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How fast do you lose muscle vs. fat when in a strict calorie deficit?

Posted on 2/26/24 at 6:39 am
Posted by pwejr88
Red Stick
Member since Apr 2007
36192 posts
Posted on 2/26/24 at 6:39 am
Say you go out of town for a few days, burn lots of calories doing yard work, running errands, helping out family and you barely eat anything.
How fast is fat leaving your body versus muscle when not hitting protein?
Is your body just depleting carbs the first few days AKA water weight, before fat and muscle stores are tapped? If so, at what point does the fuel switch to fat/muscle and how fast does each happen?
Posted by DrDenim
By the airport
Member since Sep 2022
491 posts
Posted on 2/26/24 at 8:45 am to
This is anecdotal, I'm not quoting or referring to any science backed data here. I'd have to look it up what the research says on how many hours, but of course it matters what a person's diet and activity was like baseline before falling away from regular routines for a few days.

If a person was being active as you describe, (not just lying down in bed, perhaps sick for 2 days), and they are taking in some calories, but not enough calories to reach baseline and not their routine macro ratios either, I don't think they would experience any muscle catabolism. And if this person has some body fat, that will probably get hit first after carb stores are depleted. Now I'm assuming that this person is sleeping "normally" for them, and whatever activity they're temporarily engaging in is not too taxing, it's just "doing stuff".
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