Push-ups are the devil!

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  • trigden1991
    trigden1991 Posts: 4,658 Member
    Spliner1969 wrote: »
    canadianlbs wrote: »
    Spliner1969 wrote: »
    My understanding is that the reason for this is that the extra calories your body needs for muscle isn't coming from your diet, it's coming from your fat stores. Once those fat stores deplete it gets harder and harder to build muscle without a surplus of calories.

    it's not quite like that. muscle uses calories, which it can get either from fat or from breaking down muscle tissue. but it isn't built by them, if that makes sense. that would be like using gasoline to build a bigger gas tank. actual new tissue is built out of protein. no protein, no new fibres and/or not enough fibre repair to keep up.

    So, at the same time (last six months of my dieting anyway) I doubled up my protein intake (up to 1g/lb of lean body mass or more) from what MFP was suggesting, but kept my deficit. The fat loss doubled and I was able to build some muscle I never had before. So what you're saying makes sense to me. I was still in a deficit but was able to build, likely because of the extra protein, but the deficit helped trim off the fat? Once I hit my goal the same thing at maintenance (same protein level) seems to let me build very slowly, just no huge gains.
    .

    Your fat loss can only double if you double your deficit. You probably didn't gain muscle in a deficit. Strength/performance and muscle are not the same thing!
  • buffalogal42
    buffalogal42 Posts: 374 Member
    And in the land of unbelievable stories ... I did 20 push-ups tonight!!!

    Ok, let me tell the real version. It was time for my normal weekly 100 "strapped in with counter-weight" push-ups session but I knew I'd be down to only 30lbs help, so I showed up whiny and unmotivated. I told my trainer I knew it was going to be a struggle and I was whining about never getting there and he told me to just get down and do one on my own. And I did! A pretty good one! And then I did another one. So he challenged me to do 20 ... instead of our normal workout ... taking as much time as I needed between them. I'll say only my first 4 were what I'd say were good, and the rest I called kind of "baby" push-ups ... but he said they counted. All up on my toes.

    So ... lots of work to go but there IS hope. Thanks for all the advice and suggestions here. I will definitely keep working at it!
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