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Anonymous
Hey /fit/, there's something I've been wondering about. People post a lot about the importance of taking weight loss slowly... 3 pounds a week if you're heavy, no more than 2 pounds a week if you're in decent shape. The argument has been that going any faster will result in your body metabolizing your muscles, along with fat. Does the muscle regrow, or is it gone forever at that point?

I'm asking because 5 years ago I suffered from a very severe auto-immune disease that came very close to killing me. Against all odds, I lived (though I had gained an extremely nasty opiate and drug addiction, which took me another 2 years to overcome, though that's a different story). The disease pretty much ate away my body. I went from 180 pounds at 6'0" to 110 pounds in about 4 months. I was pretty much skin and bones.

Anyway, I suffered permanent circulatory and joint damage. I work out like a motherfucker every single day, and I feel normal enough (though the second I get lazy with my workouts I start to feel weak and sickly again).

But my muscles. I've always wondered whether this has limited my gains in lifting. Do I permanently have a lower potential now? If your body metabolizes its own muscles, are they gone forever? Or do muscles regrow?
>> Anonymous
Yes, muscle is like teeth, once it's gone, it's gone forever.
>> Anonymous
Muscles can only grow in size. If you had a condition where the fibers themselves got fucked up, then yes, it is permanent.
>> Anonymous
Muscle stay the same. Unless you are taking growth hormone, the number of muscle cells remain the same.
Muscles gets hypertrophied, the cells just get bigger with water and other things that makes muscle look bigger.

The taking slowly thing is just because if you lose weight too much way too fast it's bad for you, the metabolism slows a lot making further loss very difficult, you start to get sick, you lose the muscle. You will look like an holocaust survivor.
I've lost almost 20 kgs very slowly and haven't cut the calories less than 2200.
>> Anonymous
>>319419
Hard to say.

Muscle and fat are similar in that the cells are constant after puberty. When you work out, you're building mussel mass, not moar mussels. Same with fat, eating a lot means your fat cells are storing moar.

If whatever you had destroyed the muscle fibres then yes, you'll be limited in strength and mussel size overall.

PS. If you just were malnourished and your body just catabolised muscle mass then you should be fine. If muscle fibres are actually missing then you're fucked.
>> Anonymous
>>319443
>>319440
>>319431
Interesting. So I take it that the vast majority of the time when people diet too fast and "lose muscle," what this really means is just that the cells are getting smaller, not that they're permanently destroying muscles?

It's very possible that my body destroyed a good portion of my muscle fibers, actually. The nature of my disease was that my liver went haywire and started releasing a fuckton of enzymes into my blood stream that were intended to break down and destroy cells. I had a 102.5 degree fever 24 hours a day for 4 months, extremely severe arthritis, constant agonizing muscle and joint pain, hair loss, circulatory damage, sleeping 18 hours a day, etc.

So yeah, I probably did lose a lot of my muscle fibers. Wow, shitsux.

Been wondering about this for years. At least I know now.
>> Anonymous
>>319493
I think you need to go to your doctor and clear things up
>> Anonymous
>>319493

Yes, the just loose muscle mass.
>> Anonymous
> 3 pounds a week if you're heavy, no more than 2 pounds a week if you're in decent shape.
Actually the main reason is stretch marks shits fugly
>> Anonymous
>>319518
hao u gonn get strech marks from loosing wait?
>> Anonymous
>>319564

you have spare skin. that looks like it has been stretched?

im not.
>>319518
>> xXsEpHiRoThXx !osa26zqw/M
>>319602
you're a dumbfuck if you believe that
>> Anonymous
>>319503
I went to a rheumatologist once I figured out what I had. It's funny... I got my blood tested weekly once I realized I was sick and dying. Nobody could properly diagnose me. They all just said, "Yup, your enzyme levels are fucked up.... Why don't you come in next week for another follow-up test?" This went on for 6 months. I became friends with the lady that drew my blood.

I got to the point where I realized I probably wouldn't live through the next few months if I didn't figure out what was going on. I spent a week indoors, researching on Google. I finally figured out what I had.

So I went to a rheumatologist, who confirmed my diagnosis and gave me treatment. I asked him about permanent damage. He pretty much was just like, "Well, who knows. It depends. Maybe you do, maybe you don't."

Oh yeah, and this whole time I was in excruciating pain. Every second of my life was more painful than anything I've ever been through. No doctors would give me painkillers. They were like, "Oh, gee, I don't feel comfortable doing that..." I shopped around, went to like 10 doctors, but nobody would help me.

So I went out on the street and started buying heroin. I don't regret this decision. I would've put a bullet through my brain if I didn't get painkillers. I do regret that it took me 2 years to quit.
>> Anonymous
I got stretchmarks when I was in puberty, is there any way to get rid of them?
>> Anonymous
>>319662
As of today, no. But people believe that a laser therapy will be possible in the future
>> Anonymous
>>319655
I know a rich lady who went 3 times to a doctor because she had a bump in her breast and believed she had breast cancer. All times everyone said to her "it's just inflammation from exercise" "stop worrying".
So she paid for her studies by herself. She did had cancer.

Some doctor are fuckers and should be in jail. I know many more cases like that, happened with my grandma once.
>> Anonymous
>>319655
what did you have and where was the pain

im in excruciating pain now fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
>> Anonymous
>>319822
Really why?
>> Anonymous
>>319822
Actually, it was severe lupus. It was late-stage since I went so long without being properly diagnosed.

Yeah, yeah, inb4 "lol it's not lupus." It actually was, and dozens of blood tests and trips to the rheumatologist confirm this.

The pain? Well, besides the pain of having a 102.5 fever for 4 months... It was excruciating muscle and joint pain all over my body. You know the day after you work out and your muscles are sore? Imagine that feeling on every single muscle in your body, multiplied by 100, every second of every day, with the knowledge that your pain is the sensation of your body eating its own muscles and joints. Yeah. That's what it was like.

Like I said, I don't regret getting addicted to opiates. I blame all those fucking doctors that didn't give me anything for the pain just as much as I blame the fucking doctors that didn't try to diagnose me properly. I was in so much pain that I was seriously contemplating suicide, and those asshole doctors were like, "lol i don't like to give out painkillers!!"
>> Anonymous
>>319940
wow, fuck them. you made it dude and good luck on your mussel buildin.