Loose fat mass while increasing lean mass?

[Ario]

Loose 3 kg of fat mass while maintaining or increasing lean muscle mass?

[Heybales · Accepted solution]

Sure, eat at maintenance and strength train.

Now, you'll have to manually log that exercise since Fitbit is badly underestimating it, to confirm you are eating at maintenance.

That will allow the best response from the strength training. Well, actually surplus would, but maintenance better than deficit.

In this study the men traded Fat Mass for LBM at rate of 3.5 lbs in 16 weeks. Sadly they didn't measure muscle mass, but likely some was.

http://jap.physiology.org/content/76/1/133.short 

7% increase in RMR (just resting, not all day increase) is nothing to sneeze at for 3.5 lb increase in LBM, same drop in body fat, and all in 16 weeks. Almost a lb a month LBM gain. And this is older folks even, who true, probably had far to go. But still. 
Diet was not part of it, so probably eating the same. 

Notice this is LBM, not muscle. Obviously not water only with strength improvement 

So no weight loss, just a trade of fat for LBM. 

[Dominique]

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@Ario wrote:

Loose 3 kg of fat mass while maintaining or increasing lean muscle mass?

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That's quite challenging (depending, of course, on how fast you want to get there). Let's say you're currently 80 kg and your body fat is 20%. You therefore have 64 kg of lean mass and 16 kg of fat mass. You'd want to keep your 64 kg of lean mass and decrease your fat mass to 13 kg, which would result in a body fat of 16.9%. As @Heybales noted, you'll have to increase your strength training (or add it to your training routine if you aren't doing any yet). You'll probably also need to increase your protein intake.

[Dominique]

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@Heybales wrote:

In this study the men traded Fat Mass for LBM at rate of 3.5 lbs in 16 weeks. Sadly they didn't measure muscle mass, but likely some was.

http://jap.physiology.org/content/76/1/133.short

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Men in that study had a body fat % of 25.6 +/- 1.5, which is probably quite a bit higher than @Ario's (based on his profile photo). It's easier to lose fat when you've got a lot of it than when you're already quite lean. They brought it down to 23.7 +/- 1.7. For a 80 kg male, 25.6 to 23.7% is a 1.5 kg drop in body fat, which half of what @Ario wants to achieve. Not bad in 16 weeks, but they probably started from a higher level than him.