Unable to put muscle on

sunbeam236
sunbeam236 Posts: 14 Member
in Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
Hello
Can someone give me advice I am 56 yrs old and over the last 12 months I have lost 3 stones I am in the gym 3/4 times a week but Im finding hard to put muscle on I am on about 1550 calories a day is this to low

Replies

  • mmapags
    mmapags Posts: 8,934 Member
    Congrats on the weight loss!
    A couple of things.
    First, you are in a fairly aggressive calorie deficit and that is antithetical to building muscle. You can help to diminish muscle loss with weight training but you won't gain.

    Second, you say you are "in the gym". What kind of program.

    Third, you are 56 and don't have the anabolic hormones you had when you were 25. I'm 66 so I get this.

    1550 is pretty low for a male. Especially if your training with intensity at all. What are your stats. Height, current weight and TDEE if you know it?
  • sunbeam236
    sunbeam236 Posts: 14 Member
    Im 173 cm height and 78kgs dont know my TDEE
  • se015
    se015 Posts: 583 Member
    https://tdeecalculator.net/ Try this calculator, it tells you a bunch of numbers that will help guide you! You can etiher do what's called recomp which is eat calories that equate to your TDEE, some do slightly above or you can eat in caloric surplus just depends on how long you're willing to be patient for. Recomp takes a lot longer. Good luck!
  • fb47
    fb47 Posts: 1,058 Member
    sunbeam236 wrote: »
    Hello
    Can someone give me advice I am 56 yrs old and over the last 12 months I have lost 3 stones I am in the gym 3/4 times a week but Im finding hard to put muscle on I am on about 1550 calories a day is this to low

    Your calories are way too low. Congrats on the weight loss, but unfortunately like everyone said here, you don't gain muscles at a caloric deficit, especially one that is so low such as yours.
  • Keto_Vampire
    Keto_Vampire Posts: 1,670 Member
    Slight kcal surplus + progressive overload bro
  • sunbeam236
    sunbeam236 Posts: 14 Member
    Putting my calories up i find i put to much fat back on its hard to squeeze 2400 calories in a small window
  • fb47
    fb47 Posts: 1,058 Member
    edited February 2018
    sunbeam236 wrote: »
    Putting my calories up i find i put to much fat back on its hard to squeeze 2400 calories in a small window

    If 2400 calories makes you gain weight way too fast, then you are dirty bulking. You need to find out what is your maintenance and then add 200 calories. The weight gain will be slow (weight gain should be somewhere near 0.3 lbs to 0.5 lbs gain per week), but that will help you build muscles. But before deciding to do that, are you lean at this moment ??? When I mean lean, I am talking about under 15% body fat, if not then you have a choice of either continuing your weight loss or go for a recomp, but in both cases, you are not going to build much muscles at a short period of time.
  • mmapags
    mmapags Posts: 8,934 Member
    fb47 wrote: »
    sunbeam236 wrote: »
    Putting my calories up i find i put to much fat back on its hard to squeeze 2400 calories in a small window

    If 2400 calories makes you gain weight way too fast, then you are dirty bulking. You need to find out what is your maintenance and then add 200 calories. The weight gain will be slow (weight gain should be somewhere near 0.3 lbs to 0.5 lbs gain per week), but that will help you build muscles. But before deciding to do that, are you lean at this moment ??? When I mean lean, I am talking about under 15% body fat, if not then you have a choice of either continuing your weight loss or go for a recomp, but in both cases, you are not going to build much muscles at a short period of time.

    Agreed! And to add, there is a whole spectrum between 1550 and 2400 calories. Find your maintenance and use.
  • bbell1985
    bbell1985 Posts: 4,572 Member
    How you gonna build something without any bricks?
  • Gallowmere1984
    Gallowmere1984 Posts: 6,626 Member
    Have you ever had a full set of bloodwork done? At your age, that might give you the answer.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
    edited February 2018
    sunbeam236 wrote: »
    Putting my calories up i find i put to much fat back on its hard to squeeze 2400 calories in a small window

    Do you mean you get a sudden bounce up in weight? (Which would be water and food weight gain and not fat.)
    Or do you mean your long term trend weight over a period of weeks heads upwards? (Which could well be fat.)

    It's a false dichotomy that you either need a large deficit or large surplus!
    There is a sweet spot in the middle, you should search for that and it will take time and patience to do so.

    My experience as a 50 something was that I lost a little lean mass on a 1lb / week deficit but could add lean mass at 1lb / month deficit for a limited amount of time until I hit a good training level.

    I'm very sightly taller but 1550 sounds very low to me, I was eating way 1800 + lots of exercise calories (probably 2300 gross) to lose a pound a week.

    Two really important pieces of information you need to give up are:
    • What is your average weekly weight loss (to work out your actual deficit from TDEE)?
    • What is your lifting routine?

    When you are young you can get away with sub-optimal training and still make good progress, in your 50's that doesn't really work.
  • Wheelhouse15
    Wheelhouse15 Posts: 5,575 Member
    sunbeam236 wrote: »
    Putting my calories up i find i put to much fat back on its hard to squeeze 2400 calories in a small window

    Try a reverse diet to start putting back 100 cals per day each week. If you increase your calories too rapidly you are more susceptible to fat regain due to a thermic gap you've developed from the weight loss. Reverse dieting will help you get back to the caloric intake you need while giving your body time to readjust.

    Dr Layne Norton has some excellent videos on this subject on YouTube such as his one https://youtube.com/watch?v=A3gTGLulLnI
  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
    sunbeam236 wrote: »
    Putting my calories up i find i put to much fat back on its hard to squeeze 2400 calories in a small window

    so dont eat in such a small window?
  • HeidiMightyRawr
    HeidiMightyRawr Posts: 3,343 Member
    Calorie deficits and muscle gain don't really go together. Being in a calorie deficit is necessary for fat loss but it doesn't support growth.

    In very early days of lifting, or in very overweight people, it can be possible. It's certainly not optimal though, and most gains will be small and/or short lived. Gaining muscle and losing fat at the same time is incredibly difficult.

    If your goal right now is to gain muscle I would recommend a small caloric surplus, or at the very least try out maintenance and see how that goes for you. If you keep any surplus small, fat gain while inevitable will be minimal. If you're gaining fat quickly, your calories are too high.

    There are websites where you can calculate TDEE, or you can estimate by using what MFP gives you for maintenance (this should include all activity) and go from there. The average man is recommended 2500 but this may be different for you depending on weight and activity. If you start out with maintenance calories you can trial and error it and adjust from there. Then once you're staying the same you can add 250 a day for roughly 0.5lb gain a week (small caloric surplus)

    If you're finding it difficult to eat the required calories in such a short window of time, you will have to think about expanding the time frame with which you eat.
  • Lean59man
    Lean59man Posts: 714 Member
    edited February 2018
    sunbeam236 wrote: »
    Hello
    Can someone give me advice I am 56 yrs old and over the last 12 months I have lost 3 stones I am in the gym 3/4 times a week but Im finding hard to put muscle on I am on about 1550 calories a day is this to low

    You are around 5'7" and 171 lbs which is pretty solid.

    You don't know your TDEE? Why not???

    How strong are you?

    Some measurements:

    How much can you bench press?

    Military press (standing overhead press with barbell)?

    Deadlift?

    Squat?

    Barbell curl?

    Use these lifts as your benchmarks and focus on getting stronger on them.
    If you can get stronger you will usually gain muscle.

    Just keep training with the focus on strength in whatever rep range you use.

    If you find it impossible to gain strength (very unlikely) have your testosterone levels checked.

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