Someone came up to me the other day and told me they lost 12 pounds. I asked them a simple question — 12 pounds of what? Most people who diet do so in such a way that they end up losing muscle mass instead of fat. Of course, this is undesirable because muscle mass will cause you to burn more calories at rest and speed up your metabolism.

With that in mind, there are four main causes which may result in muscle loss. I will discuss each of these with you in this article.

Your body builds muscle by utilizing protein. If you eat no proteins, then the best strength training program in the world will not help you build any muscle mass. You must eat protein in order to build muscle. A lack of protein can cause muscle loss.

Besides lack of protein, lack of carbohydrates is another factor which may cause muscle loss. This is unfortunate for our friends on the Atkins diet. While low-carb diets can help you lose weight, in the end they can do more harm than good.

Carbohydrates are protein sparing. So if you eat a large amount of protein, but few carbohydrates, you still may not be able to keep your muscle mass constant. So in order to safe-proof yourself from losing muscle mass you must eat an adequate amount of protein and carbohydrates. Deficiency in either one of these put you at risk.

One main reason why people do not get enough carbohydrates and protein is because they simply do not get enough calories. Deficient calorie intake is by far the most common cause of muscle loss. Your body is trained to slow down its metabolism when it is under nourished and under fed. It’s a survival mechanism.

To conserve energy, the body will start to burn muscle tissue. The reason why it burns muscle tissue instead of fat is because the body requires more energy to maintain muscle tissue than fat tissue. So if your body thinks it needs to survive because it is under nourished, the first thing that will go is your muscle mass.

Finally, you can lose muscle mass if you do not train appropriately. If you focus too much on cardiovascular exercises, and you are on a strict diet, then you’re putting yourself at risk of losing muscle. It is the weight training that will keep this from happening.