how do you know?

**rockinred** · 07-16-2006, 07:21 AM

Had a quick question on weight loss. I have been cutting for the past week and already showing some good progress. The question is: when cutting, how do you know for sure you are not cutting into the hard earned muscle? I understand there is a compromise, but is there a preferred method to checking? I bought some sticks from store to check ketone levels and my body is not releasing any.

I posted diet in here and made quite a few mods to it after getting feedback and reading a shit load more. Here is the total breakdown on macros real quick

wt - 205
ht - 5ft 8in
bf - was at 20%
age - 32

total calories - 2360
total protein - 260g
total fat - 70g ish
total carb - bout 72g

Worked my ass off this past year, started lifting last August, and don't want to lose hard earned muscle, but I am definately dropping fat, or both.??

cardio 65%, 5 times week for 30-45 mins. weights are 1.0hrs - 1.5hrs - 5 times a week. Aside from gym, I pretty much sit in the office all day.

I can still push my normal weights
example:
bench - 315 - few times
squat - 405 - a few times
the rest of body currently about the same in stregnth as before I started diet.

Can I measure on stregnth alone? As long as I don't drop too much in stregnth, am I good to go??

Is skin fold test only method?

Thanks for any input...

**rockinred** · 07-16-2006, 07:47 AM

need to lose this.>>>

**steve0** · 07-16-2006, 08:56 AM

at your point i whouldnt worry about muscle loss, you have a little while to go yet, when you start getting into low digit body fat % or simple just arnt eating enough then you can start to worry about muscle loss.

**rockinred** · 07-16-2006, 09:00 AM

SteveO, so when you have a higher % BF the system pretty much burns the fat before it would dig into burning muscle?

**steve0** · 07-16-2006, 09:10 AM

Originally Posted by rockinred

SteveO, so when you have a higher % BF the system pretty much burns the fat before it would dig into burning muscle?

yeah pretty much but only as long as your diet is good you must make sure you are takeing down enough protein for one thing ad IMO you could bump your carbs up a little also.

**Superballer** · 07-17-2006, 01:11 AM

Simply put, watch your lifts. A log is priceless.

If they are decreasing drastically, then make adjustments as you are most likely losing muscle.

If they increase or stay the same and BF continues to drop you're in good shape.

**mwolffey** · 07-17-2006, 12:24 PM

Originally Posted by Superballer

Simply put, watch your lifts. A log is priceless.

If they are decreasing drastically, then make adjustments as you are most likely losing muscle.

If they increase or stay the same and BF continues to drop you're in good shape.

ditto...if you are losing lots of strength, then most likely you are losing muscle as well

**chest6** · 07-17-2006, 04:54 PM

from glancing at your macros..your fat is too high and your carbs are too low...

**rockinred** · 07-17-2006, 05:03 PM

Everyone, thanks for the input.

chest, i went off the Harris-Elliot matrix and it gave me the following:
Cutting (Grams) Pro Fat Carbs
Sedentary 267 83 80

I figured I am sedentary since other than workout I sit in office all day. What do you think???