How much LBM do you guys lose in the cut?

[kfisherx]

Little background. In 2005 I was a size 18 at 175lb and 31% bf on my 5'5" frame. Today I am 118lbs and 12.6% bf and a size 3. 10 months ago I started a lifting program with the help of a trainer who is not a bodybuilder trainer but a general fitness trainer. He corrected a lot of things like he had my raise my calories and drop a lot of the cardio (almost all of it in fact) and he taught my basic lifting focusing on compound exercises. When I had reached 20% bf, we did a nice bulk together which fire my metabolism up. Before I used him I ate 1400 cals a day and in the bulk I learned to do 2800-3000plus a day. I put on some nice weight without a significant amount of bf increase so I assumed I put on about 4lbs of LBM in the 5 months.

Then I started my first cut. I cut at a slow rate of less than 1 lb a week and at the end I ended up at 118lb and 12.4% bf.

So I lost a total of 15.4lbs (yeah) and 7.1% bf (WTF?) This means that I dropped another 8 lbs of something other than bf!!! YIKES. If I take into considerationt that "other than bf" includes things such as water and allow a few lbs for that I am left to deduce that I lost at least 4 lbs of LBM! So now I am saying to myself WTF??? All that work in the bulk (the bulk part is way harder for me than the cut part) and it seems like I net yielded nothing.

So I am posting to find out what you ladies experience in your cuts. I posted this on a fat loss board but facts are there are just not a lot of ladies who can actually do this sort of cutting on that board. Here I see there are a lot of you. :)

[Suzanne]

no droping 7% bf is not droppping 7 lbs of fat

i you were 20% bf at 118 + 15.4 lbs then you lbm was 106.72

118 at 12.4% bf is 103.368 lbm

most methods of taking bodyfat are only close at best do you look diff then before your bulk do you see more muscle

so you may or may not have lost 3 lbs of muscle
lbm counts water and glycogen anything that is not fat

[kfisherx]

I was 133lbs at 19.5% bf at the top of the bulk and at the end was 118lbs and 12.5% bf. I use a 4-point bioimpedence but it never varies more than .8% from day to day. I keep myself hydrated and weigh the same time every day.

Thank you so much for doing the real MATH for me on this one. That puts it into better perspective for me! 3lbs in a 15lb loss is really to be expected I would say and now I am not freak'n out.

Oh I look significantly different now than ever before. My body has totally recomp'd in the past 1/2 year even. I have had to buy all new clothes. BUT I don't think I have ever been this lean before. When I was in the USMC, I weighed 113lbs but I was skinny fat then and since then I always maintained 20% of more bf from what I can tell looking back on pictures. So I think this is the first time I have ever seen this side of me.

And to tell ya the truth I look TINY in my eyes. I am a little bit shocked at how small I am. Noel, said he wants to pack 10lbs of LBM on me. I told him to BRING IT ON baby. I am going to be an eating/lifting fool this winter.