Why Losing Muscle Can Be More Harmful Than Gaining Fat

Have you ever seen someone lost weight suddenly through crash diet? While that seems like a fat loss, it actually is muscle loss. We believe fat is bad and we must lose the excess, but maintaining muscles is fat more crucial.

In most cases, when considering potential risks to health, body fat is mostly in focus. However, in some cases, muscle loss might pose similar risks or even greater dangers to human well-being. Muscle wasting refers to the progressive loss of muscle mass, strength, and function, which poses many more risks than just appearance-related and exercise-related problems.

How Does Muscle Loss Affect Our Health

Muscle loss affects a person’s mobility, balance, metabolic functioning, and recovery after illnesses. According to the Cleveland Clinic, people suffering from sarcopenia might experience difficulties with performing simple actions as walking, climbing stairs, or even sitting down and standing up from a chair. This increases their risk of falls, broken bones, and loss of independence.

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“It should also be noted that muscles do more than make us strong. It is among the most metabolically active of all tissues in the body and helps in maintaining our body’s glucose levels and insulin sensitivity, as well as our total daily energy expenditure,” shares Dr Tushar Tayal, Associate Director - Internal Medicine, CK Birla Hospital, Gurgaon.

Downsides of Muscle Loss

The absence of muscle will have many consequences other than the lack of strength.

• It will lower metabolism
• Negatively affect balance
• Diminish our resilience to physical stress
• Cause poor health in general

That means we could seem to be losing weight but actually be moving further away from good health, as the main part of the weight lost could consist of lean muscle tissue.

Also Read: Weight Gain After 30 in Men: Why It Happens and How to Manage It

Sacrcopenic Obesity and Its Side Effects

Things become even more difficult once one starts losing muscle in the presence of increased body fat content, what doctors call sarcopenic obesity.

This combination of phenomena has recently been pointed out in scientific literature as an emerging medical problem that can increase the risk of becoming physically disabled, falling, developing insulin resistance, and suffering from other cardiometabolic diseases.

Excess weight may appear obvious to an observer, while muscle wasting is not always easy to spot, even though it increases vulnerability. This explains why relying on the measurement of body weight or BMI alone can provide an overly optimistic assessment.

Final Word

In light of the above discussion, protecting one's muscles should be viewed as an indispensable part of being healthy, especially if the individual concerned grows older, leads a sedentary lifestyle, suffers from diabetes, or engages in long-term restrictive diets. Exercise and sufficient protein consumption will help keep things on track.