• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Eat Stop Eat | Intermittent fasting | Weight Loss | The pursuit of happiness

  • Home
  • Meet Brad
  • Topics
    • Muscle Building
    • Weight Loss
    • Healthy Ramblings
    • Exclusive Content
  • Intro to Intermittent Fasting

How to Lose Muscle Mass

August 24, 2007 By Brad Pilon

As you can imagine, questions about Eat Stop Eat have been pouring in to my In-box, with the most common question being about fasting and losing muscle. Most people are still very concerned that they will lose muscle if they don’t eat every 3 hours. My answer has always been, don’t worry, if you are Resistance training then you won’t lose muscle.

Then I received a very interesting question that went something like this – “If calorie restriction doesn’t cause muscle loss, then what does?”

Great question. We all know that people who are bedridden and on a low calorie diet lose muscle. When I first starting writing Eat Stop Eat, and was running the idea past several dietitians for input, they all brought up stories of muscle loss in their patients who were bedridden and on a low calorie diet.

And since I am constantly saying that caloric restriction doesn’t cause you to lose muscle if you are working out, then that leaves being ‘bedridden’ (or ‘disuse’ as they say in research) as the cause of muscle loss.

Ever break your arm and have to wear a cast, or know someone who did? Do you remember how skinny that arm was when the cast finally came off? Put a cast on your arm and your muscles shrink faster then an expensive new shirt in the dryer.

There was no change in nutrition, only a change in the amount the muscles were used, and the muscle wasted away.

In fact, ‘casting’ is so effective at causing muscle loss that it has been used in research to study something called ‘disuse atrophy’ or muscle loss from lack of use.

In a study conducted at the University of Nottingham, 22 male and female studies had casts put on their right leg for two weeks. Their diets didn’t change, yet after only two weeks the cross sectional area of their quadriceps (the big muscles in your thigh) decreased by 10%.

NO change in diet..but the muscle still decreases in size by 10%.

Bottom line – as long as you are working out, and meeting some sort of caloric minimum (studies have gone as low as 80 grams of protein and 800 Kcals a day), you won’t lose muscle. However, if you don’t use the muscle, then it really doesn’t matter what you are eating, the muscle is going to shrink.

BP

PS- If, by some fluke accident you do break your arm, the research from Nottingham found that Creatine Monohydrate can speed the rehab process, helping you build back your muscle and strength quicker than normal.

Toronto Personal Trainer

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: gain muscle, Muscle loss

PROMOTED STORIES:
  • What would you say if I told you your workout is insane? Here is a better way.
  • Are The Foods You Eat Triggering Health-Harming “Obesity Toxins” In Your Gut?
  • Trick Your Body Into Burning Fat Like You're On A Low Carb Diet — While You Eat Yummy Carbs Every Day
  • In Just One Day This Simple Strategy Frees You From Complicated Diet Rules — And Eliminates Rebound Weight Gain
  • New Discovery "Flips The OFF Switch" on Stubborn Fat
  • Discover The Surprising Connection Between Exhaustion, Lethargy, Weight Gain and The Air You Breathe
  • Add ¼ teaspoon to your coffee [eliminates fat cells]
  • Revealed: Your Answer To The Most Frustrating Nutrition Myth Of The Past Decade “How Much And What Kind Of Protein Do You REALLY Need To Eat Every Day?”

Primary Sidebar

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter

Recommended Posts

Why we hate the BMI

  A new study adds to the growing evidence that an elevated BMI increases the risk of a heart attack in otherwise healthy people. In what has been called the largest study of its kind (data on over 500,000 people) researchers classified participants based on their body mass index (BMI), calculated as weight (kg) divided […]

How Many Calories can you Burn in a day?

Have you ever stopped to think that there might be an upper-limit to human metabolism? Basically a ‘ceiling rate’ at which we can burn through calories? Probably not, but don’t worry… I did for you! I’ve heard rumors of people eating well over 10,000 calories during a single cheat day, or even every day during […]

Reverse Taper Intermittent Fasting

The concept of the Reverse Taper Diet is still one of my favorite ideas. Without getting too technical, the concept is that you should be in your largest calorie deficit (eating the least amount of food) at the beginning of your diet, when you have the most fat to lose and thus the most fat […]

Fasting for Weight Loss – Setting the Record Straight

Paleo eating and vegan eating are the EXACT SAME THING. This is why any and all research on Paleo diets can be used for Vegan diets, and vice versa. It’s also why any personal experiences people have had with a Vegan diet can be directly applied to what you will probably experience with the Paleo […]

Never Skip Leg Day

Friends don’t let friends skip leg day, or so the saying goes… Small legs, chicken legs, the triumphant retort of any one to any body with a good bench or built upper body… But is it justified? Legs are important to sports performance and good physique, not to mention your long term health (A smaller […]






Get a copy of my book “Zen of Nutrition” for FREE here!

We respect your email privacy

Footer

About Brad Pilon

Brad is an expert on intermittent fasting as it relates to losing weight and gaining muscle. He's also the author of Eat Stop Eat.
[ Read more... ]
Terms & Privacy

Floating link to newsletter

Read my
newsletter!
Copyright © bradpilon.com