Acceptable muscle loss

[Questions1234]

I have a lot of weight to lose (started with BMI of 40+) and have been losing steadily around 1kg a week since beginning of January.

I have gone in hard on the preventing muscle loss strategies - weight training 4-5 times a week plus high protein - and have been managing to actually gain muscle (absolute and so obviously %) while losing weight.

However, logic tells me that (given the amount I need to lose) at some point some muscle will come off too? What’s an “acceptable” level of muscle loss? Obviously gaining muscle is best, but is maintaining in absolute terms as my weight drops OK? Or is even maintaining in % terms ok?

Grateful for any insight on what I should be aiming for when I have a lot to lose?

Thanks!

I joined a gym recently where they have a body composition analysis machine. Theirs is called InBody.

in the muscle-fat analysis section they show your weight/skeletal muscle mass and body fat mass. Thaw have different scales for each but shown so the under/normal/over are in line and they explained that they’re looking g for those to be more or less in line, which mine were. That’s been helpful for me, perhaps your gym has something similar?

Muscle mass declines with age, so I’m aiming to maintain that.

Thanks. I do my weights at home so not a member of a gym. I upgraded to some fancy scales which give me loads of measurements, but I think their rating is skewed by the fact I have loads of weight to lose - e.g. my muscle related ones are all “excellent” where as my fat related ones are all awful - but no sense of interplay between them if that makes sense?! So the reason I have excellent muscle levels is because I’m carting about so much additional weight!

Maybe I’m overthinking this, and will just keep with the weight training/high pressure and keep an eye on the fancy scales as the weight comes off?

Thanks!

High protein not high pressure 🤣🤣. Though fitting it all in my meals can feel high pressure at times 🤣

Logically, maintaining %age while losing a significant amount of weight will give you an absolute loss.

My body fat % for example, started at a horrifying 42% and muscle at 34%. Say for convenience that was at 100kg, so it's 42kg of fat and 34kg of muscle. If I want to end at 75kg and maintain the same muscle %, I'd only need 25.5 kg of muscle at the end.

So I can lose absolute muscle mass but maintain the same percentage because my overall mass will be smaller anyway.
In my age group, a good muscle mass percentage would be around 31%, so I could actually go lower than 25.5kg of muscle (a big overall drop!) and still be in a good percentage. So it's the percentage that you need to maintain, not absolute.

Thank you! That makes sense.

Muscle loss is not inevitable. I'm a frail old lady with limited mobility and I have lost over 12 stone.

My Withings smart scales reassure me each week that my muscle mass is increasing slowly, at the same time as my fat mass continues to decrease.

When I first bought the scales they showed a slight decline in muscle mass the first month. That worried me, because I'm already knackered and don't need to add osteoporosis to my long list of pathetic ailments. So I started eating more protein (adding fish to a diet that had been vegetarian/vegan since 1982) and invested in a set of puny hand weights (0.5kg, 1kg and 1.5kg).

I'm very doddery and stiff with rheumatoid arthritis but I'd been using a vibration plate every day for a year until I was finally able to stand up for a full 10 minute program without needing a couple of sticks for balance (though I still need a stick for support to climb on and off the plate). I started out using the half kilo weights and using the ten minutes of vibration to run through a series of arm exercises and stretches.

A month later the weight loss had continued, but it was all fat, my muscle mass had increased by a tiny amount. Gradually I have increased the size of the weights (still sticking to 10 minutes/day made more intense by the vibration plate). Last Christmas I upgraded to 2 kg weights and they are just heavy enough to be a challenge without being too heavy.

My muscle mass has not decreased since I started using the weights, even though I can't do any exercises that involve bending, squatting, or stepping on and off the plate. Instead it has continued to increase by small amounts each month, while my fat mass has continued to shrink.

I still can't walk without at least one stick, even on a good day, but I can balance on the vibration plate for 10 minutes, and I can just managed to stand up in the greenhouse for a couple of hours potting on seedlings. Best of all I can now open my very heavy Ottoman bed (the mattress weighs 63kgs and the pneumatic lift doesn't kick in until you raise it a good bit) without having to ask one of the neighbours to lend a hand.

My current ambition is to become mobile enough to dodder to the gym and use their machines to strengthen my legs and back. Perhaps then I'd be able to get in and out of chairs that don't have the armrests I currently require to be able to lever myself up and down. Or even get myself up off the floor after a fall without having to crawl along until I can grab onto a piece of sturdy furniture and use it as a climbing frame.

Anyhow if someone as old and knackered as me can halt their muscle atrophy and turn it around despite not being able to walk without sticks and a lot of swearing (because of the pain) then I reckon just about anyone must be able to do it.