The figures, for anyone assembling their own picture. If you are tracking this properly: same scanner, same time of day, same hydration, at least six months apart, and read grip strength or a lift number alongside it. Function is the outcome; the scan is the proxy.
A narrower follow-up, since the general answer is now clear:
Whether resistance training and protein change the ratio or only the absolute amount?
wendy_avl said:If you are tracking this properly: same scanner, same time of day, same hydration, at least six months apart, and read grip strength or a lift number…
There is a second half to this that has not been said yet. The intervention that works is boring and well evidenced: resistance training two to three times a week at a genuine effort, protein at 1.4 to 2.0 g/kg of reference body weight, and not making the deficit larger than the training can support. Cardio does not protect lean mass and in a deep deficit competes with recovery.
Worth separating that from lean-mass preservation, which this thread keeps folding into the same question. They behave differently and the advice does not transfer.
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Second scan under matched conditions came back with the lean number nearly a kilogram higher than the first, so a chunk of what I panicked about was hydration. Strength numbers were up throughout.
pete_nash said:The intervention that works is boring and well evidenced: resistance training two to three times a week at a genuine effort, protein at 1.4 to 2.0…
Right, and protein targets should be set on a reference weight rather than current weight. Setting 1.6 g/kg on a starting weight of 130kg produces a target nobody hits on a suppressed appetite.