SH wrote:
My tentative conclusions (after doing what I did and reading what you did):
1.) I'm not happy with the 2:3 loss ratio, but don't know what to really expect. I feel like people often lie about their muscle loss during cuts. "I lost 15 pounds of fat and only one pound of muscle!".
2.) Maybe 1000 calories deficit is too aggressive and 500 calories would give me a better muscle to fat ratio for lost weight.
3.) With my way of doing things a 500 calorie deficit is harder to measure/manage.
4.) Maybe my gym device isn't good for checking bodyfat%. It's one of those impedance scales with handles. It tends to want to give me a similar bodyfat% no matter what I weigh.
Impedence BF% is not very accurate. And it gets less so, the leaner you get. And it gets less so, the more of an athlete you are. Its very sensitive to hydration status, prior exercise, alcohol consumption, digestive system content, etc. Lots and lots of things affect it. Skinfold has about the same population accuracy as BF%, but it is much more repeatable for the same person with the same examiner. So, the absolute bf% might be wrong, but the trend (skinfold thickness) represents actual loss.
All that said, a few years ago, I did a "1000 cal/day" exercise for 9 months, and lost 62 lbs. I used a bioimpedence scale every day for 3 years (I still use the scale and log my bf%, but it mostly indicates hydration status today). I went from 210 / 30% to 148 / 11%. So, I lost 62 lbs total and 16 lbs of muscle mass according to the Tanita. Skinfold puts me more in the 8.5% range---which would be more like 12 lbs of muscle lost.
Interestingly, looking back at my data...I lost most of the muscle mass in the first 20 lbs (from 210 -> 190). Nine of those pounds were muscle (according to Tanita), for a muscle loss ratio of 1:2.5. I went from 148 lbs of muscle to 139 lbs during that time. At that point, I added strength training to my regimen, and increased my protein intake (from 0.7 g/kg to 1.2 g/kg). After adding strength training, my muscle loss ratio slowed to 1:6.
1000 cal deficit made intensive training difficult for me. I basically couldn't do it. So, I just did long endurance stuff, prioritizing getting my weight down over hard training.