Maintain current weight but lose belly fat and build muscle

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xdread1
xdread1 Posts: 1
in Goal: Maintaining Weight
Hi everyone, any suggestion on how to maintain my current weight(160lb @ 5'10"), lose belly fat and build some muscle. I usually fulfill about 2200 cal each day with food and protein shake and burn about 200 cal doing cardio and also do some weight lifting. The nutrition goal shows the following: carb 50%, FAT 30% & protein 20%. Should not the protein intake be more than the fat?? Please comment. Thanx much. Cheers... :)

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  • ndj1979
    ndj1979 Posts: 29,139 Member
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    depends on what your goals are …

    how long have you been lifting for?
    what is your current lifting regimen?
    do you know your current body fat%

    Unless you are an obese beginner, you are not going to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time.

    If you have a higher body fat 15% or greater..then I would suggest continuing to eat in a deficit and lose fat until you get to sub 15% body fat, and then you can do a bulk to add muscle.

    A pretty common macro split is 35% carbs 35% protein 30% fat…





  • MelissaPhippsFeagins
    MelissaPhippsFeagins Posts: 8,063 Member
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    ndj1979 wrote: »
    depends on what your goals are …


    If you have a higher body fat 15% or greater..then I would suggest continuing to eat in a deficit and lose fat until you get to sub 15% body fat, and then you can do a bulk to add muscle.
    Just wondering on what you are basing the 15% body fat? If I got down to that ( currently mine is 25 %) I would be emaciated.

    OP, read about body building online and choose a program that works for where you are now.

    Currently, I lift heavy for me 3x/week and do yoga or Barre class 2-3 times per week. I have lost a percentage point of body fat doing this since July, while maintaining @150-155 lbs. I am a 5'7", 45 yo female. I lift to stave off osteoporosis & build strong muscles to keep my bones intact in case of a fall or other accident. I do yoga and Barre for balance and flexibility.

    My husband is 6' and currently taking advantage of holiday overeating to do an 8 week bulk cycle. He is losing fat anyway, but he has some fat to lose. He could do 1.5x my current lifts when he started weight training in July and has increased those to double my current maxes. It really depends on where you are in life and what your motivation is. (I think he's 239 lbs and his BF% is 23%. Those are the last numbers I remember him telling me.)
  • ndj1979
    ndj1979 Posts: 29,139 Member
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    MelissaPhippsFeagins wrote: »
    ndj1979 wrote: »
    depends on what your goals are …


    If you have a higher body fat 15% or greater..then I would suggest continuing to eat in a deficit and lose fat until you get to sub 15% body fat, and then you can do a bulk to add muscle.
    Just wondering on what you are basing the 15% body fat? If I got down to that ( currently mine is 25 %) I would be emaciated.

    OP, read about body building online and choose a program that works for where you are now.

    Currently, I lift heavy for me 3x/week and do yoga or Barre class 2-3 times per week. I have lost a percentage point of body fat doing this since July, while maintaining @150-155 lbs. I am a 5'7", 45 yo female. I lift to stave off osteoporosis & build strong muscles to keep my bones intact in case of a fall or other accident. I do yoga and Barre for balance and flexibility.

    My husband is 6' and currently taking advantage of holiday overeating to do an 8 week bulk cycle. He is losing fat anyway, but he has some fat to lose. He could do 1.5x my current lifts when he started weight training in July and has increased those to double my current maxes. It really depends on where you are in life and what your motivation is. (I think he's 239 lbs and his BF% is 23%. Those are the last numbers I remember him telling me.)

    I assumed OP was a male….but I guess I should of clarified that….
  • icrushit
    icrushit Posts: 773 Member
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    Check out Leangains perhaps. Martin Berkhan put a lot of work into developing and refining a system to do just that, although bear in mind it may not be everyones cup of tea, and in it's typical flavours as advocated on his site, it involves all of intermittent fasting, calorie cycling (more on training days, less on rest days), carb cycling (higher carb on training days, lower carb on rest days), and potentially fasted training (if you go for that option).

    Some people seem to have had a lot of success with it, and tried giving it a shot (a very short shot) recently, but then realised I needed to get a few things in order myself before I could make a decent stab at it. The Leangains system seems to work though for a lot of folks, and the way it's designed it's basically a cut and bulk cycle all in one, so you can actually build muscle and lose fat at the same time, although many prefer to do one or the other first.
  • loulamb7
    loulamb7 Posts: 801 Member
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    xdread1 wrote: »
    The nutrition goal shows the following: carb 50%, FAT 30% & protein 20%. Should not the protein intake be more than the fat??

    These are the default goals. You can modify these to whatever you want. I have mine set to 45/30/25.
  • SingingSingleTracker
    SingingSingleTracker Posts: 1,866 Member
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    xdread1 wrote: »
    Hi everyone, any suggestion on how to maintain my current weight(160lb @ 5'10"), lose belly fat and build some muscle. I usually fulfill about 2200 cal each day with food and protein shake and burn about 200 cal doing cardio and also do some weight lifting. The nutrition goal shows the following: carb 50%, FAT 30% & protein 20%. Should not the protein intake be more than the fat?? Please comment. Thanx much. Cheers... :)

    Lose the belly fat via a deficit while you lift to tone and maintain the muscle mass you have. You can tone your muscle and fire up the metabolism burn with lifting while you are cutting the belly fat with the deficit. But you are not going to "build" muscle, or gain muscle weight outside of DOMS while on a deficit. When the belly fat is lost, you can focus on "gaining" muscle weight if that is your desire.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
    edited November 2014
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    Plenty of people can lose fat and slowly gain muscle mass but it depends on your training, your training history, current state (esp. body fat), genetics, how big your calorie deficit is, your nutrition, your age etc. etc.
    Just don't expect results to be dramatic or fast!

    Regarding macros - I don't think macros by percentages makes a lot of sense unless you eat the same number of calories daily. I prefer to regard protein and fat goals as minimums.

    - ETA: I work on 1g protein per pound of LBM and 0.4g of fat per pound of bodyweight (minimums). The rest tends to fall wherever it falls depending on activity that day and of course enjoyment of food.



  • hummingbirdhope
    hummingbirdhope Posts: 101 Member
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    MelissaPhippsFeagins wrote: »
    ndj1979 wrote: »
    depends on what your goals are …


    If you have a higher body fat 15% or greater..then I would suggest continuing to eat in a deficit and lose fat until you get to sub 15% body fat, and then you can do a bulk to add muscle.
    Just wondering on what you are basing the 15% body fat? If I got down to that ( currently mine is 25 %) I would be emaciated.

    OP, read about body building online and choose a program that works for where you are now.

    Currently, I lift heavy for me 3x/week and do yoga or Barre class 2-3 times per week. I have lost a percentage point of body fat doing this since July, while maintaining @150-155 lbs. I am a 5'7", 45 yo female. I lift to stave off osteoporosis & build strong muscles to keep my bones intact in case of a fall or other accident. I do yoga and Barre for balance and flexibility.

    My husband is 6' and currently taking advantage of holiday overeating to do an 8 week bulk cycle. He is losing fat anyway, but he has some fat to lose. He could do 1.5x my current lifts when he started weight training in July and has increased those to double my current maxes. It really depends on where you are in life and what your motivation is. (I think he's 239 lbs and his BF% is 23%. Those are the last numbers I remember him telling me.)

    What do you log your barre classes as?

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