Losing muscle?

J

jhuerena

0
So I've been reading threads here and my ultimate goal is to lose weight. To that end, I do cardio 5 days a week and weights for 3 days so I don't lose the muscle (what little there is). Today at the gym I was doing a set and I found I couldn't lift my reps with the ease I did two days ago. I'm not sore and in fact had a full off day yesterday to let the body fully recuperate but I don't know why it feels like I'm losing muscle instead of fat.

Any thoughts?

About me: Male, 5'7", 245 lbs, 27 years old, typical cardio days are 45 minutes on a treadmill or cross trainer, weight days is 3 sets of the machine circuit at 8 reps per set, and then 30 minutes cardio.

J
 
Well my first thought here is to drop the machines and hit the free weights. I realize that's not your question, but I think that's step 1. Step 2 is to figure out how many calories you're eating. Do you track that? If not, you should figure out your needs and start tracking. You're probably not eating enough if you're losing muscle. All that aside, however, you may have just had an off day. One day is not nearly enough to assess all that. So..

1) Figure out maintenance calories. Go here
or here
2) Subtract 10-20% of your maintenance calories, or about 500 each day and adjust as needed
3) Switch to free weights not machines - look up a professionally made program. You can find some in the weight training section
 
Also, sufficient protein intake. Protein requirements are somewhat higher than usual if you exercise, and also a little higher if you are restricting calories. When restricting calories, your diet may have to have a significantly higher protein density, due to the fewer calories and a similar or slightly higher protein intake.
 
You will be weaker while on a weight lost program. For me personally, I can only workout at about 75% of my workout weights while in defecit. There will inevitably some muscle lost while losing bodyfat but I would not fret it too much atm; drop the weight first and eat 1g of protein per LBM.
 
jhuerena said:
So I've been reading threads here and my ultimate goal is to lose weight. To that end, I do cardio 5 days a week and weights for 3 days so I don't lose the muscle (what little there is). Today at the gym I was doing a set and I found I couldn't lift my reps with the ease I did two days ago. I'm not sore and in fact had a full off day yesterday to let the body fully recuperate but I don't know why it feels like I'm losing muscle instead of fat.

Any thoughts?

About me: Male, 5'7", 245 lbs, 27 years old, typical cardio days are 45 minutes on a treadmill or cross trainer, weight days is 3 sets of the machine circuit at 8 reps per set, and then 30 minutes cardio.

J
Click to expand...

You have no excuse not to get your body fat measured.

Do so.
 
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