Dr.BariatricHTX said:There is also a quality change that the scan cannot see.
Pushing back on Dr.BariatricHTX here. I think this board over-worries about lean mass. Some lean loss is obligatory — you need less muscle to move a smaller body, and preserving mass you no longer need is not a health outcome. The question is whether strength and function held, and mine did.
Dr.CardioMD said:Two DEXA scans eleven months apart: down 24kg total, of which the scan says 6kg was lean.
My endo's protocol for lean mass plateau: if weight loss stalls for 6+ weeks at current dose, we go through this checklist before titrating up:
- Food diary review — is intake creeping up?
- Protein check — minimum 100g/day
- Activity audit — steps + resistance training
- Sleep quality — poor sleep kills GLP-1 efficacy
- Stress/cortisol management
Only after addressing all of these do we increase the dose. Often fixing one lifestyle factor restarts progress without needing more medication.
Dr.ObesityLA said:I think this board over-worries about lean mass.
Regarding lean mass: I accidentally injected my dose intramuscularly instead of subcutaneously last week (went in at wrong angle, too deep). Called my pharmacist — they said it's not dangerous but may absorb faster, potentially causing more GI effects.
Sure enough, had worse nausea that day. Lesson learned: pinch the skin properly and use the right needle length for your body composition.
Sigma-Aldrich — Research-Grade Standards
Certified reference materials, analytical reagents, and research-grade standards for peptide verification. Trusted by laboratories worldwide.
Shop Reference StandardsFollowing on from tammy_FL — and this may be the naive question:
What fraction of loss being lean mass is actually normal, because the numbers quoted here range from 10% to 40% and cannot all be right?
Reporting back.
Second scan under matched conditions, six months apart, same time of day: the lean number came back nearly a kilo higher than the panic scan. Strength was up throughout.