Not loosing fat rather lost muscle

[s420]

Trying to understand how fat loss/muscle works - I used to be 190 pounds last year where I started taking exercise or food habits seriously . After an year (now) - I reached 150pounds & consistently weighing around same. However , I took a DXA scan few months back where I see fat body as 28%  (which is varied compare to caliper ) . I increased my workout (12-15 miles run in week & 5 days workout - 2 days strength , 3 days weights) . I just got another scan last week to compare - I see 4 pounds loss in muscle & only 0.2% change in fat loss - This clearly shows i am doing something wrong or need to change my game plan . Can some help me to understand what can be done differently to start building the muscle rather loosing it  . 

Usual routine:

Starts day with a run (1-2 miles on thread mill) followed by Protein shake

Coffee between lunch

Lunch will be mixture of carbs & fat 

Protein bar in between

Evening working workout with 1 mile run & weights 

Followed by Whey Protien shake 

Dinner more or less same as lunch 

[Dominique]

Welcome to the community, @s420, and congrats for lowering your weight by 40 pounds in one year!

Building muscle is a very slow process, even if you have the ideal profile for maximum gains (young, untrained male). Although DEXA scans are supposed to be one of the most accurate (or maybe, least inaccurate) ways to determine body composition, they are not perfect. It would probably have been more useful to take one when you were 190 pounds, and the other one one year later, at 150 pounds. Whatever changes take place in body composition in two months time are likely too small to be detectable even by means of DEXA scans.

I would suggest you monitor your lifts instead. Hopefully you are logging your training sessions, so you can compare what you can lift for – say – ten reps in the "big" lifts (e.g. deadlift, squat, benchpress). If the numbers go up over time, you’ll know you’re gaining strength and muscle, and monitoring your progress will be both more convenient and cheaper than taking DEXA scans.

You only mentioned "weights" in your daily routine. It’s the most important factor in building muscle, so you may want to expand on what / how much you are doing. I assume you included morning and evening runs for fat loss. Losing fat and gaining muscle at the same time is very hard, especially if/when you have reached a weight you wish to maintain. This is because the optimal conditions for building muscle is being in a caloric surplus, whereas you need to be in a caloric deficit in order to lose fat. So it can be a good idea to focus on fat loss and muscle building one at a time.

[bikerhiker]

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@s420 wrote:

Trying to understand how fat loss/muscle works - I used to be 190 pounds last year where I started taking exercise or food habits seriously . After an year (now) - I reached 150pounds & consistently weighing around same. However , I took a DXA scan few months back where I see fat body as 28%  (which is varied compare to caliper ) . I increased my workout (12-15 miles run in week & 5 days workout - 2 days strength , 3 days weights) . I just got another scan last week to compare - I see 4 pounds loss in muscle & only 0.2% change in fat loss - This clearly shows i am doing something wrong or need to change my game plan . Can some help me to understand what can be done differently to start building the muscle rather loosing it  . 

Usual routine:

Starts day with a run (1-2 miles on thread mill) followed by Protein shake

Coffee between lunch

Lunch will be mixture of carbs & fat 

Protein bar in between

Evening working workout with 1 mile run & weights 

Followed by Whey Protien shake 

Dinner more or less same as lunch 

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If you have taken the DXA scan @ 190lbs and @ 150lbs, that would give you a clearer picture of your body fat situation.  The key to building muscles is to get muscle toning and increasing the mitochondria in your muscles.  It is the Mitochondria in your muscles that will help you burn fat, plus you need to have your insulin level low to also create a condition where fat burning is possible.  A number of thoughts I see come up.  Whey protein and protein bars that you are consuming.  How much sugar are in them?  I know a number of Whey protein have very high level of refined sugar as well as some protein bars.  Sugar alcohol, believe or not, may also raise blood sugar.  Some protein bars that use artificial sugar like maltodextrin may also raise insulin level in your body.  Basically, when insulin level is high in the presence of glucose, the body will not burn fat.  WHO (World Health Organization) suggests that a person only needs about 24grams of sugar / day.  Some Whey protein and protein bars supplements can easily exceed that per serving!

To prevent your body from Glyconeogenesis; meaning turning your lean muscles into glucose is to make sure your body's insulin level is low.  The body always prefer to use carbs as the energy source because it requires the least amount of effort to turn it into potential energy.  Consuming more protein and dietary fat can help, but the main point is REST and RECOVERY.  Any plateau episode is the body telling you to take a brief break and letting your body adapt to the new body fat set point.  Once you allowed this rest and recovery period which may take from 1 to 3 months is then you can continue on the next stage of your weight loss.

In my case, it took my body a month to reset to the new set point and then I lost some more weight and more of my waist line shrinks.  In fact, after I recovered from a cold recently and decided to let the body rest for 3 weeks with zero exercise, and yet I still lose weight because now my body places a higher emphasis on burning body fat.

I used to run a 35min 10 km and ultra marathons and my weight was stuck @ 142lbs for ages.  Today, I'm @ 133lbs and I have lean muscle mass plus a thinner waist line and nicely formed abs.  

[Daves_Not_Here]

@s420 - Sounds like you're doing very well.  How do you feel, emotionally and physically?  If "great " , then screw the DEXA,  just saying

[SunsetRunner]

There could be a few reasons:

• You’re not getting enough protein. To me, it sounds like you aren’t even hitting the minimum based on what you described which won’t allow your muscles to recover.
• Your calorie deficit is too high. The body recognizes a very high-calorie deficit as an emergency and will spare fat and begin to burn muscle for fuel. “Starvation mode” is largely debated but the fact is weight loss and fat loss is two very different things.
• You’re doing too much steady-state cardio. Too much cardio can actually burn muscle for fuel especially if you are doing cardio in a fasted state when you are already in catabolic mode. Mix up steady-state cardio with HIIT which is muscle sparing.

That’s what I can think of off the top of my head.

[emili]

@s420.. cardio mostly works on fat loss and doesn't help build muscle at all. In fact in some cases it actually decreases muscle gain. If you are not worried about weight loss any longer, I would reduce cardio to just warm up or a walk in the morning and focus on lifting or some other form of strength training. You can still watch your food intake, but increase protein to help with muscle growth...