Down 30 pounds and re-evaluating workout

C

clee215

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I am 3 months into my weight loss and I am down 30 pounds from 242 to 212. I am 6'2" and 20 years old.

I have noticed that I have a whoooole lot less muscle then I thought I did now that I am losing the fat on top of it. I think it is due to my series of starvation diets I have done in the past. I am down to around 15% body fat I believe. I have been playing with the idea of upping the calories a bit and increasing my protein intake to 1.5g per pound of lean weight to try and build muscle while still in a small calorie deficit.

Would it be better for me to focus on building some muscle and slow down the fat loss(which is currently roughly 2.2 pounds a week)?
OR
should I continue to focus on cardio and maximizing a healthy calorie deficit until i am under 10%(my goal) body fat before I even think about building definition through muscle gain?
 
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Congrats for dropping 30 lbs already. Way to go!!!!

Dropping 2.2 lbs "on average" per week is very agressive. Perhaps too agressive for one's long term goals. Sometimes, dropping one's extra body weight too quickly creates a rebound effect. With this in mind, remember the "slow and steady" pace is less shock on one's body. Less shock means your body will most likely hold its final body weight much longer. Perhaps it is time to slow down and re-evaluate. Great idea....

I too would recommend doing more "muscle mass" build exercises. Having well defined muscle mass / tone on a male body is a good thing. Especially if your body appears to need more muscle mass - for a better visual balance.

If wondering, I dropped 60 lbs during the last 1.5 years as well. Using agressive cardio and very little musle build exercises, my body's "extra" fat melted off. Last week, my doctor gave my body a "look over" and suggested I need to add more muscle mass. Even if my body weight goes back up a little. She explained that my body's muscles looked "out of tone". Thus, I too need to add more muscle via more exercise resistance / more weight training.

For your body, may I suggest you "strip down to basics" (yes, I'm seriously) and have a loved one take a good look at your body. If your trusted buddy says you'd look much better with more muscle mass (like my doctor - for my body), then add more muscles. Always remember that an individual sees themselves much differently then others. Thus, always best to ask others for their opionion - on your body's "stance shape" improvement.

Hope this helps....

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s

Thank so much for the in depth response!

I have dropped my calorie deficit from the 8000+ per week to 7000 maximum and decided that its under 200 pounds or bust before I start trying to pack on muscle. The way I see it is, if I get down to my goal of 10% body fat, then by the time I put on the muscle I'd like to, I wont shoot myself in the foot by going up to 15% body fat or higher.

Well, the journey continues, another 6-8 weeks to go!
 
unless your very overweight which your not you won't gain muscle with a calorie deficit no matter how good your training program is. you can still gain strength during a deficit.
 
dayn'night said:
Would it be better for me to focus on building some muscle and slow down the fat loss(which is currently roughly 2.2 pounds a week)?
OR
should I continue to focus on cardio and maximizing a healthy calorie deficit until i am under 10%(my goal) body fat before I even think about building definition through muscle gain?
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The latter. As Trusylver says, it is almost impossible to build muscle mass while in a caloric deficit.
You can, however, build strength (not the same thing as mass at all) while losing weight - in fact, it is important to do so because as your body loses fat, it will lose muscle as well unless you work to retain it.

Perhaps if you switch more of your focus from cardio to resistance training, you will gain strength, retain your current muscle mass, and still lose weight.
Resistance training is a great way to lose weight.

After you have your body fat % where you want it, you can (carefully) switch to a programme of muscle building, but you will need to put yourself into a caloric surplus to do it. Muscles need a caloric surplus to grow.
The trick is going to be making sure you keep the training going assiduously while in the caloric surplus; if you slack off while still eating a lot you are just going to start gaining fat again.
 
Cord the Seeker said:
The latter. As Trusylver says, it is almost impossible to build muscle mass while in a caloric deficit.
You can, however, build strength (not the same thing as mass at all) while losing weight - in fact, it is important to do so because as your body loses fat, it will lose muscle as well unless you work to retain it.
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You're giving good advice, but I thought I would just correct this as it's more than a little wrong. Gaining muscle and strength are the same thing. And both require a caloric surplus to grow. increase in strength is nothing more than growth of a muscle fiber allowing it to expand and contract with more force. no mass gain in the muscle fibers? no strength gain. so the two are very tied together.

The exception to this is those who are new to resistance training movements, two things can happen. It's possible for the first few months to build muscle mass and get stronger simply due to biological adaptations to new stimulis. Also working in favor thinking like this is the improvement of the bodies central nervous systems ability to recruit more muscle fibers to fire and push the work load demanded of it. so you're not growing muscle, just able to use more of your existing muscle mass.

So you if your body is shrinking and you're getting stronger, it's a byproduct of a more efficient CNS, and not a gain of real strength per say. And after a few months, these gains will plateau hard. Then the only way you're getting bigger or stronger is eating a ton of food while lifting hard.
 
I guess that's a matter of your definition of strength. If you are recruiting more muscle fibres to do heavier lifting, you're increasing strength, in my opinion.

To me, strength is the ability exert force - if you can lift more than you could before, you're stronger. Whether that is due to added mass or just more efficient use of what you have is not the point.

If I can lift 100lbs this week and 110 next week, I'm stronger.

Perhaps this is not the scientifically precise way to describe it, but it is the terminology used most often, in my experience.
And no, not being any kind of professional, I don't read all the latest scientific literature. Perhaps strength has a very specific meaning to the physiology folks.
 
One can be very skinny and have very strong muscles. And, one can have muscle mass and can barely lift 10 lbs hand weights. Each body is different. From a unique body perspective and knowing what you want your body shape to "appear" as, do you want strong muscles or larger size muscles? Based on your individual body image goal and how others currently see your body as (which is not always how you vision your body), apply the appropriate "change of plans". As they say, each body is different.

For me and my diabetic body (to keep my Blood Glucose numbers under tighter management), I now do 25% cardio and 75% resistant training. Thus, more muscle mass burns more BGs - even when my body is idle. This is unique to my body. Your body may thrive on 75% cardio and 25% resistance training - like my SIL (who's a marathon runner). For her, she wants less muscle mass and more massive endurance muscles and breathing. Thus, 75/25 in the other direction works for her...

Hope this helps as well...

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spike99 said:
One can be very skinny and have very strong muscles. And, one can have muscle mass and can barely lift 10 lbs hand weights. Each body is different. From a unique body perspective and knowing what you want your body shape to "appear" as, do you want strong muscles or larger size muscles?
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this i'm afraid is straight up false. human anatomy says otherwise. Even common sense should say otherwise. why do you think power lifting events have weight classes? why do you think the amounts lifted correlate VERY closely with the persons lean mass in elite levels of athletics? It's because the amount of muscle mass you have has a direct coloration to how strong you are. if the "you can be skinny but still strong" holds any merrit, then at some level of advanced lifting we should see smaller guys who can lift more. but we won't. the only thing we see is the heavier you are, the more you can lift.

Even the you can be big or strong is misleading until you know why that is. your body is predetermined by genetics for the number of muscle fibers in the body. the ones that apply most to size and strength are red fast twitch and white fast twitch respectively. White fast twitch are the ones mostly recruited for explosive exercises that use the bodies atp-cp system to produce energy. in lifting terms, it's the 1-5 rep range. red fast twitch use atp-cp to a degree, but rely more on the lactic acid based systems in the body, and are used for power of a longer period of time. in weights, the ~8-12 rep range. powerlifters and oly lifters while stronger, will normally be smaller than their bodybuilding counterparts. this is because the body has on average more red fast twitch muscle fibres in the body than white fast twitch so targeting and growing them allows for the maximum use of size. meanwhile powerlifters care only about strength so target the white fast twitch as a priority. and while white fast twitch are larger fibers than red, the body has less of them by comparison so will not be able to be grow as large overall as reds.

IMPORTANT to note however is that this is at an ELITE level, you will have to make a decision as to which way you want to go. for ANY beginner lifter, it's a total moot point. train for size? you will get stronger. train for strength? you will get bigger. It's why the current accepted best starter lifting template out there currently doesn't even worry about high reps, or low reps, or any of that. hell, it doesn't even worry about isolation and all that crap. it's just take 3 compounds and work your way up to your 5 rep max. do this 3 days a week. and it's the accepted BEST strength AND size routine for any novice lifter.

link:
 
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Not too sure what books some folks read. From my reality, I do know that my arm muscles are larger then my buddy's arms. He's got very skinny arms. He's in the military and does all sorts of physical training every day. When we arm wrestle, he nails my arm to the table every time. When I work out, the muscles on my arms get larger. Larger size. When he works out, his arm's muscle size stay the same - but get much harder and stronger. Like I said above, some folks can have skinny arms and be very strong. And some folks can have large muscle mass and be weak. Guess "book smart" folks don't realize this reality...

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please tell me you're not honestly comparing arm wrestling (which is more technique and leverage for the bulk of the power) and the kind of pump you get in a workout as a valid measure of strength?!?

Even more laughable is that you are actually attempting to use arm size as your comparison to measure the differences in strength. Books has nothing to do with this. your example is just crap.

find a guy who is the same height as you, has smaller muscles, with the same experience and form doing squats. you'll kill him period because you have more muscle mass. you're comparing apples and oranges with your examples. there is a multitude of reason why at certain actions he might be better suited than you are. experience more than anything. but i don't for one second believe that someone who is muscular is weak. untrained maybe, poor form maybe, but not weak at all.
 
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