# How does muscle tone loss work?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-muscle-tone-loss-work/501060>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 26, 2009, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-muscle-tone-loss-work/501060 "2009-06-26T13:34:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\
**Post date:** [June 26, 2009, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-muscle-tone-loss-work/501060/1 "2009-06-26T13:34:49Z")

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And why is it so _fast_? I’ve read that you start to lose what you’ve gained in running after about 48 hours - your body doesn’t keep anything around it doesn’t need (except fat stores, obviously - beautiful efficiency on that one, thanks.)

I had a cast on my right leg for two weeks - just two weeks! They took it off yesterday and not only had it wasted away, much skinnier than the other leg, but my boyfriend says “Oh god, they slimified you!” My leg muscles feel like they’ve been replaced with chocolate pudding or something - it’s kind of gross, yet fascinating. When I try to flex, I get this teeny tiny little flex, which doesn’t touch most of the “muscle pudding”. Now, I’m 29 and healthy, and I’m sure it will mostly go away in a couple of days - plus I have physical therapy coming up. It’s not like I’m worried, I’m just interested. Now I see a lot more clearly why breaking a hip or getting sick enough to be bedridden so often means that elderly people never get out of that bed or wheelchair - two active weeks in a cast does _that_ to a healthy young person’s leg?

So how does it happen? Did I “eat” my quad? What exactly _is_ the “pudding” - just muscle that’s very weak? Even today a lot of it has been replaced with regular (albeit weak) muscle that moves when I tell it to. What has happened to the cells and the fibers, exactly? How does it work?

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**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\
**Post date:** [June 26, 2009, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-muscle-tone-loss-work/501060/2 "2009-06-26T16:18:46Z")

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I don’t know the answer to your question but the key word to search on if you want to research it is “atrophy.”