Too much Cardio?

[Whitediesel]

I have lost about 50lbs dieting alone and hit a plateau. So I started incorporating cardio and weight training with my diet and noticed two things.

1. I lost A LOT of muscle and strength.
2. I can't seem to lose anymore weight.

So now I sit at about 210lbs but I desperately want to get rid of the love handles. I also have been taking creatine and protein to feed my muscles to try and regain some of what I have lost. I estimate I am getting about 2300 calories every 24 hours. I lift heavy 4 days a week, targeting major muscle groups each day (ie Chest/Triceps or Shoulders/Legs). I also do cardio twice a day, 40 minutes after I get up and 45min after I lift. Then I "try" to do HIIT on my non lifting days for one session.

So my questions are, am I just burning off the muscle I'm gaining? Or is it possible that I'm losing fat while gaining muscle? Should I cut back on one or the other and increase one aspect? Ive been training this way for exactly one month now, and the scale hasn't moved although I have had to buy new pants and a belt. I have gone down 3 sizes but none since I started doing cardio and lifting.

I appreciate any advice and my preference is to lose weight over gaining more muscle but I don't want muscular atrophy either.

 

[dswithers]

20 minutes of cardio, 3 times a week is all you need to get maximum fat buring and cardio benefit. Remember it is the hormonal response you are after and way more fat is burned after the exercise session than you could possible burn during the exercise session, no matter how much cardio you do. With more cardio you risk triggering hormone responses that signal your body to store fat. You might try 2 HIIT sessions and 1 steady state cardio session a week, along with your strength training. What exactly are you doing for strength training?

 

[bcarpman]

I agree with dswithers, although I'm guessing the cardio is not your issue.

Do you have access to body fat calipers? They are cheap and easy way to tell if you're actually losing fat. You don't even need to do the calculation, just record measurements. But if you're really trying to lose fat, it's pretty hard to put on muscle faster than you're lossing body fat.

Without working with you personally, I'd guess that when you hit the diet plateau, and started working out, you have inadvertantly increased your calorie consumption.

Every client I have ever worked with who was in a situation such as yours, had inadvertantly added calories somewhere. Some people REALLY get an appetite boost when they start working out, and it's really easy to accidentally add in a few extra calories here or there. That's the first thing I would check.

Also, without knowing more about you, I might say that the calorie consumption that resulted in weight loss is now to high for you. If you lost the intial weight through diet alone, then you probably lost half the weight in muscle. Hence, your metabolism slowed to the point where the calories that used to result in weight loss won't any longer. Lifting will definately help, but not in the short term. Putting back on the muscle you lost dieting will take time.