The muscle likely isn’t fading away, you just are finally seeing how small you actually are(not an insult). 136 lbs of LBM isn’t going to make anyone(assuming you are male) look big unless you are 5’4 or under and very lean. You are already six months into your goal, why not just finish it, then realize you need serious size gains and get to work on that?
If you are still losing 1 - 1.5 pounds a week then that’s good progress with your diet. If the strength is still there then so is the muscle. What you want to do is really up to you, what are your goals?
You know - that makes all the sense in the world - Its only 136 or lbs of LBM - which when I was at 25% bf may have looked big, but was really not good. I guess I am lamenting the inability to gain muscle size, and lose fat at the same time - alas it does not work that way…
My goal is to be 12% at 170/175 - how long do you think of a haul I have ahead of me…
[quote]Scott M wrote:
The muscle likely isn’t fading away, you just are finally seeing how small you actually are(not an insult). 136 lbs of LBM isn’t going to make anyone(assuming you are male) look big unless you are 5’4 or under and very lean. You are already six months into your goal, why not just finish it, then realize you need serious size gains and get to work on that?[/quote]
Right - I am 5’6" so its OK - but nothing anywhere near ‘massive’.
If you haven’t lost strength then you probably haven’t lost any or very little muscle. Your muscles appear smaller to you because you lost fat as well as glycogen and water that are stored in the muscle.
I think CT said that you shouldn’t bulk until you’re under 10% BF. That way the weight you add will be largely muscle. My plan, hugely ambitious since I’m at about 18% right now, is to get to 8/9% for the summer, and then come September try and bulk up.
Bulk after hitting 10% - that seems to make sense. Thats about another 12 lbs at my current rate. Not too bad. I may take a week off entirely since I have been at it hard for over a year, and hard with diet since September.
I agree with Scott. You just don’t have as much muscle as you think you should.
(not picking on you)
When you get down to 10% or so, then reevaluate, you may just realize how much smaller you are then you thought. I wouldn’t stop losing fat, but I would take a week or two every 12 to eat at maintenance, and give the metabolism a boost.
Your going to be suprised what your lbm acutally is. Im coming down from 195, thinking I was going to be lean @ 180, Im now down to 170 and still only see 4 abs and have a lil mini gut still, so being fat makes you think your more muscular than you are.
You might think it is too expensive to buy that much in supplements, but i say it is worth it. make the investment do the V-diet for 4 weeks and you’ll loose as much as you did over the past 6 months.
