[UConnJulie]

Originally Posted by Leigh P.

There is a lot to consider in a situation like this.

First off, what most people don't realize is the LBM (lean body mass) doesn't just mean muscle. Loss of LBM and Atrophy are two different things. Yes, connected, but two different things. When studies and people measure body fat decreases and try to calculate percentage of muscle lost they fail to often take into account glycogen and water. Both are LBM.

Being someone who has had to purposely decrease muscle mass in female trainee (ie those who it should be easy as possible) I can assure you that it isn't a walk in the park. The easiest way to do it is by NOT training. You are going to see atropy from immobolization at a much faster rate than in training, even when crossing over into high stress oxidative states.

If you take a person of average training, average diet, suitable resting and feeding breaks, these questions really aren't that relevant beyond that of just fun discussion. Where it changes is when people start to do stupid shit and to some degree endurance athletes. It doesn't have to be, but they usually do a lot of stupid shit nutrition wise, hince where the problem comes in.

People don't kill muscle from cardio, they kill muscle from cardio and not eating enough.

Question: When do we see the worst atrophy situations occur?

-Overtraining
-Undereating
-Immoblization

The small and minor erasing of muscle in a deficit can easily be made up for in the break period with correctly timed training to support it.

The only people who end up "fat skinny" from training are those who never trained in the first place and expect the fat to melt off into buff. It doesn't matter how good the training program is, there had to be a base there in the first place. If not then after you free the fat, move in to a slow bulking situation, move into a hypertrophy stage, and then bounce around as need for the long term to increase muscle, decrease fat as needed. Newbie effect will only get most people so far.

End note: Loss of LBM with training has become far to "Bro-speak" and isn't nearly a worry as most make it to be.

As usual, you state things in such a way that all can "get it" ... you remain teh awsumness!!