my ferritin moved and I cannot work out whether FFMI is why
Something I keep coming back to: my ferritin moved and I cannot work out whether FFMI is why.
Hydration status and fasting state affect the lean mass estimate. Standardising both is the difference between a comparison and a coin toss.
Reduced appetite makes hitting a protein target a logistics problem rather than a motivation problem, which is why the practical advice here is about timing and food choice rather than willpower.
Strength retention is an imperfect but free longitudinal proxy: it is affected by neural factors and by being in a deficit, so it tracks tissue change loosely rather than exactly.
Corrections welcome, especially the pedantic ones. Pedantry is how this board earns its reputation.
best — the order this archive was captured in
Nothing here is a training or nutrition prescription. Targets and programmes are matters for somebody who knows your history and your training background.
Some lean mass loss accompanies weight loss in any deficit. Resistance training and adequate protein intake are the two interventions with the best evidence for limiting the proportion.
Protein was the whole problem. Appetite dropped and I was eating well under target without noticing for a month.
Correction: those scans are from different machines, and the difference you are describing is within the measurement error.
Right — strength retention is a free proxy and it tracks better than most people expect.
Small fix — that is fat-free mass, not muscle mass. The scan cannot separate them the way the post assumes.
Cosigning that protein gets harder precisely when appetite drops. That is the actual difficulty and it is logistical.
DEXA has a meaningful coefficient of variation, and it differs between machines and protocols. Comparing scans from different clinics adds a systematic offset that is invisible on the report.