I lost 30 pounds approximately in around 3 months during my recent heart health issue. That averages around 10 pounds per month of weight loss.

So if I started out fairly lean before the 30 pounds of weight loss then I must have been totally shredded after losing 30 pounds? Unfortunately that is not how things work.

Let’s get into the math a bit of what happened:

10 Pounds is equal to 35,000 calories as an energy comparison when in fat stores, normally to lose 10 pounds of fat in a month, one would need to be in a 1200 calorie deficit everyday consistently. So if was burning 3000 calories per day via my BMR (Base Metabolic Rate) and combined activity, then I would need to be eating 1800 calories per day to be in a 1200 calorie deficit.

So unless I was in such a deficit every day for those 3 months, how is it possible to lose that much weight so quickly?

I can guarantee I was not in a calorie deficit during this time, there where of course days where I ate very little but other days I ate like a horse and during this time my actively was either zero to not much above zero. Meaning I was most likely only burning around 2000 calories or just above per day. I would need to be eating 800 calories per day to be in a 1200 calorie deceit to lose so much weight!

So what the heck was going on then?

Muscle has a water consistency of around 80% while fat has a water consistency of 20%.

Out of 10 pounds of muscle, 2 pounds is cellular, while out of 10 pounds of fat, 8 pounds is cellular. As you know, water has zero calories so the energy from either muscle or fat has to come from the cellular tissue. This means fat has approximately 4 to 5 times the energy per pound compared to muscle so you should be able to gain 4 to 5 pounds of muscle while losing 1 pound of fat while maintaining a neutral calorie input.

Example of what this means:

If I weighed 180 pounds and gain 8 pounds of muscle while losing 2 pounds of fat, I would end up weighing 186 pounds without having to eat in a calorie surplus.

This is one reason why a person can be in a moderate diet (calorie deficit) and actually gain weight at the same time. This can happen when a person is dedicated to weight training at the same time and is able to put on a fair amount of muscle during the diet phase. As a person get’s leaner this does get harder to do as fat stores are not as prevalent and the bodies ability to continue to gain muscle has it’s limitations.