Its seems that whenever I go into a cutting phase, I lose too much lean mass. This time I decided to try the Anabolic Diet (very low carb mon-fri with weekend carb up) because it is supposed to be very good at targeting fat with little loss of lean mass.
Unfortunately, I am into week 4 of this diet and it looks like I’ve lost 2.5lbs of lean mass and 1.3lbs of fat. Here’s my data:
Male, 34 years old
start weight: 189.4 lbs 15.5% bf … current weight: 185.6 lbs 15.5% bf
calories from carbs 120 … 5%
calories from protein 972 … 41%
calories from fat 1,260 … 54%
total calories: 2,352
I’m also not a pig on the carb up days. My total calories on these days is about 2,800.
training:
4 day split: TU TH SA SU: using 6-12RM for most muscle groups
cardio: low intensity 15 min warm ups on training days (only burns about 100 cal.)
added 20 min of low intensity cardio on Wed.
I’d like to accelerate the fat loss by either reducing calories or adding more low intensity cardio, but I’m afraid of losing any more lean mass. I took my about a year to gain 10 lbs of lean mass and I’d hate to lose half of it while cutting!
Interestingly, I’m continuing to make gains on my lifts. Subjectively I also feel leaner. I wonder how much of the lean mass loss may be due to water?
I’m using an average of my Titania scale and Accu-measure calipers. I find both of the devices to be inconsistent. I wish there was a better way to get consistent body fat measurements. Getting an erroneous reading could make things look much worse than they really are.