Maintaining strength while losing weight

getfitchelle

I've probably put this in the wrong area of the message boards, but figured you guys would be helpful :-).

I've been maintaining at an obese weight for a while now, I did lose about 90lbs in 2015 but put some back on because I was stupid with food and used pregnancy as an easy excuse. Then having the baby was a great excuse with being tired etc.

I've started some basic weightlifting about 10 weeks ago, and wondering how plausible it is to at least somewhat maintain my numbers and also lose weight at the same time? Or is it inevitable that my strength will deteriorate rapidly as my weight goes down?

I work in metric, but for example my current backsquat 1RM is 75kg, would be awesome if I could maintain this number while loosing weight. I am about 85kg, so my lifts are pretty weak I guess. I'm a 34 year old female and 4'11". I have my own weights at home, a mans olympic bar and plates, so I can lift whenever I feel like it.

Rusty740

I lost about 25% of my weight and still maintained strength. I found that my strength really didn't suffer drastically until I got to low body fat numbers (I got to about 12-13%, I am male).

Make sure you get enough protein when you are losing weight, it will help you keep the muscle and is more important during weight loss than muscle building.

Are you lifting with a set program or just messing about? It's important to keep with a progressive program otherwise the lifting won't work.

not_a_runner

I haven't max tested in a while, but I'm down about 35 lbs and stronger than before.
Just set a squat AMRAP PR yesterday, 265 lbs x8 (up from 265x6 about 2 months ago), so I know I'm getting stronger.
My bench and other upper body lifts have struggled a bit more than lower body, but for the most part I've continued to gain strength.

psuLemon

If you are new to lifting, you will still probably gain strength due to adaptations in your central nervous system. I keep increasing strength while I lose weight. The bigger thing is having a good progressive overload program which will forces you to add more volume.