[JohnMakin]

Yea what you're replying to is just pure fat-logic that isn't really backed by science. You will lose muscle from calorie restriction - that isn't really in doubt by anyone. However, when cutting weight, you can do a routine that maintains/builds muscle as you cut, to reduce the effect. A body with more lean muscle mass will be able to keep weight off for longer - this has been known, settled, and accepted in weight loss and fitness science for decades now. I've never heard anyone, anywhere posit that muscle loss is good - and would love to see a source, so I can laugh at it.

One insidious thing with these GLP1 drugs, is that they also seemingly affect muscles like the heart. I would not be willing to take one unless the risk of me carrying my weight far outweighed (no pun intended) the risk of the side effects. However, a lot of people seem to be treating it as some kind of miracle fad diet drug, which is concerning.

It also has other side effects like reduced elasticity on skin, etc. I suspect we'll see longer term issues in the next decade from these drugs, and I'm glad alternatives are being explored.

[crazygringo]

> Yea what you're replying to is just pure fat-logic

I can't even imagine what that's supposed to mean.

> However, when cutting weight, you can do a routine that maintains/builds muscle as you cut, to reduce the effect.

I literally talked about staying physically active.

The point is, you're going to have however much muscle your workouts and physical activity build/maintain. And you're going to lose whatever extra muscle isn't needed in your workouts. And that's fine, because you probably want well-balanced strength rather than legs that can carry around 300 lbs all day long.

None of this has anything to do with weight loss, except that simply walking around and daily movement becomes less of a workout as you lose weight because you're moving less mass. But it's not the weight loss directly that makes you lose muscle (assuming you're eating protein), it's the reduced physical strain because you weigh less so you're not needing those muscles. Do you get the distinction?

You don't need to work out even more to "reduce the effect" as you say. There's no effect. There's just working out to have whatever muscles you want. Weight loss will never lead to losing the level of muscle you need for your workout.

[sn9]

The reason you want to keep all your muscle on a cut is because that means a higher proportion of the weight that you do lose will be fat tissue.

This is the strictly superior outcome.

[crazygringo]

If you're "cutting" as part of bulking and cutting, then obviously.

But if you're going from obese to healthy, then your goal isn't to retain all your leg muscle, that's absurd. Your goal is to get to a healthy weight with overall balanced healthy muscle -- not disproportionately large legs.

Nothing is "strictly superior". What is best depends on what your goals are. Bodybuilding and not being obese any more involve wildly different measures of success.

[cthalupa]

If we didn't see tons of people reaching their "target weight" on GLP-1 drugs while having unhealthily low levels of lean body mass, you might have a point.

But that is what we do see. I'd argue that they're still in a better place than they were before, and we know that muscle that has been lost recently grows back very quickly when exposed to stimulus and adequate protein and rest, so I absolutely am a full believer in GLP-1 medications.

But if everyone on GLP-1 meds were keeping up with their protein and resistance training, even leg day, there would be very very few that had huge legs. That one portion of their body might be, on average, more muscular than a totally untrained individual, but it's not like being fat is the equivalent of a low bf% bodybuilder when it comes to lower body muscle mass. A formerly 300lb person dropping down to 180 with average genetics is almost certainly going to have smaller legs than someone who has been lifting for a year at the same height/weight.

[sn9]

No this is absurd.

The goal for anyone obese is to lose as much fat as sustainably possible.

For any given rate of weight loss, losing a higher proportion of body fat is always better.

This notion of "balanced" healthy muscle is one you've made up that no one else thinks of. I've been on fitness forums for well over a decade and have literally never seen a single case of this.

[crazygringo]

> The goal for anyone obese is to lose as much fat as sustainably possible.

Correct.

> For any given rate of weight loss, losing a higher proportion of body fat is always better.

That is in direct contradiction to your previous sentence. No, losing the higher absolute amount of body fat is better. While being sustainable healthy.

> I've been on fitness forums for well over a decade and have literally never seen a single case of this.

You may be on the wrong forums then. Most forums don't think all your days should be leg days.

[sn9]

> That is in direct contradiction to your previous sentence. No, losing the higher absolute amount of body fat is better. While being sustainable healthy.

This isn't in any way a contradiction if you're mathematically literate. If the highest rate of weight loss is some rate R, and losing weight without preserving muscle has you losing 0.5R muscle and 0.5R fat, losing R fat and 0 muscle is literally going to lose you more fat at the same rate. This is middle school math, and is literally what anyone who knows what they're talking about suggests, and is validated in the research.

> You may be on the wrong forums then. Most forums don't think all your days should be leg days.

Oh good more shit you've made up. No where did I suggest this. If you're going to engage in bad faith, go away.

Any well-rounded strength program will preserve muscle mass in a cut. You only need to work every muscle twice per week. No leg emphasis needed.

[JohnMakin]

> I can't even imagine what that's supposed to mean.

Where are you getting your information from?

[cma]

Don't you also need a bigger heart when you gain weight and not need as big of one at less weight? Liposuction and amputations can also result in muscle loss in the heart from it having less work to do.

[badosu]

You don't want to have too much hypertrophy in the heart for sure. My understanding though is that it's very hard (almost impossible?) for it to be a problem without exogenous hormones, or some other condition that allows you to accrue an abnormal amount of muscle mass (e.g. myostatin defficiency).

Edit: I mean someone with a healthy fat percentage body composition. Of course having to pump blood to a 300lb-140kg body is problematic for the heart, be it a mostly fat or mostly muscle body composition. My point is it's just much easier to be fat enough for it to be a problem than muscular enough without exogenous hormones or an abnormal condition.

[cthalupa]

Yeah, LVH is the big deal there in both cases.

Telmisartan, an ARB generally used for BP management, can actually reverse LVH to a significant degree over time, though. Popular for bodybuilders on large quantities of AAS for that reason.

[Izkata]

> One insidious thing with these GLP1 drugs, is that they also seemingly affect muscles like the heart.

Okay so I don't know where I picked this up - it was a decade or more ago - but I always thought the problem was losing weight too fast is what causes bad muscle loss such as from the heart, or from leg/other muscles beyond what's no longer needed from the weight loss. Something like, you're starving yourself so your body starts drawing energy not just from your fat but from anywhere it can.

[cthalupa]

The idea that people on GLP-1s shouldn't be trying to preserve (or indeed build) as much muscle mass as they can is absurd. It is more important than ever to perform resistance training and make sure you are getting adequate protein.

But this isn't anything special about GLP-1s - the same is true for any sort of rapid weight loss approach, be it diet, GLP-1, lap band, whatever.

And we see improved cardiovascular outcomes independent of weight loss for people on GLP-1 drugs in widespread clinical trials, vs. one mechanistic in vitro study showing loss of heart muscle cells.