causes you to lose weight...well yeah, don't SD. Big concept: One size fits alls means no size fits anybody. We're each different. You've learned something about your body. Don't look at it with dismay because it doesn't fit neatly within the HST model. The system is never more important than the man. Bryan Haycock has stated that HST is a framework. Its a working model. A starting point. Not Ultimate Truth.

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">: Med Sci Sports Exerc. 1993 Aug;25(8):929-35.Links
The effects of detraining on power athletes.
Hortobágyi T, Houmard JA, Stevenson JR, Fraser DD, Johns RA, Israel RG.

Human Performance Laboratory, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC 27858.

We investigated the effects of 14 d of resistive exercise detraining on 12 power athletes. In comparing performances pre- to post-detraining, there were no significant (P &gt; 0.05) changes in free weight bench press (-1.7%), parallel squat (-0.9%), isometric (-7%) and isokinetic concentric knee extension force (-2.3%), and vertical jumping (1.2%). In contrast, isokinetic eccentric knee extension force decreased in every subject (-12%, P &lt; 0.05). Post-detraining, the changes in surface EMG activity of the vastus lateralis during isometric, and isokinetic eccentric and concentric knee extension were -8.4%, -10.1%, and -12.7%, respectively (all P &gt; 0.05). No significant changes occurred in knee flexion forces or EMGs (P &gt; 0.05). Percentages of muscle fiber types and the Type I fiber area remained unchanged, but Type II fiber area decreased significantly by -6.4% (P &lt; 0.05). Levels of plasma growth hormone (58.3%), testosterone (19.2%), and the testosterone to cortisol ratio (67.6%) increased, whereas plasma cortisol (-21.5%) and creatine kinase enzyme levels (-82.3%) decreased (all P &lt; 0.05). Short-term resistive exercise detraining may thus specifically affect eccentric strength or the size of the Type II muscle fibers, leaving other aspects of neuromuscular performance uninfluenced. Changes in the hormonal milieu during detraining may be conducive to an enhanced anabolic process, but such changes may not materialize at the tissue level in the absence of the overload training stimulus.</div>

As for fat gain while eating lots, learn more. Carb cycling. HIIT. etc.
 
<div>
(Old and Grey @ Apr. 28 2008,9:21)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">I agree. Throw in the towel. Come back in 20 years. If it isn't worth the effort, why even try?</div>
Old and Gray...I was thinking the same thing...
tounge.gif
biggrin.gif
 
Minime,

With all do respect and ( i mean this in a good way) ...MAN UP BRO!

Look this sport takes time and effort. Have you really dedicated yourself to training?

Have you really dedicated yourself to HST?

How seriously have you ever trained on any program? Have you took supplements, wrote down everything you ate in a day , a week, a month?

All of these things 90% of us here at some point in time in the IRON GAME have done.

I started weight training weighing 150 pounds. Three months later after some serious training and creatine I weighed 180 pounds. Fast forward 13+ years and I don't weigh much more than that now...but have I made gains....hell yeah...the point is it takes time...dedication...trial / errors and a half way decent routine.

The good thing is 90% of us here trained like morons the most of our life and found HST which isn't the HOLY GRAIL ....but it does have 100% of the best principals there is to any routine.

I went from benching 125 pound dumbells years ago to a torn pec and could only lift 20 pound dumbells...I could of said f#ck it and headed for zee hills...but I got my *** back in the gym and started working my way back.

My point in all of this is not to be harsh but to give you some TOUGH love that we all need from time to time.

My advice is go grab some food and eat some more and hang out here for a good 6 months and learn how to train.

If you log and read here and you do that with a proper diet you will GROW.

Good luck now go eat something!
biggrin.gif
 
<div>
(Joe.Muscle @ Apr. 29 2008,10:00)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Minime,

With all do respect and ( i mean this in a good way) ...MAN UP BRO!

Look this sport takes time and effort. Have you really dedicated yourself to training?

Have you really dedicated yourself to HST?

How seriously have you ever trained on any program? Have you took supplements, wrote down everything you ate in a day , a week, a month?

All of these things 90% of us here at some point in time in the IRON GAME have done.

I started weight training weighing 150 pounds. Three months later after some serious training and creatine I weighed 180 pounds. Fast forward 13+ years and I don't weigh much more than that now...but have I made gains....hell yeah...the point is it takes time...dedication...trial / errors and a half way decent routine.

The good thing is 90% of us here trained like morons the most of our life and found HST which isn't the HOLY GRAIL ....but it does have 100% of the best principals there is to any routine.

I went from benching 125 pound dumbells years ago to a torn pec and could only lift 20 pound dumbells...I could of said f#ck it and headed for zee hills...but I got my *** back in the gym and started working my way back.

My point in all of this is not to be harsh but to give you some TOUGH love that we all need from time to time.

My advice is go grab some food and eat some more and hang out here for a good 6 months and learn how to train.

If you log and read  here and you do that with a proper diet you will GROW.

Good luck now go eat something!
biggrin.gif
</div>
Wow, that was like a speech from a Rocky movie or something!
cool.gif
laugh.gif
 
Back
Top