Don't want to lose muscle

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EllieYuruker
EllieYuruker Posts: 54 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Im currently on 1300 ish calories (was on 1200 but im at my goal weight) but im scared ive lost muscle while doing such low cal diet. I do treadmill and cross trainer for about 40 minutes then 180ish ab excercises (sit ups etc) and 3 sets of 20 on the inner thigh, outerthigh, abdominal machines. This is 4-5 days a week. Am I doing it right?
My diary is open to have a nose if you want to look at what im eating at the same time.

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  • cingle87
    cingle87 Posts: 717 Member
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    If you havent done any other lifting than leg exercises you will most likely have lost muscle mass from the rest of your body. The only way to get it back is to eat in a defict and lift full body.
  • grimendale
    grimendale Posts: 2,153 Member
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    If you are trying to maintain muscle, you are going to want a fairly small deficit and heavy lifting in place of some of your cardio. If you are trying to rebuild muscle, you need to eat at a small surplus and do a lot of heavy lifting, then switch to a cutting cycle to burn any fat gained during building phase.
  • astrovivi
    astrovivi Posts: 183 Member
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    If you are at goal weight, eat at maintenance and start a resistance training program (weights) and cut back on your cardio.

    You will undoubtedly have lost some lean mass eating so few kcals per day and doing so much cardio without load bearing exercises.

    It's hard to provide any further advice without knowing your stats - height, current weight etc.

    do you know your body fat percentage? probably not, i'm guessing but that is OK.

    check out IIFYM.com for their calculators. Enter your age, weight, height etc and work out your basal metabolic rate and your TDEE.

    To maintain weight and recomposition your body to increase lean mass and decrease body fat (if needed), you should eat at maintenance level, ie TDEE. But training with then work on making you lean and strong!

    EDIT: with a baby you probably can't get to the gym or anything. A good place to start in this case is The New Rules of Lifting for Women:

    http://www.thenewrulesoflifting.com/nrol-for-women

    Great book, very practical. Loads of exercises for full body and you can start with bodyweight exercises and still make progress given you have not focussed on strength and resistance much in your training.
    It's a good investment for anyone who cannot get to a gym, or have a trainer etc.

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