When does muscle mass loss start?

#1

Hey guys, I’ll get right to it…

Race: North African
Sex: Male
Age:33
No metabolic or other health issues.
Height: 177 cm
Weight: 67.1 kg
Body Fat %: 14.12%

I intend to lose close to 10kg by the end of this month.

The last meal I will have had for some time was 36 hours ago:
roughly 1300 calories, 30g net carbs, 60g proteins, rest is fat.

Since the meal, every morning three hours before dawn, I drink percolated moka coffee (25g of ground robusta) completed to 30 cl with water and a 1g of salt (Na, potassium iodide).
I immediately follow that with 1.5 liters of tap water, allow for a half hour, before running up and down 10m of stairs for 2 hours, stopping for roughly 500ml of tap water every half hour.
At the end of the exercise, I dissolve an effervescent multimineral/multivitamin (no A,D,E,K) that contains 50g caffeine and ginseng along with 2g of salt into 1.5 liters of tap water.
Six hours later, around noon, I dissolve 2g of salt in 1.5 liters, no multivitamin.
I am sedentary for the rest of the day and the cycle restarts the following dawn.

I am not struggling watsoever with the fast and actually finish the excercise feeling somewhat underwhelmed. I have a hint of “keto breath” that I might be confusing with the bitterness of coffee.

Continuing on this extended fast/regimen, I was wondering when will my metabolism start going into my lean mass ? How many hours into the fast ?

(Robert C) #2

I am not a doctor and not giving medical advice. This is just an observation. If you are at 66 kg and 10% body fat then, you have 6.6 kg of body fat. You need a certain amount of body fat to live (essential body fat of something like 2-5%). So, if you lose 10 kg by the end of the month – at least half would have to have been lean body mass (but I think you might be dead before then unless there is a typo in your numbers).

#3

Was a typo indeed…put my target weight loss :slight_smile:

(Raj Seth) #4

OK 15% fat of 66kg is still 10 kg. I dont know the number, but lets say the body will not let you go below 5% fat. that still comes to 10% fat loss, or 6.6 kg fat, while the balance of 10kg - 3.4 kg has to be lean mass. Esception - you are trying to make weight for boxing, wrestling or other such competition. If that is the case, then water weight loss can help you with temporary weight loss (hot suit, sauna, dehydration etc)

I’m guessing bothe @RobC and I are off base. I know I am just shooting in the dark because I don’t really know what you are trying to accomplish. A lot of people here are currently (or previously) metabolically deranged, obese, T2D, PCOS, cancer, whatever. So - need more info to understand your sitch…

(Ken) #5

I think you have a few misconceptions. A two kg fat loss for a month is more realistic.

(Justin Jordan) #6

You presumably mean muscle mass - lean mass is literally everything that isn’t fat, and that starts basically immediately. You go to the bathroom? You just lost lean mass.

This seems pedantic, but it’s important to pay attention to what you’re measuring.

#7

Had to wait for this morning’s dehydration to make more accurate measurements:

Weight: 67.1 kg
Waist: 78 cm
Hips: 92 cm
Therefore, body fat %: 14.12%

I seem to have a gynoid fat distribution by the way. Some papers say its protective. Should I keep some fat ?

(Ethan) #8

Why are you trying to cut body fat? Are you looking at getting to a goal level for a competition?

The quickest way to lose weight would be to hack off a limb, but it isn’t recommended.

(TJ Borden) #9

Is that metric? Because in ‘Murcia, 14% is pretty dang low already. Obviously there’s plenty of other benefits with keto, but fat wise, it sounds like you’re sitting pretty good.

Remember also, your body has a weight and fat percentage goal that might be different than yours, and it will try to defend it.

#10

Why would I keep non-essential fat if it isn’t protective ?! :thinking:
I figure I’ll stay within one kilogram of the lower margin of the healthy BMI range (18.5-24.9) which computes to 57.625 kg according to the above measurements and 57.96 kg according to online calculators ( guess the string I used is elastic ).
Might as well lose all non-essential fat while still young and have all my limbs : gold medal Olympic athletes (!) almost invariably become overweight coaches in their 50s and 60s…

(TJ Borden) #11

You can do whatever you want. I’m just letting you know it might be challenging to get to YOUR goal, because it may not be the same as your body’s goal.

Your body knows what IT wants. It doesn’t do things based on arbitrary numbers that society has assigned.

In the same way, you can exactly choose to grow 2” taller. You might have a certain height you want to get to, but that doesn’t mean it’s your decision.

KCKO

#12

You are absolutely right bayto…
I can’t go beyond where my physiology will take me.
I will keep the community posted of this challenge’s progress.

#13

To answer the topic of this thread, I found this sufficient answer on livestrong:

(Doug) #14

“Most people start to lose muscle mass after 24 to 48 hours.” – I think this is far too early to be stating that and/or the actual “muscle” loss is negligible. Dr. Fung has talked about this, and it really does not add up, i.e. people who fast dozens, hundreds of times, show no such thing.

The article also appears to neglect gluconeogenesis - in reality there’s not going to be such a critical undersupply of glucose occurring nearly so early.

“the brain… can only function using glucose.” – I think this is much more false than true, if not entirely false. Ketones make a fine fuel for all or most of the brain, with a good case for them being a better fuel than glucose.

(Bunny) #15

This may interest you also:

(Rob) #16

Of course you can… it just takes effort both with diet and exercise. You think those cut bods trying to sell you crap on youtube would have those bodies eating a ‘normal’ diet?

Because your brain doesn’t decide what is protective. Bodies typically want enough fat to see them through lean times even if the reality is that those won’t come to pass. There are always genetic outliers such as skinny lean people and healthy overweight people (why BMI is a pile of crap) but most people will remain a bit squishy without specific intervention. Your body is the only one that matters so experiment (n=1) and see what it will do under different regimes.

The stuff on Livestrong is rarely sufficient ever, let alone for keto. The article (as much as it is actually true at all) only really applies to NOT starting in ketosis. Loads of people here fast for a long time with negligible muscle loss though usually with more fat stores. The leaner you are, the less you can fast but then you fat fast where you supplement BF usage with exogenous fat to keep energy sufficient and insulin low. Combine with the types of exercise routines pushed by hard body types and you can get what you want.

#17

I think BMI is aware of its own “crapiness” (outliers) and that’s why it’s a range and not an absolute value.

(Robert C) #18

It might not be the muscle mass lost that is important. It might be how much better the new muscle mass is that you will gain by a good refeed. I would look at fasting as a whole loop - start of fast to end of refeed (which maybe for an extended fast, the refeed should be at least as long as the fast?). The point is, don’t think about going down in pounds to touch some “good feeling” number on the scale for just a day or two - instead think about your total body composition at the end. Maybe, if you are really trying to lose a lot of body fat - you should aggressively do an extended fast of 15 or more days and be careful with the refeed (not too much BPC and too many fat bombs where it is easy to eat past satiety or eat past what your metabolism needs to keep burning well). If you’re looking to increase muscle, maybe a heavier refeed after just 4 or 5 days and working hard when the HGH levels are high would be a better way to go.

(Rob) #19

That isn’t what the ‘range’ is there to cover. Why it is crap is that the outliers are way outside the ‘range’ of ‘healthy’ people. Feel free to use BMI however you want but I wouldn’t be basing important quantitative decisions on it.

#20

You read my mind Rob…
EXACTLY my intention at the end of the fast !
I completely realize that the free falling weight loss might not be the healthiest way to go about this but I figure I will reconstruct whatever destruction will have happened in the “refeed” you mention.