Lean Body Mass

[Neoteric Verve 65]

Now I've been told that so long as we maintain our Protein intake we shouldn't lose muscle mass. This is rather puzzling to me as I am currently at 45% bodyfat. All told this means I have approximately 240lb of lean body mass. I know this includes bones, organs and muscle tissue. This makes sense to me as it does take some heft to haul 400+lb around. What I am trying to wrap my mind around is losing the fat and sitting there with 240lb of lbm and say 40lb of bodyfat. I'd be healthy but I never imagined being 280lb and ok. I'm just gonna be a big guy I guess. No wonder my surgeon said 210lb is not in my cards....

Does any of this make sense to anyone? I wanted to be slim..

[SKCUNNINGHAM 298]

Yes, it makes sense. For guys - the body fat % for athletes is 6-13%. The body fat % for fitness (as opposed to athletes) is 14-17%. So if you have 240 pounds of muscle mass, your body fat % would be:

• at 15 pounds of fat (255 pounds total weight) you would have 6% body fat
• at 20 pounds of fat (260 pounds total weight) you would have 7.6% body fat
• at 40 pounds of fat (280 pounds total weight) you would have 14% body fat.

It is going to depend on how much you want to exercise during your weight loss process and for the rest of your life what your ultimate ratio of lean body mass to fat is. Don't let it overly concern you at this point. Just be in as good of shape as possible (exercise wise) when you go through surgery, and start walking as soon as possible after surgery. Follow your surgeon's rules for when you can start exercising. After six months of weight loss, have another evaluation of lean muscle mass / body fat % and set your final weight loss goal then.

[Neoteric Verve 65]

Thanks for this. It just seemed illogical that I could be in shape at 280lb. I know football players are this size often. My playing days are long over and I thought I could be a "fitness guy" at around 220lb. I'm thinking long term in that at 280lb with 14% bf would I be a healthy senior citizen?

[RickM 1,747]

You are likely to be losing some of your lean body mass simply because some of your musculature will no longer be needed to support your weight. Ideally, we can redistribute that muscle mass, but I suspect that would be a tall order. Someone in one of these forums mentioned that their nut said that the rule of thumb that they use is that we will lose 1 lb of muscle mass per 9 lb of fat. I don't know the validity of that figure, but it seems like a reasonable starting point, and is consistent with my experience. My goal has been to get down to the 15% body fat level - starting at about 42% at 292lb. My first estimate was that I should get to 200 even to meet that goal, making the gross assumption that only fat mass was lost and I would readjust the weight goal as I got closer. Re-evaluating things as I got into the 2/3 loss region indicated that 190 would be a better weight goal - so I have lost about 10 lb of lean body mass despite swimming or strength training for about an hour a day five days a week - not an unexpected readjustment.

For myself, as I have been working out these past few years as part of my attempt at getting down to semi-normal weight the "old fashioned way" I never really wanted to get muscular enough to be lean and still in the mid 200's - I figure that ultimately that "excess" muscle mass will turn to fat as I age further and/or get injured - it takes a lot of work to maintain that level of musculature. At 5'10", my goal of 190 would still be "overweight" on a BMI basis, albeit a healthy overweight, but it would probably still ultimately be "fat in escrow", but I can live with that amount.

The body comp is not something I agonize over, but is more of a reference point - if I get into that 15% region, I will be happy with the result. The body comp readings aren't all that accurate for us "losers" no matter how it is done (impedance, calipers, dunking, etc.) since they're based upon population averages and their norms don't quite know how to deal with the excess skin that we typically have after substantial rapid weight loss - it seems to treat it more as fat than lean mass - but it's as good of a indication of our overall condition as we have.

[feedyoureye 3,087]

Did you use calipers or the bod pod or Water immersion to figure out your body fat ratio? Perhaps you have a very large frame as well... My husbands is way above the "large" category...and he looks extra thin when 210lbs 6'1".

figure your frame size here:

http://www.healthchecksystems.com/heightweightchart.htm#frame

[RickM 1,747]

Did you use calipers or the bod pod or Water immersion to figure out your body fat ratio? Perhaps you have a very large frame as well... My husbands is way above the "large" category...and he looks extra thin when 210lbs 6'1".

figure your frame size here:

http://www.healthche...chart.htm#frame

I am in somewhat the same boat as your husband - if I get down into their recommended weight range for a large frame (by some measures I am a medium frame, others would say large,) and my 5'10" height, I would have to lose an excessive amount of muscle mass and/or get into the seriously athletic body comp - which wouldn't be all that sustainable long term.

I use an impedance scale (a Tanita) for everyday body comp measurements, and will get dunked again when I get into my goal region (about another 30lb to go for that). I was dunked a few years ago after I had lost some of my problem thru classic diet/exercise efforts and it correlated well with the Tanita. But my wife, who had lost around 200lb with a DS and had lots of excess skin hanging around (lost another 10-15lb when she had reconstruction surgery later) had readings that didn't make much sense. She was reading about the same 34% fat mass that I was at the time, and well above the average Tanita readings, but there is no way she had that much fat on her (even though women are supposed to be carrying more). There just isn't/wasn't that much fat on her, even in the places women normally carry it!