Protein Content of Fat and its effect on muscle loss

[DominicJ]

This is more a Request for Information than a post in its own right, but we have some pretty smart cookies on here so I figured it was worth a shot.

A pound of fat, is around 4000 calories

A pound of body fat, is around 3200 calories

Which means a pound of body fat, is around 65% fat, and 35% "lean body mass", ie blood vessels, cartilage and muscle

That has some pretty terrible implications for someone like me, who is around 180lbs with around 60lbs of fat

I was thinking that when I lost my next 30lbs in weight, it would be fat, and it would drop me to 15% BF, but actually, 10lbs of that will be the "support" infrastructure that held the body fat in place and supplied it blood and such.

Thats not going to just magically migrate to my biceps...

So to lose 30lbs of fat, I'm going to have to lose 45lbs in total, which would still leave me with a fairly high BF% of 22%

Suddenly BMI makes masses of sense (Yes, I know, its not for individual use)

So, do any of those sentances make the tiniest bit of sense?

[BurdsNest]

Good question, DominicJ.....am I correct in getting my BF from my scale?  I hear many talk about 19%, 18%. 22% body fat, and they are taller, and heavier than I am, and I think that sounds weird.  My body fat is 28.4, with a BMI of 23.1 based on my scale.   I am 56, female and I currently weigh 129.8.  What the heck.....how do I decreased my body fat besides increasing my water?  I'm thinking I would look anorexic!

Sincerely,

Interesting stuff...

[Raviv]

Don't forget that a healthy woman is going to have more bodyfat than a man.  Too low and it causes some serious issues.

Some of the scales are dcent enough, but I would go with the mirror more than what the scale says as far as BF.  The ability to tuck my shirt in without grimacing is my personal goalpost.

[Heybales]

Don't forget the LBM of fat cells that wasn't mentioned - water.

That other stuff is LBM but not in the fat cells, and not part of the energy source for that 3500 calorie burn math.

There's not much water there, which is the whole effective storage mechanism of fat compared to carbs, less water required to chain them together.

But the blood supply and infrastructure isn't part of that 3500 cal energy source size - that's literally what fat can provide per gram as energy when used, the other stuff is just additional loss of LBM when you come to it.

But never fear - your exercising probably causes similar increases in to the muscle bodies for exactly the same reason, getting fat and water and carbs in to them.

Never seen comments anywhere about the balance between that loss and that gain though.

But no, to lose 30 lbs of fat, there isn't going to be that much extra that is lost. I'll bet 5 lbs if you did NOT increase other LBM from the exercise, already.