Apparently lost lean mass on keto... should I be worried?


(Andrew Fransen) #1

So I started keto in September and have seen pretty good weight loss results: down 32 pounds from a high of 255. In October, I started making use of a health tracking station (checks BP, pulse, weight, and body fat using electrical impendence (grab bars for hands) at the local pharmacy that stores the history of observations over time. My first obervation was after already losing 10 pounds, I assume mostly water weight that came in the first week or two. I will also note that this scale seems to weigh me about 6 pounds heavier than my home scale (I assume in good part due to being fully clothed).

Anyway, my first observation was 250 pounds, 28.5% body fat, ergo 178.75 lbs lean mass. Fast forward to my most recent observation of 25.5% body fat and 228 lbs, or 170 lbs of lean mass. Did I really lose almost 9 lbs of lean mass (and another 13 of fat) since October? That is kind of scary! Should I be worried or should this be thought of as normal?

I have been logging weekly and the decline has been a pretty steady trend, so I don’t think it can be chalked up to measurement variability/error, though it may be biased (don’t have a DEXA scan to compare), and given that I have used the same measurement device, I think the change of 3 pts of body fat % is probably pretty accurate.

I didn’t exercise much before and didn’t start after keto. In good part because I didn’t want to confound the explanatory variables and prove to myself that the weight loss was due to diet alone.


#2

Remember when you lose fat you also lose the tissue supporting the fat, excess skin, etc… So yes you lose LBM, but not necessarily bone and muscle. Also those machines are probably not very accurate. Also remember your body needs to be able to carry around whatever body weight you are so as you lose weight it’s very possible to lose muscle in your legs that you no longer need as there is less burden to carry. Pick up a 30 pound kettlebell and carry that around all day, you will see what I mean pretty quickly. So the short answer is possibly but it may not matter.


(What The Fast?!) #3

Also impedence scales are not super reliable. You’d have to make sure you are hydrated exactly the same, ate the exact same things, had a similar BM that day, etc.

Also, 6lbs is a lot for clothes, unless you’re wearing a Canadian tuxedo! :rofl:


(Allie) #4

Those scales aren’t accurate at all. I have Tanita body composition scales and I know they’re lying to me as i can see the muscle gains they say I don’t have (and all my shirts are now getting too tight around my shoulders). They’re a useful tool to identify overall trends, but do not rely on them for accurate reporting.


(Todd Allen) #5

I suggest you shift your concern to how your body performs. You want to pick/find an activity that lets you quickly push yourself to your physical limits that you can do whenever you want. Shorter is better, say 2 minutes, as you want something you can fit into your daily routine without any excuses like I don’t have enough time or the weather is bad. And you want it measurable, say number of repetitions to failure or amount of time to failure so it is easy to track improvement or decline.

A favorite for me is squatting, basically just lowering my ass to the ground and standing back up. Adjust however needed such that you quickly reach failure. Things one might adjust are how deep they squat, how slow - going very slow especially in the lower range of movement can bring one to fatigue/failure much faster as can going super fast such as jumping. What you do with your arms can make a huge difference - if you are weak use your arms to assist pushing off the floor or maybe a chair. If you are strong hold something heavy against your chest. If you are super strong do 1 legged squats. The key is just to find something repeatable that lets you test your limits quickly. And then make it a habit to do it consistently on a regular schedule, say every morning as soon as you get out of bed or every evening before dinner. Because the activity is brief overtraining and long recovery times are not an issue. Pay attention to posture, form and speed throughout the range of motion such that you can achieve consistency in your movements to better evaluate your progress day to day.

Every so often, maybe every couple weeks adjust your routine as needed to better match your changing fitness/skill/needs. If you start getting bored with the activity pick something new. Even better you might start to get excited about your progress and start expanding your range of activities at different times of the day or on different days with things like walking or running, biking, swimming, jumping rope, weight lifting, etc.

Eventually you might crave longer duration workouts but try to find ways to make every activity briefly testable because that is the key to making it habitual. And regular brief intense efforts can bring fast satisfying progress, especially for those who aren’t into exercise - yet.


(Andrew Fransen) #6

I don’t think 6 lbs is totally unreasonable. A pair of running shoes typically is 2-3 pounds, a pair of jeans is ~1 lb. Add a belt, a sweater, I think you can get to be not far off 6 lbs of clothing. There might be a bit of a calibration issue but it is 1-2 lbs max.