Lean vs Fat

[Newme2019]

Hello everyone.  I'm totally new to forums but I've decided I could need help from others and most probably can help others myself with some of my experiences.  The subject I have been juggling around with for the past weeks is: Should I try to retain as much lean mass on my journey to weight loss as of now, or should I concentrate on losing the weight first and rebuilding lean mass once I get to my goal ?  Thank you for sharing your comments with me.  

[JohnnyRow · Accepted solution]

My thought is that if exercise is part of your weight loss, lean vs fat will take care of itself.

[Newme2019]

Ok, yes it is, or becoming at least.  So I shouldn't worry too much if for the moment, my lean mass is going down somewhat, it will readjust ?

[WavyDavey]

I lean towards retaining lean mass. Muscle takes a lot of calories to sustain, so I think it's an important part to support weight loss. Others may feel differently, and in the end it may not matter so much. But that's my take.

[Dominique]

Consider what is needed for optimal gaining of lean mass:

• engage in resistance training
• adequate protein intake
• adequate caloric surplus
• good stress management, enough quality sleep

Now you want to lose weight/fat, so you need to be in a caloric deficit. There is no reason why you couldn’t continue to pay attention to the other aforementioned aspects. The same things that work for gaining muscle mass in a caloric surplus will work for minimizing muscle loss (or possibly maintaining muscle mass) in a caloric deficit. It’s not like lifting weights will prevent or slow down fat loss: it will burn a few extra calories (though typically less per unit of time than aerobic exercise) and will provide existing muscles an incentive to stick around, in spite of calories being scarse.

So there’s no need to think cardio training and resistance training are mutually exclusive, i.e. you only do cardio when in a caloric deficit to lose fat, and you only lift weights when in a surplus to gain muscle mass. It’s a good idea to do both (cardio + resistance training), regardless of your current goal in terms of weight management (and therefore energy balance), because they both have merits and benefits of their own.

[Newme2019]

Thank you Dominique.  That helps put my mind at ease.