the scale "stalled" for two months but my DEXA says otherwise, recomp is a stall in disguise
Scale sat within half a kilo of itself for about eight weeks and I was fully prepared to call it a wall. Then a scheduled DEXA scan came back and told a completely different story.
| Metric | Scan A (pre-stall) | Scan B (post-stall) |
|---|---|---|
| Scale weight | 79.4kg | 79.1kg |
| Fat mass | 21.8kg | 19.2kg |
| Lean mass | 55.1kg | 57.4kg |
Scale moved 0.3kg. Fat mass dropped 2.6kg. Lean mass went up 2.3kg. Resistance training three times a week the whole time and I think this is just what a stall looks like when you're doing the strength side properly, the number stops moving because two different things are cancelling out on the same scale.
best — the order this archive was captured in
this is the cleanest recomp table I've seen posted here, and it's exactly the mechanism people miss when they only track one number. the scale genuinely cannot tell these two stories apart on its own.
that's basically why I got the scan at all, wanted a second measurement that could actually separate the two things
this is the whole argument for tracking FFMI instead of just weight during any stall, it's the only number that flags "you're losing muscle" vs "you're recomping" vs "you're actually stalled"
and this is the flip side of the sarcopenia risk everyone worries about with these drugs — same mechanism (appetite suppression + calorie deficit) can go either direction depending on protein and resistance training, and this table is what the good direction looks like on a scan.
1.6g/kg minimum is doing a lot of the work here I'd bet, recomp like this basically doesn't happen on a deficit without adequate protein regardless of training
can confirm, was tracking protein carefully the whole stretch specifically because I'd read enough of these threads to know it mattered
curious what that actually looked like day to day, hitting 1.6g/kg with a suppressed appetite is genuinely hard logistically
mostly protein shakes honestly, whole food protein felt like too much volume most days, shakes solved that
Great data post, flairing Data rather than Results since the interesting part here is the mechanism, not just an outcome number.
5g creatine daily the whole time here too and I'd bet it's a small contributor to lean mass numbers looking this good on a scan, though obviously not the main driver compared to the training and protein.
steps the missing variable in your writeup, were those steady through the "stall" too? asking because that's usually the other thing that quietly drops and undercuts a recomp story.
steady, roughly 9-10k daily throughout, good question though, that's exactly the kind of confounder that would've changed my interpretation
one really nice DEXA pair is still one person's data, but this is the kind of specific mechanism-with-receipts post that actually teaches something regardless of sample size
saving this table, exact format I want for my own next scan comparison
- 1and this is the flip side of the sarcopenia risk everyone worries about with…5 comments in this branch · started by u/sarcopenia_watch