Does Not Exercising Make You Lose Muscle?
A meal plan user emailed:
"Since starting the meal plans in February I've lost 23lbs, 16 inches, and lowered my cholesterol 40 points - all without exercising! My old personal trainer wants to get together and catch up. She text me that I'm going to lose too much muscle if I don't exercise. Is she right? I know I don't have to exercise to lose weight, but I'm not sure how to respond to her. When I worked out I was in pain everyday and it really sucked."
Your trainer means well, and I believe she cares, but many trainers are so misguided, perpetuating the conventional wisdom you hear in gyms: more protein, more muscle. Little of them really understand diet, nutrition, and it's role with weight-loss. She's also trying to get you to buy her services again, too, I'm sure ;)
Regarding muscle loss, if a guy starts pumping iron like crazy -- can bench 250lbs, and then decides "forget it" and stops lifting, yes, he will eventually lose that big bulky bicep muscle because it was not natural, and Herculean efforts were/are required to sustain it.
Similarly, if you trained for a marathon, all that running would undoubtably add a few pounds of extra leg muscle to your frame, and if you decided to "retire" and never run again it would eventually go away, as you're not running 25-50 miles a week to sustain it.
See the point I'm getting at here?
Could you lose some muscle from not working out? Sure, but it would be very little and arguably more natural for your body.
Unless you're bed ridden, you're moving, so you can't lose your muscles. Trainers want us to think exercise is only something that happens in a gym, but exercise happens when we wash the car, walk the dog, clean the toilet, mop the floors, fold our laundry, play with our kids, carry groceries up the steps, cook dinner, etc.
Sure, my biceps might not be as big as if I was doing "curls for the girls" with barbells everyday, but having big biceps or being able to bench press some arbitrary number of pounds does not mean I am healthy. In fact, some of the most muscle-y guys I knew at the gym had some of the worst diets! Fast food 24/7! What do their ateries look like?
Check out this post, too: My Weight-Loss Fail: Why a Personal Trainer Didn't Work
"When I worked out I was in pain everyday and it really sucked." Then there is your answer.
If you start to feel worried about your muscularity, start walking and doing some yoga. Deep clean and move furniture ;)
"Is she right?" Not in the way she means.
Hope that helps! Lindsay