i'm coming up to a year of working out and i've come across the fact that "if you eat at too much of a deficit", "if you're losing strength", or "if you don't get at least 1g protein per lb of bodyweight" then you're losing lean body mass.
is this necessarily true for everyone's physique? take me for example. i went from 145 to 170, and i got pretty fat, but i got a good amount of muscle in the process. i was already at 15-16% body fat when i started and ended around 20% after 8 or 9 months. i've been cutting for a month so far at 1500 calories, which is a 500 calorie deficit from my 2000 calorie maintenance.
however, my diet is anything from spot on, and my consistency has been sloppy. it's just really discouraging to see all my strength going down and being tired all the time at the gym. i suspect i'll have to do this for another month to hit the 10-12% body fat mark. while i'm worried that my loss of strength is related to a loss of lean body mass, i'm also skeptical because of how "big" most people who state this are.
i'm still small, i have no doubt about it, but my goal right now is to get a 6-pack. i want to hit 140-145 which is a reasonable weight for my height. i don't care that i'll look like justin bieber afterwards, i'm about to turn 20 and i've never had a 6-pack in my life. i'm cutting down to a low body fat then bulking up to 15-16 then repeating the process, i never want to hit 20% again, it was just miserable.
so i guess what i'm trying to say is, most people who are really meticulous with their eating and training schedule are pretty big people, probably with years of experience and a crazy amount of LBM. i can see how the body could end up burning muscle instead of fat when you have that much muscle. but me? if my calculations are correct, my LBM is at a measly 130 lb of my 150 lb overall mass. so my question is this: will i actually be losing muscle if i skip a training day or if i don't keep my deficit accurate in macro ratios?
also, if it's relevant, my lift numbers have fallen quite a bit, but i suspect it was from the leverage of the extra fat i had, not actual strength.
overhead press and bench have stayed the same (3x5 105, 3x5 155), squat has gone down from 3x5 225 to 3x5 185, deadlift has gone from 4x5 225 to 1x5 205. i'd also like to note the fact that when i'm at the gym, it's a huge toss-up between me being tired versus being pumped. my training is not in a vacuum, these numbers are just the worst i've experienced lately.
edit: thanks for the information guys, i was starting to think the cut wasn't a very good idea haha
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