Cardio and Weight Lifting

Sheisinlove109

Right now I'm doing 65 min elliptical and 20-30 weight circuit daily. The scales moves but very slowly.

Is this slow loss caused from gaining muscle and being more hungry hence eating a little more?

JeromeBarry1

The rate of your weight loss is a function of the size of your calorie deficit over the period in question.
Moreover, weight loss is not accompanied by muscle gain. Rather, weight loss on your workout plan will tend to keep the muscle you do have, and is a good thing to do. Depending upon the intensity of your lifting, and your description makes me think it is moderate, you can better or less well preserve your existing muscle while losing weight. To better preserve your existing muscle while losing weight in a calorie deficit, lift heavy.

Sheisinlove109

Lift heavy...I understand the lift higher weights but how many reps, how many times?

LeoT0917

Depending on your weight lifting goals a good general rule for gaining muscle mass is to lift a weight heavy enough so that you are performing 6 to 10 reps where your last Rep is one Rep from muscle failure on your last rep.

LeoT0917

Although it is not easy, you can lose fat and gain muscle at the same time. Check this series of MFP blog articles to get some more info. I've been using this method of calorie cycling and it seems to be working quite well.

http://blog.myfitnesspal.com/the-basics-of-body-recomposition-how-to-lose-fat-gain-muscle-at-the-same-time/

http://blog.myfitnesspal.com/the-basics-of-body-recomposition-macronutrient-calculations-to-lose-fat-and-gain-muscle/

AnnPT77

Are you tracking your eating carefully? If so, you should know the impact of "being more hungry hence eating a little more".

You're unlikely to be gaining significant muscle in a deficit, unless the deficit is very small or you're quite obese, unless you are lifting near your limits (and progressively), though some report "newbie gains" even in a somewhat larger deficit. (You may be gaining strength, which has much to do with efficiency, without necessarily gaining actual muscle mass, but that added strength wouldn't per se cause weight gain.)

Sadly, this likelihood of no or at best slow muscle gain is even higher given that you're female and (per your profile) 39. A pound of additional muscle mass gain per month reportedly would be an excellent gain for a young woman in a calorie surplus with a very good progressive weight training program.

You may be hanging onto water weight for muscle repair, especially if the workout regimen is new: This can mask fat loss until the fat loss outpaces water weight gain. If you haven't been working at weight loss for long (less than a month), you may've just hit a bad point in your monthly cycle, which can also cause water weight gain (various points in the cycle for different women).

It's hard to guess what's going on without knowing more, such as your weight, height, calorie goal, how compliant you are with that goal, how long you've been at both calorie deficit and exercise, how much you have to lose before hitting goal weight, what "the scale moving slowly" means in pounds per week, and probably some other stuff I'm not thinking of right now.

If you've been at this less than a month, my best advice is: Patience. You don't want to lose too fast (it's unhealthy). After 4-6 weeks, you can consider whether you should eat a bit less (or move a bit more) to get a faster but still healthy weight loss rate.

courtneyfabulous

If you are not tracking calories and macros yet then start asap. Eat within your calorie goal and you will lose weight.

Personally I would switch to 65 minutes of weight training, and 20 to 30 minutes of cardio. And HIIT cardio would be better than elliptical.

Proper weight loss isn't fast FYI. This is going to go slowly and take a long time, so manage your expectations.

Strudders67

Also, vary what you do each day or your body will get used to your routine and you'll see no gain at all. Are you doing the same thing on the elliptical every day? Do you follow different courses /programmes or do you just do a 'flat' exercise at the same intensity each day? Alternate the programme or do some rowing, jogging or brisk walking up a hill on a treadmill every few days instead. Same with your weights, are you doing the same routine each day? Your muscles need a break from training (one day a week) to recover. If you still want to work out daily, maybe have one day where you focus on leg muscles and do no arm exercises; next day, focus on your arms and ignore leg exercises etc.

not_a_runner

sunsweet77 wrote: »

Right now I'm doing 65 min elliptical and 20-30 weight circuit daily. The scales moves but very slowly.

Is this slow loss caused from gaining muscle and being more hungry hence eating a little more?

I would say the bold is most likely the culprit.
As mentioned above, track and weigh your food. Many people only eat back a fraction of their exercise calories because they are often over estimated.
You also asked how many sets and reps you should be doing. Find an established program so you don't have to guess. Stronglifts is popular here, as well as StrongCurves for the ladies.