Calories and metabolism

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mgonyer123
mgonyer123 Posts: 74 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Can you screw up and/or slow down your metabolism by not eating enough calories?

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  • Liftng4Lis
    Liftng4Lis Posts: 15,150 Member
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    After a long enough time of under eating, yes metabolic adaptation could occur, but it's usually a pretty negligible difference.
  • mgonyer123
    mgonyer123 Posts: 74 Member
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    Ok! Thank you for the quick reply. So the only true problem is losing muscle mass correct?
  • fireflycities
    fireflycities Posts: 5 Member
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    Losing muscle mass is something to watch out for while you're losing weight, especially if you are losing quickly, or doing a lot of cardio. Make sure you're meeting your protein goals, and do some simple weightlifting.
  • Mr_Knight
    Mr_Knight Posts: 9,532 Member
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    You can easily lose a lot of muscle mass doing resistance training, too. Need to keep the protein up, and if you're working hard, no more than a moderate deficit.
  • mgonyer123
    mgonyer123 Posts: 74 Member
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    At the risk of sounding dumb..

    How do you know of you're working too hard compared to calories eaten?

    I hike 2 or 3 days a week 1-2 miles depending on which kid is with me.

    30 day shred when I don't hike (which is cardio and weights) (occasionally when I do hike)

    and I lift small weights every other dayish (small pounds but many reps)

    On days I do 30 day shred I find it hard to eat the min 1200 calories because I'm not hungry for hours after and then when I am I'm not THAT hungry, you know?

    I just don't want to make any drastic mistakes. I've only been at this for 3 weeks so be gentle!

  • galgenstrick
    galgenstrick Posts: 2,086 Member
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    High rep work is more cardio than resistance training. It's not going to help with preserving muscle mass
  • mgonyer123
    mgonyer123 Posts: 74 Member
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    It's not? I thought doing weights helped...define muscle?
  • Liftng4Lis
    Liftng4Lis Posts: 15,150 Member
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    Get enough protein and look into a progressive lifting program like SL 5x5.
  • yellowantphil
    yellowantphil Posts: 787 Member
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    mgonyer123 wrote: »
    It's not? I thought doing weights helped...define muscle?

    I’m no expert, but I think “high reps” is something like 15 reps to failure. You didn’t say how many reps you do, but if it’s way higher than that, you might want to increase the weight some.
  • mgonyer123
    mgonyer123 Posts: 74 Member
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    Ok gotcha. I am going to increase when it fits in with the budget. I still find the weights in use while doing 30 day shred still challenging for now.
  • yellowantphil
    yellowantphil Posts: 787 Member
    edited July 2015
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    I’d recommend browsing the bodybuilding.com fitness plans if you want to find a good weightlifting plan for your goals. Whatever you’re doing already might be fine, but I like to go with premade plans instead of just guessing at what reps and weight to do.

    I don’t know if they have any plans that are just for toning, but you could check.
  • professionalHobbyist
    professionalHobbyist Posts: 1,316 Member
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    Muscle fitness women

    Check them out. It is a section just exactly for women and your questions

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