"wouldn't everyone agree that putting on muscle seems a lot easier to do than to get rid of fat?" - I'm not sure I'm convinced of this statement. Everything I've researched tells me that a great rate of muscle gain for a male is 1/2 pound per week, and 1/4 pound per week for a female - a maximum rate ma be double that for beginners for a short time
The keyword being "researched"! Everyone is different and therefore you don't know that this is correct until you track
your numbers. Men are full of testosterone and you frankly don't know how much muscle
you gain or lose in a week or how much fat
you gain or lose in a week without monitoring correctly. You should never rely on research. You should rely on what works for you, and without a canvas of information you will never know. The effect of that? Hitting a brick wall, frustration, and maybe even eventually giving up.
my research tells me I would also have to put on another couple pounds of fat as well, which might take a week or 2 to cut back off. So, losing a couple pounds might put a male 6 weeks behind, and a female maybe up to 3 months behind. The major bullet point that is uncertain is whether you would only lose a couple pounds of muscle, or whether that number could be a lot more. If I lost 100lbs of which 20lbs was muscle and 80lbs was fat or other tissue I no longer needed, it would take me 40 weeks to regrow the 20lbs of muscle, and then another 8 weeks or so to cut back off the 20lbs of fat I would accumulate while regrowing muscle. Thats 11months of work I wouldn't need to do if I would have made sure I wouldn't have lost that 20lbs to begin with.
You are DEAD on with the bolded point. It is uncertain whether you would lose a couple of pounds of muscle of whether or not the number would be a lot more, without a proper starting point of data and proper monitoring. You are basing your ideas and whole routine on what reasearch (of other people different than you I might add) has told you about what other people experience with muscle loss. I will also add that the most dramatic of muscle loss with any of my clients was 12lbs of muscle in about 5-6 months. This was a female, and she was training for two marathons within a close timeframe of each other. She put back on all the lost muscle within 2 months. Females are hard gainers by nature. Would 12 pounds of muscle at it's most dramatic be that big of a deal for anyone who is overweight? No.
I have done a bit of research into muscle loss while dieting, and I keep coming across 2 points. First, obese individuals do not have to worry as much about muscle loss as those looking to erase the last few pounds of fat. Secondly, diets like PSMF claim very rapid fat loss, and claim that muscle loss is prevented by taking in an appropriate amount of protein. But that program is designed for obese people where muscle loss isn't as big of a risk. The conclusion I can draw is the lower your body fat, the more potential there is for muscle loss.
That is what I have been saying this whole time =) That is what I meant by no one is a bodybuilder here and therefore the small amount of muscle loss by not lifting and doing strictly cardio should not even be a worry. The fact is you will not lose that much muscle, and yes muscle loss can be minimized with the proper amounts of protein.
That is all I was ever trying to get at. I am not beginner and I have been through all the trials and tribulations of researching stuff to death, calories in vs calories out, etc. I reached a point to where I was making it much more difficult than it really was. I always giggle to myself now when I hear someone that has been doing this for a while say their way is the gospel, however they have not made any progress during that time or they are having to work just as hard to maintain as they did to lose the inital weight. Do you ever see that guy that is in the gym every single day, sometimes twice a day for like a year, however he has not changed at all???? those are the people that stick to these ratio diets, and live by the gospel of calories in vs calories out and ingesting fats is okay for fat loss. That person was ME for 10 years. That person was my partner for 12 years. For 12 years she did everything by the book, by science if you will, and never got to a stage. Six months after getting involved with the right people and turning her thinking around. She hit the stage and is now competing professionally.
