Weight gain through lifting or diet

sarahelle32

Hi everyone,

I keep a very regular lifting routine (Monday: chest, Tuesday: back, Wednesday: legs, Thursday: shoulders, and Friday: arms), do cardio everyday even weekends, and abs every other day if not everyday. The lifting routine starts with heavier weights and less reps and ends with lighter weight and more reps (so 4x6 heavy and then 3x12 lighter).

I'm trying to loose some weight I gained over the season (I play basketball), but IT ISN'T WORKING. I have at least 15 lbs to loose. Also, I can't tell if it's more fat I have to loose or if the weight I gained is from muscle mass.

I'm going to open my diary and if anyone has ANY advice I'd love to hear from you. Sent a friend request, too!

PS. I eat a lot of peanut and almond butter. Sometimes when I get home from the gym I can't help myself. Is this where the weight is coming from? The fat?

DawnEmbers

A good group to post in and follow would be the Eat, Train, Progress here on MFP. It seems a little more active.

The basics of advice, however, on any forum will be that the calories are what will affect weight if there is no long term results being seen. In order to gain anything, whether it be muscle or fat, one has to eat at a surplus (with a slight chance if eating at maintenance but it's a very slow increase that way as far as muscle is concerned). 15 lbs isn't much to lose either, so it's going to be slow. There are also different things that affect weight on a regular basis including water, hormones, salt, etc.

You do a lot though. Is there any chance your body needs a day off sometimes? Most workout programs recommend days off, especially lifting because it gives the body time to recover. You don't need to do nothing for 3 days a week but maybe a day where you keep cardio light would be a bit helpful in keeping from burning out due to constantly pushing hard. Though, at least the lifting split gives each group a chance to recover, so it depends on how much and difficult the cardio is that you do that many days.

The weight loss will be more a matter of making sure your calorie requirements fit within your goals (lose about .5 lb a week roughly) and make sure that you're trying to be as accurate as possible with how much is being consumed. It can be tricky at times balancing how much is consumed with how much is burned as inaccuracies happen on both sides of the coin (over or under-estimation).

I'm no expert for sure but hope that maybe helps a little and if not you can always read posts in the regular forums that have similar questions as there are often ones who have struggles like this. Good luck.