Loss of muscle, questions

chentegt · Post by **chentegt** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 9:09 pm

Hey, it's been a while since my last post here.

Well, since I incorporated shovelglove into my training, I started seeing lots of progress in my weight lost, and in my upper body definition.

Now, however, people have been telling me that I'm looking 'too thin', and I believe, that, in some way, compared to my 25 pounds-before-noS, I also lost muscle too. I also did 15 mins jump rope sessions on weekdays.

So basically my question is: Is there a limit where muscle will keep mantaining at the same level? can I actually grow some muscle with shovelglove through time? or even worst, will I lose more?

I'm considering now to add some muscle, bulk a little, especially in my legs, but I don't know how should I proceed properly. What whould you shovelglove experts suggest in my case?
Thanks!

Brandon · Post by **Brandon** » Mon Aug 13, 2007 5:43 pm

Fat loss versus weight loss has everything to do with diet. Any time you lose weight, you will lose at least a little lean mass, as your body is metabolizing itself to make up for the deficit. However, unless you're eating really poorly, this is unlikely. If you're eating a relatively balanced diet and not restricting your calories too drastically, you're probably losing mostly fat, especially since you're SGing.

How you deal with your question really depends on how far into the details you want to go. If you're following NoS as well as SG, and you find that Reinhard's "no details" approach works well for you, you're probably best off just not worrying about losing lean mass since you probably aren't. If you want to watch it without sweating the details, get an electronic scale that measures %BF using bioimpedance. I've been following my weight that way, and with NoS and exercise, without any extreme effort to tailor my diet (worrying about % of calories from protien, carbs etc), I've managed to nearly maintain my lean weight. I've lost about 11 lbs and only about 1 lb of that was lean weight. Unless you're seriously restricting calories, you're probably in the same boat.

gratefuldeb67 · Post by **gratefuldeb67** » Mon Aug 13, 2007 8:02 pm

Hi, I was going to respond to this before. Brandon pretty much said what I would have (and probably a lot better!) but the other thing I'd say in addition is, don't worry about losing muscle mass with SG.. You will be toned and if you are eating normally, you shouldn't lose muscle.. In order to get more muscle bulk, I think it's the intensity of the workout that plays into that, as well as having a day in between for muscle recovery. Working the muscle till it fails with heavy weights I think.
Make sure you have adequate protein in your diet.

Congrats on your 25 lbs off!! Wow!!!
Peace and Love,

Debs

Post by **reinhard** » Tue Aug 14, 2007 2:32 am

I would be amazed if you could lose muscle doing shovelglove. With all due respect (and that's a lot, congratulations on losing all that weight!), my guess is you're misdiagnosing... I was stunned at how much weight I lost dong the nos/shovelglove combo, but I have no doubt it was all fat.

Reinhard