Building muscle and losing weight at the same time?

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xmusicloverr
xmusicloverr Posts: 100 Member
edited November 2014 in Health and Weight Loss
I know this is pretty hard to do since one requires a surplus in calories and the other requires a deficit, but is it possible to do if overweight? My BMI is 27.6 and I'm 5'7 176 lbs. I've been eating at a deficit for about 5 months and have been eating between 1300 and 1600 calories a day, jogging 3 days a week, and doing both pilates and lifting. I was hoping to have lost around 50 lbs by now, but I haven't (though my clothes are fitting much looser and I can tell I've lost inches) and I was wondering if trying to build muscle and lose fat at the same time is causing me to constantly plateau

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  • arditarose
    arditarose Posts: 15,575 Member
    edited November 2014
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    No, eating too much causes "plateau". I've heard a diet break for two weeks helps as well. Also, how have you hoped to lose 50 pounds in 5 months? Over 2 pounds a week? Maybe for someone morbidly obese...maybe
  • terbusha
    terbusha Posts: 1,483 Member
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    I would recommend that you focus more on losing weight now, and then when you're lean enough, switch gears to building muscle. Keep on lifting now though. It's a great form of exercise to promote weight loss, boost your metabolism, and protect your muscle mass as you diet. That's what I did, and it worked great.

    Allan
  • Liftng4Lis
    Liftng4Lis Posts: 15,150 Member
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    With the exception of newbie gains, you cant build in a deficit, you can however RETAIN lean muscle mass.
  • TimothyFish
    TimothyFish Posts: 4,925 Member
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    Obviously, it is possible or "newbie gains" wouldn't be possible either. The problem you get into is that you can't convert fat into protein. When a muscle is strained, it will attempt to rebuild itself, but if all you're feeding your body is your own body fat, then it doesn't have anything to work with, other than other muscles. But if you're eating enough protein to rebuild the muscle, your calorie count may be so large that you have no need to use body fat. But if you get everything balanced properly, it is possible.
  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,389 MFP Moderator
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    xmusicloverr wrote: »
    I know this is pretty hard to do since one requires a surplus in calories and the other requires a deficit, but is it possible to do if overweight? My BMI is 27.6 and I'm 5'7 176 lbs. I've been eating at a deficit for about 5 months and have been eating between 1300 and 1600 calories a day, jogging 3 days a week, and doing both pilates and lifting. I was hoping to have lost around 50 lbs by now, but I haven't (though my clothes are fitting much looser and I can tell I've lost inches) and I was wondering if trying to build muscle and lose fat at the same time is causing me to constantly plateau


    If you aren't losing, i would question your logging practices.. do you log daily? Do you use a food scale? The more common problem is people dont address the basics in logging practice which causes "plateaus".

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