reading resistance training threads from 2024 and half of it aged badly
Thinking out loud about this: reading resistance training threads from 2024 and half of it aged badly.
On comparing yourself to composition figures from trials.
Published composition data comes from supervised populations with structured protocols, standardised scanning, and analysis populations that have been defined in advance. Your two scans at a local clinic, taken in different states of hydration, are not the same measurement.
Use your own baseline. The question worth asking is whether your own trajectory is going the way you want given what you are actually doing, and the honest answer usually requires measuring protein rather than estimating it and being truthful about training frequency. Neither of those is advice — a programme and a target are things to work out with somebody who knows your history.
Some lean mass loss accompanies weight loss in any deficit. Resistance training and adequate protein intake are the two interventions with the best evidence for limiting the proportion.
DEXA has a meaningful coefficient of variation, and it differs between machines and protocols. Comparing scans from different clinics adds a systematic offset that is invisible on the report.
I will update this if the picture changes rather than quietly leaving it up.
best — the order this archive was captured in
Hydration status and fasting state affect the lean mass estimate. Standardising both is the difference between a comparison and a coin toss.
Hydration status and fasting state affect the lean mass estimate.
Disagreeing with this line: rate alone does not preserve lean mass. The training does.
the scale cannot distinguish tissue types and never could
FFMI is a ratio and it moves when either term moves
strength retention is a decent proxy and it is free
Reduced appetite makes hitting a protein target a logistics problem rather than a motivation problem, which is why the practical advice here is about timing and food choice rather than willpower.
How many weeks between the two scans?
resistance training first, cardio if there is time left
Same DEXA machine both times?
the same DEXA machine or it is not a comparison
Push back: strength dropping in a deficit is not the same as lean mass loss. Related, not identical.
protein intake gets harder exactly when appetite drops
Strength retention is an imperfect but free longitudinal proxy: it is affected by neural factors and by being in a deficit, so it tracks tissue change loosely rather than exactly.
Protein was the whole problem. Appetite dropped and I was eating well under target without noticing for a month.
Resistance training, and at what frequency?
Fat-free mass index is a ratio of fat-free mass to height squared. It moves when either term does, which makes it awkward to interpret during active weight change.
Kept the same programme for a year instead of changing it every six weeks. That was the change that worked.
nothing on this board is a training or nutrition prescription
Agreed — protein and resistance training. Everything else in these threads is a rounding error on those two.
a single DEXA is a number, two is a comparison, three is a trend
Correction: those scans are from different machines, and the difference you are describing is within the measurement error.
grip strength and lift numbers are cheap longitudinal markers
grip strength and lift numbers are cheap longitudinal markers
Agreed — and same machine, same conditions, or the two scans are not comparable.
Small fix — that is fat-free mass, not muscle mass. The scan cannot separate them the way the post assumes.
That is a trial average in a supervised population and you are comparing your own scan to it.
a single DEXA is a number, two is a comparison, three is a trend
usp_appendix is right that protein becomes a logistics problem when appetite drops.
Agreed on the error margin. Quoting a DEXA to one decimal implies a precision the method does not have.
Yes. Lean mass change during weight loss is expected; the useful question is the proportion, not whether it happens.
protein and resistance training, that is the entire intervention
- 1a single DEXA is a number, two is a comparison, three is a trend10 comments in this branch · started by u/usp_appendix
- 2How many weeks between the two scans?8 comments in this branch · started by u/ferran_dahlberg