Backstory:

About 3 months ago I was pretty overweight. I was unemployed for 9 years and that lead to a lot of boredom eating. Anyways, excuses aside, I've been trying to do something about it now that my self-esteem has returned with my newly found job.

Now that backstory is done, I have some questions for you folks. I apologize, because I haven't done any real research on my own(don't really have the time these days), but hopefully someone can help me.

So, my new daily routine is to ride my bike about 5.5 miles a day(commuting). That has been cutting the pounds off, but in ways that I'm not entirely comfortable with. For instance, I'm down to 205 from 240 in six weeks of working, but I feel like I'm losing more upper-body muscle mass than fat, and that is very troublesome for me.

I would honestly rather be fat and strong than thin and weaker than I'm used to being(I am the guy to help you move). So how can I fight against this shedding of muscle? I've been running pretty calorie-deficient(I am making an assumption on this, I eat one slightly-larger-than-average meal per day, usually about a 3/4 pound of meat and some kind of starch with vegetables on the side. I work 9 hour shifts with the afore-mentioned 2.75 mile commute), but that's what everyone says to do to lose weight.

Is that what's causing my muscle loss? What else could it be, and what can I do to mitigate it?