[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.

[crazygringo]

> if you're mathematically literate

No insults, please. I'm sure that if you have good arguments, you won't need to resort to that kind of attitude. And the fact that you're resorting to swearing later in your comment doesn't help you.

> If the highest rate of weight loss is some rate R

That's not a valid precondition. Nobody chooses a rate to lose weight at, and then magically chooses some proportion of fat vs muscle. What actually happens is that you lose fat through eating less calories, and you naturally lose muscle from using your leg muscles less by putting less weight on them, because you weigh less.

> No where did I suggest this.

You did. You literally said:

> This notion of "balanced" healthy muscle is one you've made up

You are arguing that one should preserve all of the leg muscle for a 300 lb body, even once you're 180 lbs. Again, that's absurd. That's going to take a far disproportionate amount of time at the gym on your legs to maintain. You say "No leg emphasis needed." That's completely and utterly false.

You are talking about bulking and cutting for strength training. But you already have a balanced body, I'm assuming. This conversation, on the other hand, is about obese people losing weight. Their muscles are disproportionately in their legs. Do you get that now? Do you understand the concept of a balanced distribution of muscle and strength, e.g. between arms and legs? Or since you're so concerned about having a conversation at a "middle school" level, do you need it explained in even simpler terms?

[JohnMakin]

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

Where are you getting your information from?