Clinical perspective, offered as context rather than as advice. Take it one variable at a time. Almost every unanswerable question in these threads is unanswerable because three things changed in the same fortnight, and no amount of subsequent argument can untangle them after the fact.

Ask again with the specifics and you will get a better answer than this one.

Closing the loop on my own question.

Second scan under matched conditions came back with the lean number nearly a kilogram higher than the first, so a chunk of what I panicked about was hydration. Strength numbers were up throughout.

VanRx_Mike said:

Almost every unanswerable question in these threads is unanswerable because three things changed in the same fortnight, and no amount of subsequent…

Adding the part of the answer the thread has not reached. Worth answering the question that was asked rather than the one behind it. The narrow version usually has an answer; the broad version usually does not, and answering the broad one is how a thread stops being useful.

Adding the numbers, since they settle part of this. For anyone reading later: the numbers in this thread are worth checking against a primary source before you act on them, including mine. Half the figures circulating in this community trace back to a secondary summary that dropped a qualifier.

If somebody has the primary source to hand I would rather cite it than paraphrase it.

Following on from VanRx_Mike — and this may be the naive question:

What did you change at the same time, and can you separate the two now?