Can I lift and still effectively cut?

GregPh67

Hey guys I was wondering if I could lift weights, and kind of go half and half with cardio, and still lose weight effectively? While taking protein and everything else, as long as I do not go over my calorie goal.

Right now I'm at 270 5'10 and 19 years old. Not sure if any of that matters. Also would doing more weight lifting and ore exercises help with "potential" loose skin, or help prevent it rather. Thanks

kindrabbit

Hi.
If you eat at your calorie goal - providing the details you enter into MFP are accurate, you will loose weight regardless of what exercise you do. Loosing weight is all about what you eat. Body composition (body fat percentage and lean muscle mass) is more about the combination of diet (macros) and exercise.
I am cutting at the moment and lift 3 times a week. Cutting simply means eating at a deficit in order to reduce your body fat percentage. When you eat at a deficit your body will choose the easiest place to take your stores from and that is muscle (from what I understand). Lifting weight and eating a decent amount of protein will reduce the loss of muscle and encourage your body to use up fat stores first but there will always be some muscle loss with weight loss. Some say paying attention to your macros is important, others say it's all about cico. Loosing weight at a slow steady rate will help with loose skin but genetics plays a large part in that.
I am still learning myself and I'm sure someone will be along to clarify.

kindrabbit

Edited - duplicate post

Nixynix87

You still need to incorporate cardiovascular in any hypertrophy training to gain muscle or endurance and resistance training to get more definition. Loose skin will not entirely shift but can become less with more weight training to add bulk and definition to that area of the skin. Cardiovascular is important as a warm up also to get your heart rate up and in the 'fat burning zone'. Also be careful of what protein supplements you use. You are better of getting your supplements from food. Such as eggs, meat, poultry and fish. Juiceplus is a fab pre and post workout shake if you can't get enough protein from your diet.

SideSteel

Nixynix87 wrote: »

You still need to incorporate cardiovascular in any hypertrophy training to gain muscle or endurance and resistance training to get more definition. Loose skin will not entirely shift but can become less with more weight training to add bulk and definition to that area of the skin. Cardiovascular is important as a warm up also to get your heart rate up and in the 'fat burning zone'. Also be careful of what protein supplements you use. You are better of getting your supplements from food. Such as eggs, meat, poultry and fish. Juiceplus is a fab pre and post workout shake if you can't get enough protein from your diet.

You don't need to do cardio to build muscle, and the fat burning zone is unimportant.

SideSteel

GregPh67 wrote: »

Hey guys I was wondering if I could lift weights, and kind of go half and half with cardio, and still lose weight effectively? While taking protein and everything else, as long as I do not go over my calorie goal.

Right now I'm at 270 5'10 and 19 years old. Not sure if any of that matters. Also would doing more weight lifting and ore exercises help with "potential" loose skin, or help prevent it rather. Thanks

Monitor your calorie and macronutrient intake, consume sufficient protein, and get on a progressively demanding resistance training program built around compound movements where you train the entire body 2-3 times per week.

Focus on keeping control of your diet, and focus on gym performance and be very patient.

MamaBirdBoss

Yes.

I'd get chubby-ish in high school every summer (except the summer I spent weightlifting!). Then I'd lose weight and regain strength when athletics started up again.

professionalHobbyist

If you are able to do HIIT, try it a bit.

Not a half hearted try, really get to 90% max heart rate for 20 seconds in a 3 minute interval. Do 7 intervals. It is only 21 minutes.

It works. Read up on it. Check Muscle Fitness web site. Don't believe me.

As you drop fat your definition emerges.

Diet is the best way to get the look. It is amazing how 20 lbs less body fat looks like 10 pounds of added muscle.

Good luck and I hope you thoroughly check out HIIT. If
You are brave you can do HIIT leg workouts.

My heart rate monitor hits 150's many times doing that. And I tried it after being used to HIIT on a cardio glide.

It felt like being hit by a truck. Sweat dripping off your elbows kind of work.

MamaBirdBoss

As someone with three babies...

The last of my loose skin disappears when I get off enough fat under it.

This is partly determined by age and genetics. (You might notice that I have no belly stretchmarks on my pooch, just cellulite!)

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GregPh67 wrote: »

Hey guys I was wondering if I could lift weights, and kind of go half and half with cardio, and still lose weight effectively? While taking protein and everything else, as long as I do not go over my calorie goal./quote]

Not only can you lift weights and still lose weight effectively (bodyfat that is), you SHOULD lift weights. Lifting is crucial to preserving the muscle mass you have while you're trying to cut bodyfat.

If you're relatively new to lifting heavy, you're going to make some strength gains. But here's the thing: when you're maintaining a calorie deficit (to cut fat), you slow down protein synthesis. That makes it more difficult to build muscle. So just understand what is happening to your body.

I'm doing this same thing right now, and have been on a serious cut for the past 3 months. I lose about a pound per week. I do three things:

1) Lift Heavy 3x per week
2) Eat at a modest calorie deficit. Usually 500 calories per day
3) Do some form of cardio every day. Usually, for me, it's walking, but lately I've incorporated sprint intervals (HIIT) training, as the person above suggested.

I run 30-second sprints, with 4-minute breaks (I walk), and I do 4-6 of those (only on non-lifting days; lifting days I just walk for 60 minuets). You are quite a bit heavier than I am, and sprinting 30 seconds for me is really hard. So you probably should do what I've seen suggested in other threads, and shoot for a 15-second sprint with a 4-6 minute break between sprints. HIIT training has proven, in numerous studies, to be more effective for fat loss.

Do this, and yeah, you can lose the fat. You'll hang on to the muscle you have (possibly gain a pound or two over a long period of time, but cutting is at cross-purposes to muscle growth).

Good luck man.

arditarose

Yep! That's how I lost all my weight. It got slow at the end with the little amount of cardio I do and the tiny deficit, but worth it, considering the LBM you'll save.

Unknown

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PneumaVision

HIIT on the Concept2 rower is killer. Quite unpleasant but it gets the job done. I'm an old man, so I throw in lots of pickleball which is a fun 90 minutes of sweating, and lift three days per week-- deads, power cleans, squats, various wallball and smashball routines. Meat and nuts for breakfast, period. Good luck.

gtichman

YES! You can probably even cut out cardio and focus on lifting heavy and have better results. And please don't think that you will get too big, that is a common misconception many people have. Lifiting weights will help you lose weight!

sarabrunning

Definitely lift, follow a clean diet, incorporate some cardio and be consistent. Building muscle will help you lose fat faster. Do the math for your BMR, figure out the daily caloric intake for your goal, calculate your macros for the body fat composition you want and stick to it. Great job so far!

GregPh67

I've read and taken everyone's advice into consideration, thank you all so much you're awesome

kwtilbury

A ton of cardio isn't necessary for cutting - dieting can achieve that. However, if you're interested in overall fitness, it's a must. Experiment with different styles, HIIT, running, swimming, etc., and see what you like.

mantium999

Nixynix87 wrote: »

You still need to incorporate cardiovascular in any hypertrophy training to gain muscle or endurance and resistance training to get more definition. Loose skin will not entirely shift but can become less with more weight training to add bulk and definition to that area of the skin. Cardiovascular is important as a warm up also to get your heart rate up and in the 'fat burning zone'. Also be careful of what protein supplements you use. You are better of getting your supplements from food. Such as eggs, meat, poultry and fish. Juiceplus is a fab pre and post workout shake if you can't get enough protein from your diet.

Cardio, if you aren't eating back the calories, can hurt hypertrophy. The OP is looking to cut, so hypertrophy is unlikely anyway, so that advice isn't even useful to him. Adding bulk, while in a deficit, isn't likely to happen to the extent of helping loose skin, as the areas that contain the loose skin will likely get smaller while in a deficit.

ncahill77

You might look into the 5/2 eating plan, eat maintenance for 5 days fast at 800 cals for 2 non consecutive days that you won't be lifting. It allows you to eat enough on heavy lift days to build muscle but still have a calorie deficit for the week. I have been on it for 3 weeks now and I actually love it, I'm pretty sure this is just going to be lifelong adjustment for me.

mantium999

ncahill77 wrote: »

You might look into the 5/2 eating plan, eat maintenance for 5 days fast at 800 cals for 2 non consecutive days that you won't be lifting. It allows you to eat enough on heavy lift days to build muscle but still have a calorie deficit for the week. I have been on it for 3 weeks now and I actually love it, I'm pretty sure this is just going to be lifelong adjustment for me.

I have also seen it suggested that your higher calorie days should be non-workout days, as that is when your muscles are more actively recovering. Haven't seen any evidence to support either method as superior though (TBH, haven't looked either).

ncahill77

Interesting, I haven't seen that yet. I can see the validity but I can't do much work on 800-1000 cals, so I load up on squat and deadlift days.

charlesmauch

I train in the AM, and eat very lightly on all days with the exception of the night before a training session. I noticed a long time ago when I would "cheat" / chow down on pizza / hamburgers the evening before lifting, my performance would skyrocket the next morning.

So I recently started doing that intentionally (sort of). I eat a bunch of carbs right before I go to sleep when I'm training the next day. Typically at least a cup (weighed dry) of oatmeal with protein powder and 2 or 3 cups (again weighed dry) of rice. In the morning I usually feel awesome (if a bit bloated) and I'm ready to just kill it in the gym. Then it's back to eating lightly again for the rest of the day and the day after.

I'm sure that there is a better protocol for this, but I seem to respond well to this kind of eating and the fat is melting off without loosing a lot of strength. I do zero "cardio" other than a lot of daily walking (2 to 3 miles on lifting days, 4 to 5 miles on recovery days). I used to do a lot of hard conditioning (sprints/ropework) but I got tired of it interfering with recovery so I dropped it. Figure out what works for you.

At your age I wouldn't worry too much about loose skin. There is nothing you can do about it other than wait for it to bounce back (or surgery) anyway.

IsaackGMOON

sarabrunning wrote: »

Definitely lift, follow a clean diet, incorporate some cardio and be consistent. Building muscle will help you lose fat faster. Do the math for your BMR, figure out the daily caloric intake for your goal, calculate your macros for the body fat composition you want and stick to it. Great job so far!

Sigh...He's in a deficit, he's not going to build a huge amount of muscle which will help him burn fat.

OP, create a caloric deficit. Eat foods which meet your micro/macros and eat the foods which you enjoy so you don't go insane.

Whether you do cardio or strength training is up to you. But I'd recommend a mix of both, cardio will allow you to eat that bit extra from burning off the calories and strength training you can increase your strength and preserve as much muscle as possible.

Karen_libert wrote: »

I am cutting at the moment and lift 3 times a week. Cutting simply means eating at a deficit in order to reduce your body fat percentage. When you eat at a deficit your body will choose the easiest place to take your stores from and that is muscle (from what I understand). Lifting weight and eating a decent amount of protein will reduce the loss of muscle and encourage your body to use up fat stores first but there will always be some muscle loss with weight loss.

She explained it better than I did

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ncahill77 wrote: »

Interesting, I haven't seen that yet. I can see the validity but I can't do much work on 800-1000 cals, so I load up on squat and deadlift days.

I try and keep my calorie deficit the same every day, but lifting days I simply try and get a few more carbs in before/after workouts. They are the fuel...