Tips on maintaining muscle during a calorie deficit?

I've lost 11 pounds in the last 2 months, which is great BUT only 4 of those pounds were from fat. I would like to improve my fat loss to muscle loss ratio. I average a 650 calorie deficit.

Stats: Female, 5'6", 152lbs., 31.7%BF


More detailed info:

In May I was just doing cardio. For June I switched to 3 days of weight training and 3 days of cardio. I figured I would have lost more fat in June but the numbers were exactly the same. Am I just too new at lifting weights to be seeing the difference in body composition?

This is the first time I've ever lifted weights so it took me all month to build up to 3 sets of 12 reps with 10 lb. dumbbells. I do these lifts: deadlift, bent-over row, floor press, standing press, pushups, body weight squats. (Thanks to tgpish, bodyscience and polynomial for getting me started with lifting weights!!)

Related question... do I need to be doing deadlifts AND body weight squats or can I just do the deadlifts now that I'm comfortable with them?

do both they work some of the same muscles, but some different muscles are used with the separate lifts. increase your protein to help off set the muscle loss.

I agree you should do both squat and deadlift.  That's why I suggested both to begin with ;-)  You don't need to do both on the same day, though.  For example, do squats every second workout, and likewise for deadlifts.  They're both extremely valuable lifts, engaging muscles all over your body and teaching your heart and lungs what it means to be alive :-)

Don't stress too much over initial results.  I promise you've made some wonderful and necessary changes that will pay off.

It sounds like you cut your cardio work in half in June, and slowly built your way up to "real" strength-training.  That's great, you should go easy on strength-training at first, and that's what you did.  Good show!

Be aware that when the muscle-loss problem is solved, you may need to increase cardio work (duration, frequency, and/or intensity) to get fat-loss moving again.  I make great fat-loss progress doing 40 minutes of cardio 3x a week, but I lose fat almost as easily as I gain it -- I don't have to fight my genetics on this point, but many people do.

Whenever you can complete 12 reps on an exercise, increase the weight the next time.  Resistance training isn't supposed to be "comfortable" ;-)  It's the struggle to complete those last reps that's the main point of doing it.

You should also add weight to squats, BTW.  Body weight is fine until (again) you can complete those 12 reps.

When someone is losing significant fat weight and signficant muscle weight while doing strength training, lack of adequate protein is a primary culprit.  Do try increasing that, and it's especially helpful to get protein and complex carbs in very soon after a workout ends, and probably an hour-or-so before a strength-training session begins too (bodyscience knows more than me about recent studies on that).  Drinking a protein shake is a fine way to do both.

Inadequate dietary fat can also hurt.  Are you getting enough "good fat"?

Another possibility is that you're simply not eating enough, period.  Computing calorie deficit is a black art, and the best you can get is a rough guess.  I know I'm getting enough protein and fat, so when I find myself losing both fat and muscle mass at signficant levels, I immediately increase my daily calorie intake (nothing extreme, about 10% more), and the problem has always gone away then.

Losing 7 pounds of muscle for each 4 pounds of fat sucks, so try suggestions until something works for you.  However, do take some comfort in that it's a lot better than losing 10 pounds of muscle for each pound of fat -- you may have made more progress already than you know.  Did you track your fat and non-fat weights before May?

Thanks for your replies!!

I didn't even think about adding weight to squats, but definitely should. It's like my "resting" lift right now!! Can I do it using dumbbells? The only examples I could find online use a barbell behind the neck. I don't have a barbell. Can I just hold the dumbbells like the starting position of the standing press?

I've been adding sets and then weight every week (except this week, which is my second week at 3 sets/10lbs. - next week I'll go up to 3 sets/12.5lbs... and then I have to go get a new set of weights.)

I can definitely increase my protein - it's around 25% now. Last week I started having a smoothie with protein powder, skim milk, strawberries and banana right after lifting. I think fruit is simple carbs from sugar though... will have to figure out how to fit complex carbs in there. I'm not sure what my stats on good fat are but I think I'm OK, I eat avocado, turkey and chicken breast, not much red meat or processed food, and almost no cheese (sadly).

I had been wondering if increasing my calories would help. I'll try it. I'm eating around 1350 calories now. I can just add in a 2nd protein shake before lifting. I actually started wondering if I was eating enough because I was always full of energy after doing 6 days of cardio and now that I'm lifting for 3 days, I feel more tired all the time.

Unfortunately I didn't track my weight at all before May (too scared to step on the scale, even though I'd been doing cardio since February!). But I have definitely noticed more muscle and less fat, especially in my legs, which is where I lose weight first. Funny that I've lost 7 pounds of muscle yet suddenly my (much smaller) legs are looking quite toned and I can actually see that yes, there is a muscle in there! Maybe even more than one!

Thank you again for giving me so much help with this. It's GREAT to actually be doing something about it instead of just sitting around wondering why I never lose any weight! I'm really quite happy with my progress so far and doing even better will be awesome!

Ah, emilym, didn't mean to leave you hanging here!  Just didn't notice there was another message.

About squats being a "resting lift" -- LOL!  That's a new one.  We'll try to change your mind ;-)

You could probably get away with holding dumbbells at shoulder level now, but don't -- as weight increases, it's too hard to maintain balance that way.  It's actually much easier to maintain balance with a barbell.  Instead let the weights hang by your sides.  Here's a description with animated photos of good form:

    http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/Quadricep s/DBSquat.html

And here's an actual little movie (which your browser may or may not display properly):

    http://www.criticalbench.com/exercises/dumbbe ll-squat.htm

You're losing muscle so quickly (or at least the measurement method you're using claims that's the case -- how are you measuring?) I'd try going hog wild on protein.  Forget percentage of calories and aim for a gram of protein per day per pound of total body weight.  You'll certainly need protein shakes for that.  That's a very high-protein diet by govt standards, but is actually common among bodybuilders.  There's no chance it will do you any harm in the short term, unless you already have kidney problems.

I doubt you really need that much, but I'm suggesting a huge change here to address a huge problem.  If muscle loss slows dramatically, or even stops, then we pretty much know what the cause was.  You can cut protein back then, over succeeding weeks, so long as the muscle-loss problem doesn't return.

Be aware that protein metabolism requires lots of water.  I drink about a gallon of plain water a day.  The standard "8-10 glasses a day" is probably minimum, but with extra protein you're going to want more than that.  As a rule of thumb, if you're ever thirsty, you're not drinking enough plain water (by the time you're thirsty, you're already a little dehydrated -- and you don't ever want to be even a little dehydrated).

Fowl (chicken or turkey) isn't a good source of good fats.  Fish, nuts, and oils are the best sources.  You don't need a lot, which is good, because fats are very calorie-dense too (more than twice as many calories per gram of fat than per gram of protein or carbs).  For example, salmon is an excellent source of both good fats and protein.  Not all fish are; for example, tuna is a stellar protein source, but has very little fat.  You can look up different fish on this site.  Monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats are "good"; saturated fats are "bad"; "trans fats" are horrid, but you're unlikely to get any if you stay away from fast and fried foods.  You should aim to get about 20% of your calories from fats, but pretending you weren't eating an insane amount of protein ;-)

I actually don't think it matters much which kind of carbs you get ASAP after a workout.  In general, complex carbs are better than simple carbs when losing fat, because all carbs turn into sugars eventually, and the faster the sugar gets into your bloodstream, the more insulin your body produces to lower blood glucose levels.  Insulin is a fat-loser's worst nightmare, because high levels of insulin inhibit burning fat for energy and also "instruct" fat cells to synthesize and store fat from fatty acids in the blood.

However, insulin is also one of the bodybuilder's best friends, "instructing" muscles to absorb nutrients too.

The one time you can't lose is triggering an insulin spike immediately after a weight session:  for a relatively brief time after your workout, your muscles are extremely receptive to absorbing carbs and protein.  So I believe simple carbs at that time don't hurt at all, and may even help.  I always munch on raw veggies when mixing my post-workout shake, but sometimes wolf down a banana too.

About feeling more tired all the time, many things could be at work, and probably more than one is:

• As mentioned, maybe you're not eating enough total.  This is hard to judge, because strength training raises the number of calories you burn at rest (your base metabolic rate -- BMR) for about a full day after a weight session ends.  The "calories/hour" guesses you can find for lifting weights don't take this into account -- you're burning more than that.
  
• If you really are losing nearly a pound of muscle a week, the cumulative effects of that (making you weaker and lowering your BMR) may just be becoming obvious now.
  
• When you start lifting "for real", an enormous number of adaptations start occurring in your body due to all the new kinds of stresses, and that can indeed leave you "generally tired".  That will diminish greatly, over time, if you stick with it.  For example, I can barely walk across the room after a hard weight session, but a shake, shower, and small meal later my energy is back up to where I feel I really could do the whole thing again.  But after a long layoff, sometimes I sleep around the clock (when possible ;-)) half the days during my first few weeks of getting back to lifting "for real".

So it's hard to know what the tiredness "means".  I'd boost protein first, because your total weight loss (11 pounds in 2 months) wasn't excessive.  In general, favoring complex carbs (whole-grain breads and cereals; veggies) over simple carbs (fruits; sugars) is better for fat loss and for supplying long-lasting, steady energy.

Since you appear to have a talent for making icky stuff tasty, load up on oatmeal for breakfast!  That's an excellent addition to any diet, and with a flair for adding bits of fruit can be quite tasty too.

GREAT reply tgpish!! You write out all the things that I'm too lazy to write out!!

and I'm sorry but squats as a resting lift made me chuckle as well. Those should be kicking your ass all over the place

Yeah, I think everything that's been said as been great, I just wanted to add one more thing that you may not be aware of.

Being a first time lifter, you probably will not see gains in muscle right away. That's because you are basically learning how to learn your muscles for the first time, and most of those strength gains are neuromuscular in orgin. I'd bet everything that you are feeling more comfortable with lifting right? Less shaky, better balence and all that good stuff. That's because when using free weights you have you use a lot of smaller muscles for balence, and they have to catch up before you can really start getting gains in your larger muscles. I don't honestly know how long  that phase lasts, but you just kinda have to get through it. My point is, keep it up and don't get discouraged. That said, I am surprised that you lost so much muscle, so yeah, an increase in protein could help, though I'm kinda suspicious on how you are measuring %body fat, just because of the magnitude of the muscle loss and the fact that you feel like you are stronger and more toned.

Also, yeah, don't cut out squats and deadlifts, those really are a couple of the most effective excercises (lower body in general is more effective because your legs are so much stronger than your arms, but don't neglect upper body). But you could mix things up a little bit to add variety and keep your body guessing, and if squats are your "rest lift" (LOL- ;) ) you do need to up the weight. One thing you could try to do are one-legged squats (you may not be ready for it, but it sounds like you're close). Basically, stand with one leg propped (sp?:P) up on a bench behind you kinda like you're horse-kicking someone (or something if you're a nice person :))  and have your front leg out in front so that your knee is directly above you foot. Then just do a squat on that one leg. Of course you can add weight, or even hold your hands/weights above your head for an added challenge. I find that that's a good exercise for balence (remember those little muscles I was talking about), and a way to effectively add weight safetly by just using a single leg. Of course, as with everything, try to build up to it, but give it a shot. Good luck, and keep it up

Wow, thank you guys again, you are super helpful!!

I looked at the dumbbell squat links, tgpish - it looks like the only difference between dumbbell deadlift and dumbbell squat is that with the deadlift, your hands are in front of you and with the squat, your hands are at your sides? Is that correct? By the way... I did squats on Wed. with my 10lb. dumbbells at shoulder level... holy sh*t!!! I see why you guys are laughing at my "resting squats" now! By the end of the 3rd set I just sort of collapsed on the floor and sat there for 5 minutes!

I am measuring my weight & body composition on a Tanita 300 scale at a local clinic. I don't know how often they calibrate it but they have to get it out for me every time, so I don't think it gets a lot of use. I've done a few experiments with it and the BF% varies from moment to moment within 1 pound.

If I increase my protein intake by grams, can I allow the protein % to increase also or do I need to eat more carbs and fats to match? I'd prefer to be around 1500 calories with 40% protein rather than 1800 calories and 55/25/20. I will switch some of my meals from meat to fish. Thanks very much for the fats & carbs info :)

lol at making icky stuff tasty. My mom's family is traditional Chinese so there was plenty of icky stuff to go around! Oatmeal? Protein powder? Bring it on!


smartjock, that's an interesting point about neuromuscular gains. You're right, my balance and form has improved a lot.

spirochete, I saw your post calling for female weightlifters... hopefully in a few months I'll be joining you :)

I looked at the dumbbell squat links, tgpish - it looks like the only difference between dumbbell deadlift and dumbbell squat is that with the deadlift, your hands are in front of you and with the squat, your hands are at your sides?

First of all, if you're lifting weights you're a female lifter!

Secondly, this part of your post. I didn't see the dumbbell deadlift link (it's Friday I'm brain dead) but I suspect it's a stiff legged deadlift. You're putting the weights in front of you and folding over at the hips and lifting back up with your rear end and thighs. Something like this, but with dumbbells:
http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/GluteusMa ximus/BBStrBackStiffLegDeadlift.html

A squat is working damn near everything from your chest down. You're holding the weights at your sides or at your shoulders and squatting down basically. There's a lot more to it, but that's a basic explanation.

spirochete, he didn't link to a deadlift demo. I've been doing them like this (the first set of 3 pictures):
http://www.stumptuous.com/cms/displayarticle. php?aid=116

Should I be doing stiff legged?

I almost replied to your female lifter post but then thought I should probably hold off until I was lifting more than 20lbs :)

emilym: any weight you're lifting makes you a female lifter!!!

As for that demo; stumptous is near and dear to my heart. I love that site. I don't like stiff legged deadlifts personally, but that's just me. I totally misunderstood what you were asking. A squat is all legs and keeping your back upright. The deadlift does use your back a bit more; it's hard to write out so please watch the video.

http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/GluteusMa ximus/BBDeadlift.html

emilym, yup!  If you're collapsing on the floor after the 3rd set, you're starting to do squats right :-)  Congratulations!  That's serious lifting, babe.

When you first asked about lifts, I assumed you'd be using barbells.  The difference between squats and deadlifts is indeed much more pronounced then.  With dumbbells, this is the kind I had in mind (bent leg, probably what you are doing):

    http://www.criticalbench.com/exercises/dumbbe ll-deadlift.htm

And you're right, these look much like dumbbell squats.  Your arms are more in front here, and the back of your hands face forward instead of outward, but that's about it.  There's still enough difference that it's still worth doing both (believe it or not, I bet you'll feel the difference in your legs!), but not on the same day.

The Tanita scale you linked to is about as good as such units get.  If you want to trick it into giving you a lower body fat % report, get measured late in the day and drink a lot of water in the hours before you get there :-(  I could say a lot about this, but for a change I won't :-)  The short course is that BIA scales don't really measure fat at all, they measure electrical resistance and then use averaged statistical formulas to make a guess at how much of your weight is fat.  So it's pretty indirect.  The problem with water is that water acts much more like muscle than like fat with respect to electrical resistance.  You don't have fine control over body hydration level, but if you get in the habit of staying fully hydrated all day it will help to minimize "crazy inconsistencies" in BIA reports.  These don't show up after just a few minutes because body water level and distribution can't change that fast.  They can change in major ways across a span of hours, though.

Consistency matters more than absolute accuracy here, but "for fun" you might want to ask a trainer to give their guess at your percentage based on skinfold measurements.  That's more accurate than BIA for most people, although plenty can go wrong with that too.  It would just be interesting to know whether the different methods are close or far apart for you, as a "sanity check".

While you're in "protein therapy" ;-), forget about protein as percentage of calories entirely, and don't worry about being exact either.  Plan your meals the same way as before (balanced), then figure out how much extra protein powder you need to consume to get close to 1 g/lb/day of protein.  Then figure out how many calories that much extra protein powder amounts to, and cut your meals back proportionately to make up for the difference.  You'll end up with a very high percentage of total calories from protein, but I strongly doubt this will last.  If the experiment works, I'll advise starting to reduce protein again, and if it doesn't work ... well, we'll see.

The muscle-preserving benefits of strength-training don't really kick in before the muscles are getting worked hard, and you were appropriately gentle your first month, so strength-training wasn't yet doing much for you in this respect.  I advise trying probable overkill on protein anyway, because your ratio of muscle to fat loss was unsustainably high.