Please advice: I am burning fat before I can build muscles, how much I need to lose?

diods87

Hi,

I have been on a strict diet for the past 4 weeks.
My diet is full of protein and carbs. It involves eating regularly a lot of vegetables, protein (chicken, fish and protein shakes) and carbs - mainly rice, pasta once a week. I daily eat about 2350 calories.
My job is office desk based job. I go to the gym in the morning 4 times a week: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. I do 1 hour of weight lifting and 30 mins cardio each time I go. Different day - different part of muscles (back and shoulders, chest, legs, arms). Therefore I believe I am lightly active. I burn around 500 calories each gym day.

I am 28 year old, 6ft tall (184cm). My current weight is 77kg (it has gone down from 79.4 only four weeks ago) and my current body fat % according to my scale is 12.6% (starting at 14.4% four weeks ago).

Can someone please advice what would be the perfect body fat % for me so I know how much harder I should work to get there? Once I am happy with the body fat % I want to start working on building muscles. Also I do eat carbs as I don't want to starve myself to lose fat and muscles. I thought eliminating sugars from my diet and eating healthy and small portions will do the job. on my non-gym days I also try to eat healthy and more often 4-5 times a week total of around 2400 cal a day.

I would appreciate someone reached out to me with help cause I have been going to the gym for over 2 years now and this time I really want to get into a nice shape.

Sued0nim

Hey there

Sounds like you've got the basics

I'd say

Are you following a good progressive weights plan .. it looks like you're not a noob so I'm not going to recommend something like stronglifts or starting strength .. but really progression is where it's at

You can't trust bio-impedence scales for BF as there is too great a margin of erro, maybe for progression over months, but not an actual figure - if you want an exact number you'd have to invest in a DEXA scan

Personally I'm a big fan of jumping up and down in front of a mirror and seeing what jiggles, if it's not genitals or boobs it tends to be fat

I read your initial post as saying you have chicken shakes, fish shakes and protein shakes which made me go yuk .. snigger

That said losing body fat is about calorie control - eating clean, sugar .. meh .. no harm in carbs

set your protein at 0.64-0.8g per lb bodyweight, fat at 0.35-0.4g per lb bodyweight as MINIMUMS to acheive and get a good range of nutritious vegetables, dairy, proteins etc and you're good to go really

MFP gives you a goal exclusive of purposeful workouts - you log them separately and eat back say 50% of calories

good luck

diods87

hey

thanks for your effort to reply, appreciate it!

just to clarify (I think I confused you all a little) Naaaah I don't drink chicken shakes, protein shakes and fish shakes lol I meant, I eat fish, chicken, or sometimes replace the protein intake buy having protein shake (cookie and cream!)..

Im a little confuised about the protein goal you mentioned 0.64-0.8g per lb bodyweight. if im 77kg which is 169.756lbs does it mean I should eat 212g of protein a day minimum? (169.756lbs/0.8=212)

thanks in advance

Sued0nim

http://bayesianbodybuilding.com/the-myth-of-1glb-optimal-protein-intake-for-bodybuilders/

well structured article with the source reference for the studies

108g -135g would be your minimum protein to set in defecit (you multiply your weight by the 0.64/ 0.8 not divide it)

the range is based on the studies - which mainly involved pro athletes - the more experienced the less protein required really

but read the article - it's pretty interesting

PS I got the shakes thing on second read-through .. it's my own cognition not your writing that's at fault there

bioklutz

This article explains what body fat to get down to for a bulk better than I could:

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/muscle-gain/initial-body-fat-and-body-composition-changes.html

Packerjohn

diods87 wrote: »

Hi,

I have been on a strict diet for the past 4 weeks.
My diet is full of protein and carbs. It involves eating regularly a lot of vegetables, protein (chicken, fish and protein shakes) and carbs - mainly rice, pasta once a week. I daily eat about 2350 calories.
My job is office desk based job. I go to the gym in the morning 4 times a week: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. I do 1 hour of weight lifting and 30 mins cardio each time I go. Different day - different part of muscles (back and shoulders, chest, legs, arms). Therefore I believe I am lightly active. I burn around 500 calories each gym day.

I am 28 year old, 6ft tall (184cm). My current weight is 77kg (it has gone down from 79.4 only four weeks ago) and my current body fat % according to my scale is 12.6% (starting at 14.4% four weeks ago).

Can someone please advice what would be the perfect body fat % for me so I know how much harder I should work to get there? Once I am happy with the body fat % I want to start working on building muscles. Also I do eat carbs as I don't want to starve myself to lose fat and muscles. I thought eliminating sugars from my diet and eating healthy and small portions will do the job. on my non-gym days I also try to eat healthy and more often 4-5 times a week total of around 2400 cal a day.

I would appreciate someone reached out to me with help cause I have been going to the gym for over 2 years now and this time I really want to get into a nice shape.

May be misinterpreting but when someone says arm day I get the impression they are doing too many isolation exercises. You will make better progress with the weights if you look to make compound movements 80-90% of your workouts.

Yi5hedr3

Set macros 20/20/60. Shoot for 10-12% BF.