4 signs you’re losing muscles instead of fat

Healthy weight loss means losing extra fat from the body and building muscle mass.

Replacing fat with lean muscle can make you look more toned, strong and healthy. But the journey to shed kilos is far more complex than just eating clean and exercising.

While juggling with these two factors, which are believed to burn fat, most people start losing muscle mass. That is not a great thing and can lead to health-related complications in the long term.

Our body does not lose muscle mass in the first place if we follow the methods to shed kilos correctly.

Only when we follow a crash diet and exercise incorrectly, our body starts losing muscle mass. However, it is not difficult to say if you are losing fat or muscle mass.

Once you identify the signs, you can easily make changes in your diet for effective weight loss. Here are some signs that you are losing muscle mass instead of fat.

1. You are losing weight speedily
Losing fat is a time taking task while losing muscle mass is an easy one. If you see that the scale on your weighing machine is going down quickly that clearly means you are losing muscle mass instead of fat. Losing weight speedily is not sustainable and the likelihood of gaining the lost weight back is also higher. Losing fat requires more time than losing water weight and muscle mass.

2. You feel sluggish all the time
If you eat healthily, exercise regularly, sleep on time and are able to manage your stress level, there is no reason to feel sluggish. But even after following healthy lifestyle habits, necessary for shedding kilos, if you are feeling sluggish after performing daily activities then there is something wrong with your fat loss routine and you need to make necessary alterations in it.

3. You are not losing body fat
The prime motive of any effective fat loss diet plan is to burn fat. When you follow the routine religiously you will notice a change in your body fat composition within a month. If your body fat percentage has not budged in months, that indicates that you are losing muscle mass instead of fat. You can calculate your body fat composition by the pinch method. Stepping on the scale won’t give you exact numbers.

4. You are in a bad mood
Loss of muscle mass means loss of energy, which in turn can affect your mood badly. The episodes of mood swings, stress and irritability would increase. Apart from that, you may also start to feel dizzy and cranky. That’s because our brain tells all of the muscles in the body what to do and what not. When the body is tired and the energy reserve is low, your brain would not work that efficiently and your mood would also be off.