5 ms·

I'm pretty sure that it takes significantly longer than a week to start losing muscle mass, so it might be in your mind.

bodge5000 4y ago
Yeh that seems likely, though I swear to my eyes it does look different
- weberer 4y ago
  Have you been taking creatine, but stopped in the past week? It could just be water weight lost.
- leksak 4y ago
  It could be that they previously were inflame from training and thus held more water. Or, if you've been eating less (seems likely) your body might have had to take some glycogen from the muscles which also binds water. Lastly, sure, you may have atrophied some but probably not a substantial amount. Do something, if you can, that exerts the muscle (heavy being preferable over 15+ reps) to retain muscle tissue.
barry-cotter 4y ago
People vary a lot. One of my friends lost 10kg of muscle mass in less than a month without being sick. He just stopped going to the gym every day and went on holiday. If your natural build is skinny as a rail and you’re buff and you stop some people just deflate like a balloon.
- smcl 4y ago
  If they're starting out at a decent size I could definitely believe someone dropping 10kg after a month. However I have a hard time believing anyone would be visibly different after a single week's worth of working out. However I can sympathise, I was in that position myself and I guess I had a sort of (very mild) body dysmorphia where I felt like I looked chunky and bloated if I missed just a couple of sessions in a row. I realise now that I was being ridiculous, I was in very good shape and it was all in my head. I picked up running and gym again earlier this year and I'm making a conscious effort not to fall into that trap again
- wiseowise 4y ago
  No they didn’t, lol. If you lose 10 kg of MUSCLE mass in a month, you’re seriously sick, like starving sick. And there’s no “natural skinny as a rail”, you either eat and workout enough, or you don’t.
  - barry-cotter 4y ago
    > And there’s no “natural skinny as a rail”, you either eat and workout enough, or you don’t. Just as some people are short and others tall people produce different amounts and proportions of hormones which leads them to put on muscle easily or not. For the most extreme ethnic examples of this consider the Kalenjin of East Africa who are skinny and wildly over represented as marathon runners and Polynesians who are wildly over represented as rugby players and in US Football, who are more muscular.
    - wiseowise 4y ago
      Easily or not, the point still stands.
- xxs 4y ago
  10kg of 'muscle mass' would be close to 40k kCal. Even if half of was water 20kCal is still tons - like mass starvation - 10day of not eating at all.
  - barry-cotter 4y ago
    If that’s ten days of fasting 30 days of substantial calorie deficit should do the same thing.
    - xxs 4y ago
      In that case, there should be fat losses too (fats are like 2x more energy dense). for reference - 1hour of running is ~650kCal. Also so much water retention (50%) is really high, lots of steroids?
- bodge5000 4y ago
  Unless theres other factors (probably), I'm not sure my "brick shithouse" (not my words) build matches this. Also of course, sods law, this week didn't seem to have any effect on my overall weight
- goodpoint 4y ago
  Unless your friend had a serious liquid retention problem before or starved himself for a month, it's impossible.

bodge5000 4y ago

Yeh that seems likely, though I swear to my eyes it does look different

weberer 4y ago
Have you been taking creatine, but stopped in the past week? It could just be water weight lost.
leksak 4y ago
It could be that they previously were inflame from training and thus held more water. Or, if you've been eating less (seems likely) your body might have had to take some glycogen from the muscles which also binds water. Lastly, sure, you may have atrophied some but probably not a substantial amount. Do something, if you can, that exerts the muscle (heavy being preferable over 15+ reps) to retain muscle tissue.

barry-cotter 4y ago

People vary a lot. One of my friends lost 10kg of muscle mass in less than a month without being sick. He just stopped going to the gym every day and went on holiday. If your natural build is skinny as a rail and you’re buff and you stop some people just deflate like a balloon.

smcl 4y ago
If they're starting out at a decent size I could definitely believe someone dropping 10kg after a month. However I have a hard time believing anyone would be visibly different after a single week's worth of working out. However I can sympathise, I was in that position myself and I guess I had a sort of (very mild) body dysmorphia where I felt like I looked chunky and bloated if I missed just a couple of sessions in a row. I realise now that I was being ridiculous, I was in very good shape and it was all in my head. I picked up running and gym again earlier this year and I'm making a conscious effort not to fall into that trap again
wiseowise 4y ago
No they didn’t, lol. If you lose 10 kg of MUSCLE mass in a month, you’re seriously sick, like starving sick. And there’s no “natural skinny as a rail”, you either eat and workout enough, or you don’t.
- barry-cotter 4y ago
  > And there’s no “natural skinny as a rail”, you either eat and workout enough, or you don’t. Just as some people are short and others tall people produce different amounts and proportions of hormones which leads them to put on muscle easily or not. For the most extreme ethnic examples of this consider the Kalenjin of East Africa who are skinny and wildly over represented as marathon runners and Polynesians who are wildly over represented as rugby players and in US Football, who are more muscular.
  - wiseowise 4y ago
    Easily or not, the point still stands.
xxs 4y ago
10kg of 'muscle mass' would be close to 40k kCal. Even if half of was water 20kCal is still tons - like mass starvation - 10day of not eating at all.
- barry-cotter 4y ago
  If that’s ten days of fasting 30 days of substantial calorie deficit should do the same thing.
  - xxs 4y ago
    In that case, there should be fat losses too (fats are like 2x more energy dense). for reference - 1hour of running is ~650kCal. Also so much water retention (50%) is really high, lots of steroids?
bodge5000 4y ago
Unless theres other factors (probably), I'm not sure my "brick shithouse" (not my words) build matches this. Also of course, sods law, this week didn't seem to have any effect on my overall weight
goodpoint 4y ago
Unless your friend had a serious liquid retention problem before or starved himself for a month, it's impossible.