New- need calories and lifting advise
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LoLoGB
Posts: 97 Member
Hi all! I am hoping to get some advice from those that are where I want to be in term of eating and lifting. I am 5'4" 144 lbs, 25% BMI and 28% BF. I have 7 weeks before a wedding and want to get to (and permanently maintain) 128 lbs and 20% BF.
I currently eat between 1200-1450 calories each day. Mainly all clean, with maybe a glass of wine or one cookie here or there. Macros are 20% carb, 35% protein and 45% fat. With carbs being from veggies or brown rice and fat being healthy from nuts, avocados, etc.
I lift HIIT style 3x a week for 20 minutes. Typical is squats with shoulder press, lunge with biceps curls, lateral lunge with bicep curl, sumo squat with tricep curl, push-ups, iron cross, jumping jacks, butt kickers, and jumping rope. I work in a 2 min warm up, 3 compound exercises at one set, 1 min cardio- repeat cycle 3 times. Then 1 min cardio and the stretches for cool down. Weights are between 10-40 pounds.
2-3 days a week I will do a 25 min leisurely bike ride and/or yoga.
I only seem to be losing 1-1.5 pounds a week. With 7 weeks to go I need to lose at least 2 lbs a week. Any suggestions please? I need help!
I currently eat between 1200-1450 calories each day. Mainly all clean, with maybe a glass of wine or one cookie here or there. Macros are 20% carb, 35% protein and 45% fat. With carbs being from veggies or brown rice and fat being healthy from nuts, avocados, etc.
I lift HIIT style 3x a week for 20 minutes. Typical is squats with shoulder press, lunge with biceps curls, lateral lunge with bicep curl, sumo squat with tricep curl, push-ups, iron cross, jumping jacks, butt kickers, and jumping rope. I work in a 2 min warm up, 3 compound exercises at one set, 1 min cardio- repeat cycle 3 times. Then 1 min cardio and the stretches for cool down. Weights are between 10-40 pounds.
2-3 days a week I will do a 25 min leisurely bike ride and/or yoga.
I only seem to be losing 1-1.5 pounds a week. With 7 weeks to go I need to lose at least 2 lbs a week. Any suggestions please? I need help!
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Have you calculated your calories? Your intake seems very low.0
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Hi Balance- I did. I figured out BMR and TDEE and my baseline based on activity is 1790. I do the 20-25% which gets me 1345-1432 calories. I was eating 1200 and stalled so been upping my calories to be at 1350-1450. But there are days where I am less active (like today- no exercise) and I eat closer to 1250. Do you think I should increase?0
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How did you determine? Scooby? If so which option did you select for your activity?0
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16 lbs to lose to healthy weight - ya - 20-25% deficit is way too aggressive for so little - very unreasonable, and your body will fight you for that attempt.
The stress of trying that will likely cause you to plateau for awhile.
Oh, there is no HIIT style of lifting - intervals is something you do with cardio that is different than steady-state cardio, and high intensity intervals is something even different yet.
There is no such thing as steady-state lifting to turn it in to intervals sometimes.
All lifting if it's worth your time and energy should be intense.
What you need to to is reset your expectations, putting a time limit on it is a sure way to fail.
Why the need to be at a certain weight by a certain date - are you really weighing in for a weight class?
Or is this about something where people will actually see you - NOT the scale.
If the latter, suggest you make the lifting better and stop slowing down results by throwing cardio in there.
Jack of all trades - master of none - that's what you are getting now.
If you want maximum transform from the body, focus and priority given to lifting as heavy as you can get. Not as heavy as tired muscles can lift after doing cardio between sets.
The body has little need to get stronger from that routine, it has every need to store more carbs to put up with the endurance being asked from it.0 -
Thanks heybales-- just wanted to let you know I have similar goals and stats as OP--I gotta get on the lifting!0
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Balance- yes I used Scooby and I chose "light active- 3-4x week" bc I also have a desk job. And I guess I don't see working out for 20 min a day being more than "light"...thoughts?
Heybales-thank you so much. So I should adjust my expectations...how much of a calorie deficit would be more appropriate? 15%?
And yes it is because we will be at a wedding and beach vacation and I have a bikini to wear0 -
I also have a desk job and my activity level is set at 5-6 hours....I'm currently eating just under 2200 per day and losing. I've got my defecit set at -10% because I don't have a great deal to lose (probably about 14 lb) and anything more aggressive than that is too much (IMO). When I was eating 1700 (ish) the scales didn't budge - up a pound, down a pound and round and round in circles...now I've pushed up the calories it's coming down every week.0
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I had a much longer post than my response but it isn't showing...how do I show the whole post?
FRJM- wow good job and good to know. I don't know how I can eat that much lol. What type of workout and how long do you workout?0 -
I usually (but not always) do:
Mon - 40-50 mins running
Tue - rest
Wed - 30-60 mins Personal Training session (mixture of alsorts)
Thur - 40-50 mins running
Fri - rest
Sat - 45 mins Strength circuit
Sun - 90-100 mins running (only just started this and might need to up cals to compensate)
Like I say, I don't always stick to that, some weeks I have more rest days - the last couple of weeks (which is when I've lost most) I've not done anywhere near that due to illness or injury!
Not sure about showing your whole post, sorry x0 -
That seems like a lot of cardio and not a lot of weight lifting. I read a lot on lifting more and not so much cardio. What's your experience?0
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It is indeed too much cardio really but I am training for a half marathon. I will be swapping Mondays and Wednesdays to weight lifting which will see me doing 3 x strength training and 2 x running
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Side track here - for that half-marathon training and attempting average weekly TDEE deficit method.
When you calculate your weekly activity for TDEE level, only include 1 hr of running on any days it's done longer.
On the day you actually do it, get your calorie burn estimate for whole session, and figure out the amount for the time over the 1 hr you already accounted for.
Eat that extra back less the same 10% deficit.
Because those big days will spike an average weekly TDEE figure, but spread out over the week you are really missing the calories on the bigger runs days when you really need them the most for recovery.
Especially with that Sun/Mon combo runs. Now likely Mon is calm anyway, but still, getting enough carbs back in is needed.
And it usually causes an actual surplus of calories on other days that just isn't going to help with weight loss.
Does the circuit training on Sat proceeding the big run using the leg muscles?
If so, the recovery from it will be killed by the long run - I'd suggest don't even waste the time and energy on a workout that will be wasted like that. It'll just be unrecovered stress to the body.
If just upper body, no problem.0 -
Thanks Heybales....have had a rethink on my plan. Even though I have a couple of half marathons booked, I want to really get my strength training going properly. So, revised plan will look something like this....
Mon - Stronglifts 5X5 + 10-15 mins cardio (poss treadmill)
Tue - Rest
Wed - Stronglifts 5x5
Thur - 50 mins run
Fri - Stronglifts 5x5
Sat - rest
Sun - Long run
That gives me 2 full rest days, I get 2 good runs a week in (one of which will be around 90-120 mins) and I'm not running 2 days in a row or strength training 2 days in a row. Does that make more sense?
Sorry LoloGB for hijacking your thread!0 -
Lol it's ok. I learn by reading so that works.
Do you both highly recommend the Stronglifts 5x5? I do heavy weight training but not Stronglifts. Would that be better for weight loss and toning and muscle gain?0 -
I'm new to lifting so I'm not the best to advise....although I've been told by quite a lot of people it's a good place to start.0
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I also have a desk job and my activity level is set at 5-6 hours....I'm currently eating just under 2200 per day and losing. I've got my defecit set at -10% because I don't have a great deal to lose (probably about 14 lb) and anything more aggressive than that is too much (IMO). When I was eating 1700 (ish) the scales didn't budge - up a pound, down a pound and round and round in circles...now I've pushed up the calories it's coming down every week.
Hi there! I'm a newbie to this, and just had a question.
You said that when you were eating 1700 the scales didn't budge. Does this mean that 1700 is your maintenance? For a loss, wouldn't you subtract from this for a further calorie deficit? How does adding calories lead to a loss. Sorry, I'm just confused.
I'm experiencing the same problem and trying to get over this myself.
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I also have a desk job and my activity level is set at 5-6 hours....I'm currently eating just under 2200 per day and losing. I've got my defecit set at -10% because I don't have a great deal to lose (probably about 14 lb) and anything more aggressive than that is too much (IMO). When I was eating 1700 (ish) the scales didn't budge - up a pound, down a pound and round and round in circles...now I've pushed up the calories it's coming down every week.
Hi there! I'm a newbie to this, and just had a question.
You said that when you were eating 1700 the scales didn't budge. Does this mean that 1700 is your maintenance? For a loss, wouldn't you subtract from this for a further calorie deficit? How does adding calories lead to a loss. Sorry, I'm just confused.
I'm experiencing the same problem and trying to get over this myself.
Based on eating too low, the body can suppress how much it burns by several methods.
Yes, you could keep eating less and less and eventually it can only suppress so much.
And it is highly stressed in that state, with exercise not getting nearly the benefit it could.
But you eat more than bare minimum, let the body unstress and speed up, and you'll burn more, workouts do more, body burns more fat.
May seem backwards, but if suppressed, you eating 200 more could easily cause 400 more in daily burn. So net increase of 200 calories burned by eating more.0 -
Honestly, I used to think the same, 1700 must be my maintenance but I decided to try upping cals after advice from a few great ppl on here. I was scepitcal but didn't want to go back to starving myself. Honestly, I am now losing at 2200 (ish) every day. Some days I am so full I think I can't possibly lose but the scales have proved me wrong. Granted, its a very slow loss but it's better than nothing which is what was happening at 1700. Plus it means I have bags of energy for my workouts instead of feeling too tired and drained like before. My bf has commented a few times on how much more energetic I am now. I would say try it, even if it's just for a month.....you might just surprise yourself :-)
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Thanks Heybales....have had a rethink on my plan. Even though I have a couple of half marathons booked, I want to really get my strength training going properly. So, revised plan will look something like this....
Mon - Stronglifts 5X5 + 10-15 mins cardio (poss treadmill)
Tue - Rest
Wed - Stronglifts 5x5
Thur - 50 mins run
Fri - Stronglifts 5x5
Sat - rest
Sun - Long run
That gives me 2 full rest days, I get 2 good runs a week in (one of which will be around 90-120 mins) and I'm not running 2 days in a row or strength training 2 days in a row. Does that make more sense?
Sorry LoloGB for hijacking your thread!
Well, here's the thing with strength training that will help you think about the weekly routine.
If the goal of the strength training is to get stronger and build muscle (and why wouldn't it be), the only way that happens is if you overload the muscle with almost more than it can handle by weight. Causing micro-tears in muscle.
The body's response is to repair and get stronger, and if diet and recovery allow, build more muscle.
That recovery is the 24-36 hr not putting another heavy load on the same muscle.
But a muscle overloaded by weight because it was already tired isn't the same response.
That's add more carbs to the muscle to handle this almost endurance aspect.
There is no way you could lift with fresh muscles on Mon after a long run on Sun. So they won't get overloaded for the right reason, there won't be any reason to increase mass, probably not even full response to get stronger, because it's likely a weight they could handle just fine, but tired they can't. Might be minimized to some extent by early morning run, late night 5x5, maximizing the time between workouts. But still.
Now at the start, you'll get stronger for 2 reasons outside gaining more muscle, your Central Nervous System (CNS) improves in firing and using the entire muscle you got, and your form improves increasing efficiency and weight that can be handled.
So you may see improvements for a tad even with a bad routine as those happen. But it still wouldn't be as much as possible.
Believe me, it is hard to get serious cardio training in and still lift as if that was the focus - can't really happen using the same muscles. Focus is one or the other, one must support the other.
Best you'll get with running focus right now is 2 days that include lower body lifting, 2 days of running in Recovery HR zone to confirm you are not killing repair, and the one longer run that needs it's own recovery. There's really no other way to arrange it.
So Mon & Wed work for 5x5, and Tue and Thu could even be slow calm runs. Which is great for training the fat burning aerobic system for endurance anyway.
Then Fri is upper body lifting only, perhaps some upper body cardio cross-training too.
Sat the long run - allowing Sun recovery from it, so Mon that includes lower body lifting can really be as heavy as possible.
An intense run could follow Mon or Wed 5x5 with whatever strength you got left, which is actually good mentally to duplicate that feeling of worn out at end of race, but pushing through on failing muscles. 30 min at max effort should get you there.0 -
Lol it's ok. I learn by reading so that works.
Do you both highly recommend the Stronglifts 5x5? I do heavy weight training but not Stronglifts. Would that be better for weight loss and toning and muscle gain?
It isn't going to be better for weight loss, eating at deficit will be.
It burns the same as other heavy lifting sessions, so it won't allow you to really eat more. Actually, it's a short program, if anything, getting to eat less. But you could add accessory lifts too then.
Muscle gain involves overloading the muscle, and actually that range of reps is 8-12 that maximizes that.
But 5 reps at heavy weight does quickly tap out existing muscle strength, which gets you closer to being ready to build muscle.
But you can increase fast on 8-12 reps too if being honest with how hard something feels, the 5x5 just has auto-increases to take your feelings about it out of the picture.
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