Losing weight, but too much muscle

[Dalos]

Hi all, wondering if I can plumb the brain trust here a bit.

Some background:

36M 182cm starting back in. I've been the typical ectomorph all my life, between 65-75kg with low BF, typically under 12% with some training and rarely over 14%. Last 6 or so years with long hours in the office that has gradually moved up to 92kg (203lbs). That was at about 26% bodyfat % leaving a LMB of 149.1 and fat of 52.8. Essentially all the weight I had gained was pure fat, my LBM has barely changed going back to 2006 or so. (checked several times when I stop started at getting back in shape).

Previously I was able to drop fat pretty easily with minimal HIIT or even just changing diet and letting it trend down to normal, never with much muscle loss. However I've only ever lifted with some HIIT, never much cardio volume.

Onto recent times

I've no issue sticking to a diet or schedule, usually makes it all fairly simple and formulaic.

Set my macro cals limit at 2050 kCals (13.8 times LMB as I've done before, for reference I'd set 18 times on a bulk and 12 on a cut with less volume cardio) and essentially been around or very slightly under this, combined with cardio for the 500 cal per day deficit and aimed 0.5kg sustainable drop per week.

In week 8 of the BBP, full 5 day schedule 80%+ at UT2 (morning fasted for the UT2 workouts, carb stack before intense and protein and carbs after), remainder high intensity., (10 weeks of clean eating total) and on track weight wise almost exactly, only very slightly ahead (86.5kg/190lbs), so down 5.5 over 10 weeks, allowing for the normal 1-1.5kg variance. However my BF % remains at 25%, I've lose slightly more lean muscle than fat! (6.5lbs muscles, 5.5lbs fat).

Any idea what is going on here? My gut tells me to eat more and perhaps the weight loss will stop and it will go to body composition change only. (I would prefer to cut down to sub 75kg though). Am I missing something fundamentally different with cardio training? Should I add in weights (does that risk over training?). I don't feel any symptoms of over training currently but may be an issue.

Measurement error unlikely, used the 10 same point fat caliper measure averaged across 7 different formulae for 20 years so it hasn't changed. More than anything the mirror test is bearing this out.

May just be that I'm half a decade older since I last tried to adjust anything? Had my thyroid, testosterone and blood markers looked at checked. TSH is up but thyroid levels are perfect and Vit D a bit low but aside from that no red flags, shouldn't impact to this degree.

Wondering also if maybe my body is breaking down fast twitch fibres I don't need but doesn't have the fuel to build slow twitch the training response is inducing?

[hjs]

Strange, also given your age, I would say you are still young.

Re fast muscle fibers, you could introduce other training, shorter and faster, only doing ut2 is often not the way to. Also introduce things like pushups and maybe bodyweight squats.

Do think no matter what, you should not stop and get back to your “normal” bodyweight. Thinking that only long slow is the way to go is maybe the weak point.
You are way to young to start losing muscle. The mantra use is or loose it is does apply here. Simply don’t “except” it. Get those muscle working.

[Dangerscouse]

If you're currently doing no strength training, I'd recommend adding in some bodyweight exercises if you don't have weights. For example, lunges (and side lunges), prisoner squats, planks (normal, side and reverse) push ups and a pull up bar if you can get one.

What is your UT2 pace and how have you calculated it?

[Dalos]

Thanks both, all my previous training has been heavy eccentric weight training with 20-30min max HIIT sessions on bike when cutting. (sub 8 reps e.g. 8,6,4,2 sets, 5x5 sets etc.) Suspected I could be more inclined to that, but it has been 14 years since I was extremely strict and 6 years since anything at all. Intervening years maybe have been max 6-8 week false starts every 18months (How I know my LBM has been consistent). I didn't expect there's be much left in there impacted body composition, essentially a sedentary lifestyle for 14 years. I had half hoped I could manage the holy grail of gaining muscle and losing fat for the first few weeks of beginner gains from such a high fat% and low training level, have done so a couple of times before for 5-6 weeks.

I have always been poor pace wise at cardio in whatever form, suspected that was genetic VO2max going by my family in the same boat but could also just be fast twitch dominant. Hard to tell when any muscle gains have always been hard going for me and I haven't seriously trained at cardio. Even if true (and it's dangerously near fishing to mental excuses territory) certainly didn't think it would have much of an impact at beginner to intermediate stage regardless, or result in this much muscle loss with a mild calorie deficit.

I was worried any heavy weight training while cutting and long rows could get to over training, have muscle loss and /or interfere with rowing given the different goals (Fat loss and cardio vs building lean muscle, diet for each very different) but at current loss levels not much to lose. Cutting / maintenance I tended to 10-15 reps with lighter weights. No easy access to bench / power rack at the moment but have a fair few free weights sitting so can figure out a few sets I expect.

UT2 based on HR zones, my resting is around 58-61 BPM and observed max of 191 giving me 145-151 for UT2 (set a cap of 150 on SS), have an excel sheet I downloaded with all the calcs, mirrors those on various websites. This has been at a pretty atrocious 2:37 pace, but tried differing technique recently and got it to 2:30. 2k pace at Week2 was 8:40 which also lines up to 2:49-2:34 for UT2, I'm not even within sniffing distance of 25th percentiles (even if I mentally see myself as a lightweight carrying 15kgs of dead weight).

Main goal was actually cardio fitness, but figured that dovetailed well with the long slow rows and I could cut down at the same time. Expected some muscle loss but not this. Hoped to maybe even hit 70kg and then get to strength training to bulk and cut in the 70-75kg or 75kg-80kg range up and down until 10-12% BF.

For now thinking up to neutral (including training) cals and add some weight training in. See if I do have a bunch of fast twitch that are withering on the vine from lack of use or fuel. (really worried I'll continue to lose muscle and not any fat through at higher cals). Even high DF 500m sprints seem quite long for strength training on the erg, better with actual weight training. Get the BF down at a higher weight and then slowly cut down and be happy to maintain same BF %.

[hjs]

Looking at your 2k pace, I would focus on getting stronger and faster. Going as slow as you are going now will use not much energy. For a relative young guy 8.40 is, can’t paint it otherwise, very slow. I fear you base metabolism must also be low. Think you should focus on that.
Re fast muscle fibers, you should know, if so you should have been a fast sprinter, good jumper relative speaking. You also should be able to pull a ok 500m, but with a 8.40 2k that would be difficult.

[iain]

Just as surprised as you are. I don't have the patience for solely LSD so can't help you there. But I have a similar lean mass and tendency to gain fat when not exercising. The difference is I am in my 50s and was losing LBM while putting on weight so actually was worse than I thought. My first row back after 3 years (3 years of occasional rowing before that) was a 2k at 9:35 (although not all out, I don't think I had a sub 9 in me!). Took me 5 months of serious training to go sub 8. But during that time I lost 7kg and certainly increased strength in upper body if not LBM. that was on a modified PP starting very slow with LSDs extended (increased gradually until doing >hr per session) and UT2 rather than UT 1 of the plan.

Does your diet include sufficient protein and are you IF or eating over a reduced period each day or cutting carbs to very low levels? (Wondering whether you are storing fat when you eat, but running out of glycogen so catabolising muscle to provide the required food for red blood cells and CNS). At your age I don't think strength training is a must, but I do agree that some more intense training will help our body to shift to anabolism or at least restrict catabolism. With your stats, I think you should at least initially be getting some DOMS after more intense sessions if they are hard enough, so I would restrict to 2 sessions a week initially at least.

No expert on calipers, but I understand that they are not full proof. perhaps you had substantial fat deposits around your organs that are not measured so sub-cutaneous fat may not have shifted much, but the more dangerous deep fat may have been counted as LBM.

Let us know how you get on.

- Iain

[mitchel674]

I don't see how you can "blame" all of this on your rowing. You're really not doing that much volume on the erg even at week 8 of the BPP. The five days that week is barely over 30km and at pretty low intensity.

As Stu mentioned, perhaps getting back to some weight training will allow you to retain and/or gain muscle as you diet.

[MiddleAgeCRISIS]

I don't see how you can "blame" all of this on your rowing. You're really not doing that much volume on the erg even at week 8 of the BPP. The five days that week is barely over 30km and at pretty low intensity.

As Stu mentioned, perhaps getting back to some weight training will allow you to retain and/or gain muscle as you diet.

I'm trying to lose muscle and fat and i'm rowing at 2.30 ish with BPM at 107 for 2 sets of 10km for 330 days.

After maybe 180 days, I did think i'd lost a bit of strength but not after 8 weeks and after 330 days and now rowing without straps i feel ive regained it.

I dont know how the callipers work in detail but presumably your skin might be looser is certain areas and i wonder if this would affect accuracy.

[Dalos]

Thanks all. Hoping this isn't coming across as blame or whining! Just genuinely trying to figure it out and what is essentially light moderate exercise (even with a few interval sessions) and a mild cal deficit shouldn't on paper have this result. Was hoping either someone had been through similar or with more knowledge could point to a smoking gun or show errors in my thinking.

Just to respond some of the above:

Definitely very (very) slow. Cardiovascular system poor (regardless of genetic, training or both) and weak in strength terms for my age, always have been. Lagging the pack when running / other sport and with weight training tok an age to get to moderate strength. My speed / lack of work is also one of the worries, at such a low intensity and volume it should have even less impact on any potential muscle loss.

I'll get a 500m test done, but I expect it will show a larger gap than expected under Pauls law (even if I read that's not great at lower distances) indicating strength > endurance (even if strength is also a low base).

I suspect over 2k I may be down to near 8:00 now, certainly sub 8:20, as technique has improved with some fitness gains, but that's still mightily slow.

I have had only very minor DOMS, even after interval sessions. I'd love to go harder but with HR limited rows my cardio system certainly is lacking in training to be able to adequately keep up with any sustained effort / force. Even if free rate max effort I just don't have the engine to sustain significant power for a decent period. (Maybe should try them a low rate, higher DF, for stronger individual pulls). I was hoping the long and slow rows would build that base over the 6 months of BPP.

Fat caliper measurement won't be an issue (plus mirror test bears it out). Though it will have measurement error in my technique and it has some inherent error itself (approx. 3.5% max generally, so the real figure could be 22% to 28%) that doesn't matter, the main thing is consistency to see relative changes. i.e. if it's wrong by 2.5% is will be consistently wrong by 2.5% (same user, same method). So a change from 25 (should be 22.5) to 24 (should be 21.5) will still show the correct 1% change. Have observed the changes previously over long training cycles, used the same calipers and method for years. Each site is usually the same or 1mm different each week.

Macro Cals have been, roughly 40-30-30 Carbs, protein, fat. 4 meals per day every 3-4 hours (not the ideal 6, but still a decent spread). Near those proportions in each meal. Fasted rows (generally, odd time I need to push them back to the afternoon) for the long and slow with a carb stack 60 mins before intervals and carb and heavy protein after.


Overall as noted above thinking to up the Cals, add some weight training and maybe try and build up (hope for LMB gains with minimal fat, and increase my engine) and try and get my base up before I start getting down.

Feel like on paper everything is right but obviously something is not adding up. I may be so out of shape that even moderate exercise and cal deficit stress is sending my body into the defensive. Just don't know why it's going after muscle based on both previous experience and general theory (no expert, but that I was across general principles).

Would love to hope it is visceral fat and I'm not capturing that with subcutaneous fat fold measures but seems like a faint hope.

Ultimately somewhat overthinking the initial steps, if shut up and row and eat well and continue on for another few years the results will tend to a point anyway, just may not be the most efficient way to get there.

[jurgwhitehouse]

A lot of complicated concepts being discussed, such as HR training zones, macro calories and HIIT - all of which assumes you're already a well-trained endurance athlete with a functional metabolism. Bluntly, you're not.

You will not lose bodyfat if 30% of your calories are from carbs. You're simply not providing your body with the conditions necessary to utilize stored fat. Read about low-carb, insulin etc. and change your diet away from what works for an athlete and more towards someone who is pre-diabetic.

Dropping carbs will mean dropping interval training. That's no bad thing. Re-introduce it later. Your lack of aerobic conditioning means that every workout is generating lactate. Everything you're doing on the rowing machine is depleting muscle & liver glycogen. Barely any fat is being used as fuel. Eating carbs and using them on a HIIT workout is a pointless endeavour right now.

Turning yourself into a fat-burning machine is going to require a strict diet and aerobic conditioning. Read up about lactate curves and you'll see that a well-trained athlete will have a lactate turnpoint at about 75-80% max HR. This is an intensity where lactate starts to accumulate in the blood. Working below this level will use predominantly fat as a fuel source. This is where you need to concentrate your training, lots of long slow rows with HR in the 130s. Note how much slower this is than the UT2 you've been doing.

60 minutes of light rowing 4-5x a week with HR about 70-75% max is the minimum aerobic base conditioning that someone of your age should be capable of before taking on something more intensive like the Pete Plan or the UT2 steady state workouts you mention. Can you do this on a rowing machine, at a reasonable pace, with an efficient technique, without feeling exhausted? If not, you may need to do brisk walking instead and work yourself up to rowing.

Sorry to be harsh but I've been where you are - fit and healthy in my 20s, fat and pre-diabetic in my 30s. I made all the mistakes of thinking I could use the established training methods and rules, but they simply didn't work until I fixed my metabolism.

[hjs]

Think you are overcomplicating things a lot. A this stage, you are more or less untrained, improvement should come easy.
And instead of looking at your bodyfat, via skinfolds, look in the first place at your waist, if that goes down, so does your Bodyfat %. And if at the same time you keep your strenght and get fitter you will not loose muscle.

Re training, for a guy like you, just thinking about training will make your hf go up. To me you don’t have a ut2 range. Go by feel, doing the stuff you do now will only make you weaker. Focus much more on shorter faster stuff and weights, if lean bodymass is your goal.

Re diet, I think any diet could work, but low carb diets are the most easy. Those will give you the least hunger. Instead of carbs, relative high on protein and modest but not low on fat.

And in the end, not training but diet will give the results. Your volume is way to low to burn that much.

[Dalos]

Bring on anything harsh and blunt, everything here has been helpful, thanks all for the input, didn't expect to generate this much a response.

Thanks for this, it sounds like that may be an example of the cut through I'm looking for, a fundamental difference to my base assumptions against which I'm applying misplaced knowledge. Even better that your experience seems to mirror my results now.

I'm under no illusions of how far back I'm starting and even without symptoms of over-training was worried about going too hard, too fast. I believed that if I went slow enough the BPP (and 2:40 initial SS felt damned slow) I could match to my low base but even at that may have fallen into chasing my training. Just because I'm not overtly morbidly obese in absolute lbs or bodyfat % doesn't mean I don't have an extremely poor system (14 years sat in a chair will do that). The term 'skinny-fat' keeps rigging true to me.

All my knowledge has been at the simple macro level (and as that worked before, likely by luck, never needed to delve deeper). I have zero idea on glycogen, lactate etc. and what is actually going on when I train, hence why I was totally confused by the results. (felt like I was going easy but still had crushing muscle loss).

If it's as simple an end result as changing diet, cutting out intervals and reducing SS to very slow rates until a minimum base then I'll be happy. (even moreso of that does result in clean fat loss, but slower training improvement, as long as I get to that base level eventually and can then up the intensity) Would love to understand the why as well though and sounds like the above has a new line of reading for me to go to.

Can go for 60 minutes no problem (even at the current pace for 45 mins felt like I would like to go longer, but didn't want to rush the plan), though if maintaining a 130HR I suspect it will be at such a slow pace as you're right, a walk would be as much effort.

Quite a difference between these plans though, to moving to a lot of very light and very slow with more volume, or less volume and introduction sharper sessions and weights (added bonus that this has worked for me in the past). Not much loss by trying a 2 month cycle of each and see where the best results are.

Definitely an element of over thinking though (I'm an analyst by nature and profession!). Part of me wants to just ignore the stats, eat decent and clean and row by moderate perceived effort for 6 months and then use whatever the end result is as a new base for a real training plan. None of this is doing harm, more a matter of the most efficient route. My nature will tend to picking a set plans though and recording stats on all I can, makes the process easier / more interesting for me.

[hjs]

Nomatter what you choose, give it time to see if it works.

Re intensity, I don’t say you have to do hard intervals, but al least do some stuff at higher intensity. Sprinkle some short 80/90% intensity sprints into your sessions. This wil absolutely wake up your strenght.
Re overtraining/ fitnesslevel. Listen to your body, you know when you are tired and need rest.

[jurgwhitehouse]

We all overthink. The trick is to make diet and training as simple as possible so that it becomes a mindless routine.

Specifically, what worked for me was early morning (fasted, before breakfast) long, slow rows and a heavily carb-restricted diet. I didn't count calories - was just mindful of limiting to carbs to as low as practicable and ate a sensible amount of fat & protein. Basically a diet that skips the sugar/starch but isn't going to make meal choices a complicated chore. Read up about a ketogenic diet but don't become an extreme keto-weirdo.

For rowing, 3x20 minutes with 1-2 minutes rest was all I did for 3 months, 5-6 days a week. HR capped at 140 (my HR range is the same as yours). A big fan and something to listen to made it tolerable. But to be honest, that's not what I'd do again or recommend. I would add in very short hard workouts occasionally, maybe once or twice a week. That's likely to be more appropriate to build both an endurance base and stimulate muscle growth. Keep it interesting through variety but be sure to focus most of your time on the long slow base-building.

Be aware that there's a conflict between a low-carb diet and high-intensity carb-fuelled exercise. It's a balance you'll need to learn. My suggestion is to do these HIIT workouts fasted too - there's plenty of stored glycogen in the muscles already - then replace the carbs immediately afterwards. This will top your muscles up for the next time and make you feel full. Just be sure to replace only what you used up and no more.

I don't think you need to worry about muscle loss. You will build muscle even with low-intensity rowing but it will be the posterior chain (the muscles you can't see in the mirror). Unless you have low testosterone or thyroid problems, which you don't, muscle wastage through lack of specific strength training isn't something a 36yo male should concern themselves with. At 47 I'm just starting to think about needing to incorporate it into my training now, but I haven't done any since I restarted rowing 3-4 years ago and I've got my 2k down into the 6:20s without doing any lifting. You have a 10-year advantage over me so you'll do better! It only requires time, patience and applying the knowledge you already have.

Finally, the biggest motivator for me was logging my workouts - all of them no matter how dull, slow or boring - on social media. On here, Twitter, Instagram, wherever. People can choose to follow you or not so I post everything. It makes for an invaluable personal resource and also makes you accountable to yourself. I urge you to do this!

[max_ratcliffe]

<>
Specifically, what worked for me was early morning (fasted, before breakfast) long, slow rows and a heavily carb-restricted diet. I didn't count calories - was just mindful of limiting to carbs to as low as practicable and ate a sensible amount of fat & protein. Basically a diet that skips the sugar/starch but isn't going to make meal choices a complicated chore. Read up about a ketogenic diet but don't become an extreme keto-weirdo.

<>

Be aware that there's a conflict between a low-carb diet and high-intensity carb-fuelled exercise. It's a balance you'll need to learn. My suggestion is to do these HIIT workouts fasted too - there's plenty of stored glycogen in the muscles already - then replace the carbs immediately afterwards. This will top your muscles up for the next time and make you feel full. Just be sure to replace only what you used up and no more.
<>

Very interesting stuff Jurgen, thanks.

As a vego, I'd never considered going low-carb. I remember reading 20-odd years ago that there's no middle ground - if you eat too much carbs to go into ketosis, the high fat intake will see you in a world of high-cholesterol pain. At least that was the view then. Things have evidently moved on a long way. I'll have a bit of a read into this, although I do expect a lot of "eat yourself thin" websites...