Eat more, Less activity or both for Reset

keithf1138

So looking to start a reset and wondering just how should I accomplish.

Should I cut some unnecessary activity? Should I cut some workout time (particularly cardio).

So what is my week like:

I work a desk job 40 hours per week. To help with activity during the day I have a rule. Never use the elevator (work on 5th floor) and every time I leave the office for washroom, run to car, errand, lunch out, etc. I must walk down to 1st floor and back up to 5th floor (I often go up extra floors and back down).

I work out about 6 days a week now. I do Cardio all those days and 3 of those days I also do Weights. On days I do weights I usually do less Cardio. For instance last night I did 33 minutes of Eliptical and 33 minutes of Weights. Most of the time it is Eliptical. On weekends I have a day of about 1 hour Cardio and 1 hour Weights and another day of about 90 minutes of Cardio. I also tend to just plain move around more on Weekends with walks, shopping, doing things around the house, etc.

So wondering should I simply eat more or should I cut back on mostly Cardio. Think I would do more Weight lifting and less Cardio. I tend to do Weights with a day or 2 break in between. Maybe up weights to 4 days per week.

Thoughts?

heybales

Keep the activity for sure, of course increased activity means increased TDEE. So you'll need to eat more.

But if your metabolism was suppressed, and in reality you were eating above literal TDEE, what better time to be working out.

Actually, if you do lifting, that increases the TDEE the least, but will also make the most of any excess while the metabolism is coming up.
So it would be better to drop cardio on lifting days, and spend more time lifting.

Then when you stop gaining weight, move in to whatever your normal routine will be, and adjust eating level accordingly. Spend some weeks there too.
You want to confirm any weight gain is fast and only water weight, and that evens out eventually.

Your increased daily activity is going to be where the real fat burning takes place and majority of the deficit. So keep that, and unless training for something, realize the extra cardio probably isn't doing that much for real weight loss.

keithf1138

I am thinking that I should simply be honest and think about what I can keep up for the foreseeable future workout wise.

Since January I have been working out probably on average 6 days a week and over 7 hours a week of workout. The last 15 days I averaged 46 minutes of Cardio per day and 20 minutes of weight lifting. Those are straight averages. I have had 2 days where I didnt work out at all during those 2 weeks. I also did 4 hours of volunteer work from 10PM to 2AM for my sons High School Graduation lockin. Was hard physical work lifting big bulky Sum costumes and helping kids get in and out of them as well as picking them up off the floor when they went down.

So thinking it is better to establish my post weight loss workout of say 5 days per week. 2 days pure Cardio for 60 minutes each and 3 days of Cardio just to warm up (say 15 minutes) and 45 minutes of Weight lifting. Base my TDEE and my reset off of that. Then when reset is over simply cut and keep up the same basic workout.

Thoughts?

heybales

Sounds like a good basic beneficial plan.

The bummer will be, well, depending on where you were anyway - is eating less.

But maybe it'll be more in general, so always good news there.