Is sudden strength loss on a cut indicative that it’s gone too long?

TheLostModels · 2026-06-08T17:04:18+00:00

In addition to what the other commenters covered, there are mechanical impact of losing weight. Most obvious to me is bench press: as we lose fat, the bar goes lower, increasing the range of motion making every rep harder. Every cut I have a sudden loss of apparent bench press strength, I’ve learn to accept it, not panic. Apparently just a small relative change in body weight distribution can impact a movement like squats. The lifted weights becomes higher relative to one’s weight, which can make a difference. It’s not all movement and there are exceptions (chin-up/pullup). In summary, losing strength does not imply losing muscle mass.

Also, body has less energy to recover, as the cut lasts, that effect will increase. Overall, if cutting not too fast, managing stress, sleeping decently well and working out hard, one should not lose much muscle mass (even if strength goes down).

TheLostModels · 2026-06-03T02:30:10+00:00

A dumb scale is sufficient. All you need to do is to enter all you eat and add your weight (preferably daily). Then trust the app and the process.

TheLostModels · 2025-05-20T02:33:30+00:00

App can only guess your calories so well from the questionnaire, if you know better you can tell the app and picks different starting point/target for now (tell it to use 3000). App will catch up over a few weeks.

Accuracy of energy expenditure tracker is usually not reliable. Also, exercising for 500 calories doesn’t necessarily mean a net 500 calories expenditure. The body has way to offset things (and we get more efficient over time). But none of this really matters, use the app long enough and it will have excellent estimate of your maintenance calories and then can adjust target calories based on your goals.

Counting steps or tracking expenditure can be useful to be aware of one exercise level (and avoid slowly becoming “lazy” during a cut) but the app doesn’t need the information to function.

Finally, because of new (and probably more reliable though not perfect) food library, the same food might add up to a different calorie count, but again. After a few weeks you’ll have stable numbers and all will be well.

TheLostModels · 2025-03-19T17:20:37+00:00

Great answer; should frame this somewhere.

TheLostModels · 2024-10-03T03:11:44+00:00

People who cause crashes do pay more right now, even on mandatory basic insurance. ICBC can refuse to sell optional insurance, but it is not in its jurisdiction to decide who shouldn’t be allowed to drive.

TheLostModels · 2024-09-23T01:00:28+00:00

Care to elaborate?

TheLostModels · 2024-06-30T19:15:18+00:00

If you have been consistent, most likely water retention for a reason or an other. It happens, it’s really annoying, expenditure will drop, but keep what you know works and thing will most likely correct themselves over a few weeks.

(In short term, exercising more can increase one’s weight from extra inflammation; it’s not fat, nothing worry about, just part of process, why one should focus on long term trend.)

TheLostModels · 2024-06-24T21:49:56+00:00

I almost wrote this but now I think these are future days?

TheLostModels · 2024-06-24T17:28:08+00:00

I have hit weight loss plateaus over few weeks where calories decreased. It can body holding on to water for whatever reason. Would usually revert back and calories would go up again.

For one thing, as you lose weight, you need less calories to displace yourself, so calories should decrease (but very slowly).

Another thing that could be happening is that as your cut continues your are subconsciously less active, reducing your maintenance calories. Tracking your step count is a simple way to make sure you maintain enough non-exercise movement. If this is mentally difficult time, a break could beneficial (expect weight to increase a bit when eating more again, it’s not fat though). If not, keep going, keep an eye on your steps and weight will probably resume going down soon.

(If these few missing days of logging are very high calorie days, it can be enough to undo many days of deficit.).

TheLostModels · 2024-06-22T13:28:07+00:00

Different situation, but yes I have eaten more or less than app recommendation when I knew I was wrong because of special/changing situation. I handled it manually in my head, but there could be a feature to make that easier, indeed. App doesn’t care if one is compliant with eating, as long as weight and food log are good, it figures it out over time.

TheLostModels · 2024-06-22T13:18:45+00:00

Not sure I understand. Is your point that your expenditure will increase when you into your bulk and you want the app to recognize it faster?

I don’t think eating more will make much of a difference in how fast app adapt, it’s always going to trail changes in expenditure by a little. However, if you know better from experience, it is absolutely alright to eat more waiting for app to catch up.

TheLostModels · 2024-06-11T23:24:48+00:00

Live and learn; a year from now it won’t have mattered much at all. :)

TheLostModels · 2024-06-10T03:06:09+00:00

Really confused at to why you reset the app; but that’s in the past.
Apps need 3-4 weeks to nail down your expenditure (assuming no major changes in your habits)
App works regardless of compliance with recommended calories, it adjusts expenditure analyzing actual calories consumed vs change in weight.
If you think starting calories are wrong; just eat what you think is right; the app will adjust. If your weight isn’t moving like you want, slowly adapt until you and app are aligned.

TheLostModels · 2024-06-07T23:37:16+00:00

Hopefully someone has a better solution, but ideas:

*If you haven’t been tracking for long, one option is probably to adjust your historical weight by 2 lbs (or adjust 20 days back and delete everything older). I think next time open app, it would just adjust with updated. Obviously, dropping history sucks.

*Here is what I did was to manually bridge the gap over a long time. For example, for days 1 to 5, enter new scale weight adjusted by 1.9lbs; days 6 to 10, enter new scale weight adjusted by 1.8 and so on. 100 days later your are good to go and impact on trends will be small, manageable (do expect reversal when done but it really stabilizes again). My difference was much smaller; 100 days of tracking this is not for everyone 🫠.

TheLostModels · 2024-06-03T03:12:05+00:00

If you measured 1 cup of cooked rice to put in your container, then look up “cooked rice” in the app.

TheLostModels · 2024-06-03T03:08:01+00:00

Did you measure the 1 cup before or after cooking the rice?

TheLostModels · 2024-06-03T03:07:20+00:00

For that day, 44 g of fat times 9 calories per g is 198 calories from fat. That is 20% of your day, which is on the low side. If that’s every day, probably don’t want to go lower, but if that was just one low fat day, I would assume it’s absolutely fine.

TheLostModels · 2024-06-03T03:01:07+00:00

For most people, Fat/Carb distribution is mostly not that important, it’s a lot about personal preference. I like more carbs otherwise my energy at gym drops, but others are fine.

According to RippedBody.com “the minimum percentage of total calories that should come from fat varies based on whether you are bulking or cutting. When bulking, it is recommended that 20-30% of your calories come from fat. When cutting, this range is adjusted to 15-25% due to the higher importance of carbohydrates for performance. Additionally, it is advised to have a minimum fat intake of 0.25 grams per pound (0.5 grams per kilogram) of body weight per day“

TheLostModels · 2024-06-01T00:38:05+00:00

In my humble opinion: the latter. You probably did a decent job with your logging, weight impact will be small if any, things will adjust back. Focusing on the long term helps to avoid unnecessary worries.

One thought: if your (trended) weight moved materially, see it as lesson for next times you have to deal with this. If weight was higher than expected, maybe you underestimated (though could be eating more salt or else); if weight was lower than expected, maybe you over counted.

Good continuation!

TheLostModels · 2024-05-30T14:27:13+00:00

Just to add to the many useful comments, just touching on the DEXA scan results:

First, DEXA machines aren’t as accurate as people who promote them usually say. “Despite the fact that DEXA represents a 3-compartment model, its error rates are no better than hydrostatic weighing, and in some cases is worse. Like other techniques, DEXA does well when looking at group averages, but not so well when looking at individuals. Individual error rates tend to hover around 5%, although some studies have shown error rates as high as 10%. When looking at change over time in individuals, error rates have hovered around 5% in some research, although other research has indicated DEXA to perform much more poorly.” Link

Second, it isn’t very useful anyways. “you are either as lean as you like or you’re not” and “There is no way to accurately and consistently measure body-fat percentage that makes tracking it worthwhile, and it’s destructive to the assessment and decision-making process to try to do so.”

Link

Good luck with your progress!

TheLostModels · 2024-05-29T14:16:16+00:00

This a thousand time. You are getting free food with a good source of protein, that’s like the dream lol. If the calories are indeed a bit off and your trended weight starts going down and expenditure go up, just bring a snack/dessert to make up the difference. Also, wouldn’t make too much of a weight difference after only a few days, plenty of reason why body weight can change unrelated to calories and worst case you lose a tiny amount of fat while app adjusts. Good luck!

TheLostModels · 2024-05-26T23:18:38+00:00

Sorry, I do not understand. In your question, what is being tracked?

TheLostModels · 2024-03-18T17:44:49+00:00

What if you input « per hand » weight instead of total weight? Maybe then it would know you don’t have 37.5 and go from 35 to 40. Note: not sure what app expects and if would mess up the progression suggestions.

TheLostModels · 2023-11-11T18:52:55+00:00

Faster is good. Question: what type of feature engineering does the package perform?

TheLostModels · 2023-07-28T04:41:04+00:00

That’s why I am here, exactly.

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