Why am I burning more muscle than fat?

[XTrainer]

I estimated your calories, and it's somewhere around 1400. You're basically on a starvation diet with tons of cardio and little to no proper weight training. You're also probably getting less than 130 grams of protein per day, and you have almost no fat.

Suggestions:
-add whole eggs to breakfast.
-add meat to your snacks. Some peanut butter on the fruit would be good as well.
-post workout, when you most need and best tolerate carbs, you have none.
-make your small piece of steak at dinner a big one
-do some real lifting. Squats, Bench, Deads, OHP, 3 times a week. Cut some of the long distance running and replace it with lifting.

Honestly, your "eat as much meat and veggies as i want" diet combined with all the heavy lifting was probably the best thing you could do.

Well said.

 

[JSN]

how do you even know that you're losing muscle and not much fat? oftentimes when you're carb depleted throughout the day you're going to look less "pumped" due to low glycogen levels, plus if a lot of times when you start burning off fat you can lose most of the subcutaneous fat and still have ample stores in your gut, making you looks less muscular.

 

[Thrasher666]

Don't run too much, do sprints instead ! LSD makes you lose muscle. Sprints keep you lean and burn more fat than muscle.

 

[leftovercrack]

I'm pretty sure the guy is training for a 13 mile endurance race involving both swimming and lond distance running. I'm not sure how sprints are gonna help hime run 13 miles?

I run Lsd twice a week as part of my conditioning program and have no problems with losing muscle mass.

 

[chokeingvictim]

Hey there guys, just a bit of back ground info first as this is why I'm REALLY confused on what's going on with my body!

A couple of years ago I was only lifting weights and nothing else, the occasional jog around the block (literally), but I was predominantly weight lifting and eating almost anything I wanted and heavy drinking, on the weekends. I actually was losing fat and gaining muscle with this life style.

My diet would consist of just tuna, chicken, steak, vegies, rotate. I was also working ridiculous hours and my body clock was wayyyyyyy out of whack, i.e. I had uni 9am to say about 6pm five days a week, and I would have work that starts at 11pm and finished at 4am, five days a week. I barely frichen slept! I remember this was one of the hardest times for me as a kid growing up!

NOW! Add a couple of years to that, I gained a heap load of weight so I decided to take up Muay Thai. After a week of doing Muay Thai I was like, "pfft, stuff weights, let's just focus on Muay Thai and cardio".

...so I signed myself up to City to Surf (a sort of 14km marathon that starts from the city centre all the way outwards to Bondi beach in Sydney) and as it got closer I was actually running a lot more on a session (I was doing 8k's minimum a session).

I was also doing weight lifting, but nothing extreme anymore, mostly upper body workouts where I thought would help me in my Muay Thai.

I was also doing Muay Thai 3 days a week, each 2 hour sessions.

My diet consisted and is currently something along the lines of this:

Mornin (6am) - Oatmeal with drop of honey, with casein protein mixed with mater
10am - a banana
11am - an apple
1230am - a 6inch subway sandwhich which double fillet chicken boobies, no dressing, salads, no cookie and waster.
3pm - an apple
6pm - 8pm - Run/Muay Thai/Gym depending on the day
Immediate post workout protein drink mixed with water
930pm - Small piece of rump steak, handful of vegies
Right before bed 11pm - Casein Protein mixed with water

the question is, I'm obviously doing a lot more rigorous training than I was years ago, how come my body is burning away all my muscles and not so much my fat? I'm saying this because I remember years ago all I did was lift weights and the fat on my belly shrunk and I remember the fat on my stomache formed in a shape of a donut! (which means small amount of fat!) but now, I'm doing shitloads of cardio, i've never done this much running and training in my life, yet my body is burning all my muscles and keeping my fat!?

What do I have to do in my diet?!?!

Could someone please help!

I'm going to start trying to stop running as much as it's really starting to hurt my achilles and switch it for sprints, 2 times a week. I did my second sprint session last week and everything in my body hurt! Even my biceps (I know, wtf?).

Any help would be appreciated guys!

nicescreen name i approve

 

[Denbob99]

nicescreen name i approve

Intelligent input.

Hopefully you've read the thread now xolent, some good advice in here. Bookmarking this thread for quick linking to other people asking this same question.

Also, LSD isn't going to prevent you maintaining muscle mass, perhaps too much of it coupled with a low cal diet will but that's beside the point. Add to that he's training for some sort of marathon.

Also

make your small piece of steak at dinner a big one

is a good life lesson imo.

 

[Ian Coe]

what's your definition of heavy?

I can squeeze in heavy lifting, not as much as I was when I was "body building", but perhaps a modest 3-4 days, I still want to keep my cardiovascular up though so i might throw in running on the treadmill for say, about 2k's...I've been doing that as a warm up.

the problem that i have is that i don't have a partner as all my friends are "bodybuilders" and they train at different times to me, so I have no one to spot me or give me some critique.

I really want do deadlifts and squats but my form isn't the best and again, I've got noone to critique me on that.

Mr current routine I mainly focus on my lats, abs and shoulders and triceps. Should I be focusing on the much larger muscles also, as perhaps focusing on the larger muscles may get my body to think "shit, the big muscles are getting smashed, we should stop burning the muscles!"? That was the explaination that I came up with. I use to be reallllll focused on benching but that doesn't really mean anything to me anymore.

The real issue I find that is I have no one to spot, so I limit myself to doing 8 reps at the highest weight I can.

At my best I trained weight twice a week. It was all that was necessary and indeed all I could get away with, what with the 6 times a week muay thai sessions and runs.

 

[Ian Coe]

Don't run too much, do sprints instead ! LSD makes you lose muscle. Sprints keep you lean and burn more fat than muscle.

First off, LSD does not make you loose muscle. And if you try and compare kenyan runners with sprinters, I will come to your house and poke you in the eye.
Secondly, it depends on where his weakness lies. As he is training for an endurance event and in reality he is trying to maintain his muscle mass, but also trying to improve his muay thai conditioning, he needs to establish what is letting him down.
Personally given that he probably has a poor aerobic base, I would say more cardiac output training will help with both the run and his muay thai. When his resting HR is down to low 50's to high 40's, he should re evaluate.

 

[xolent234]

First off, LSD does not make you loose muscle. And if you try and compare kenyan runners with sprinters, I will come to your house and poke you in the eye.
Secondly, it depends on where his weakness lies. As he is training for an endurance event and in reality he is trying to maintain his muscle mass, but also trying to improve his muay thai conditioning, he needs to establish what is letting him down.
Personally given that he probably has a poor aerobic base, I would say more cardiac output training will help with both the run and his muay thai. When his resting HR is down to low 50's to high 40's, he should re evaluate.

Hey there,

well the endurance event is over about 2 weeks ago! 14k's in 1hr 25mins baby! There's this hill where it's incline is at about 6%-12% for 2k's of the 14k's, that was the worst part of my life!

I'm only planning on running half as much now, but incorporating sprints. I did sprints last time and I was suprised how quickly my heart recovered after those short bursts, so I definitely still want to maintain my fitness.

I assume cardiac output training is that where you expel short burst of high energy? And aerobic is where you breathe at a constant pace and expel constant energy, like long distance running.

I'm thinking when I do go to the gym with little time I have, I'll focus on doing squats and deadlifts. However I'm trying to train my explosiveness more as I think it's something I lack. It's just trying to fit squats into a week where the sprints will mutilate my legs! I have no idea how one has the recovery time to do so.

 

[Steakeater**]

For the record, its almost impossible to burn more muscle than fat, unless you are extremely lean with huge amounts of musclemass, Im thinking 8% or less.

Even if you are burning muscle, your body will always be using fat