Adding the numbers, since they settle part of this. 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.
One thing that is still open after hans_munich’s answer:
Whether extending the interval works as well as reducing the dose, since they are not the same intervention pharmacologically?
dave_SLC 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…
Coming at dave_SLC’s question from a different direction. 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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I went to a lower dose rather than a longer interval on the strength of the trough argument in this thread, and the difference in how even it feels is obvious.
TinaHashiRN 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…
Agreed on the ranges, with the condition that a single DEXA is not a measurement, it is one draw from a distribution. Hydration status moves the lean compartment by a kilogram or more between scans, so any comparison of scans done at different times of day or different hydration states is noise.