Gain healthy weight

bethb09bb

Hello. New to this, but I just had my second child and I am exclusively breastfeeding. Losing a lot of weight doing that, but I still have all this flab and years of unhealthy eating. I am currently 5'7" and about 156 but want to get to about 160 with toning and muscle. Looking for accountability friends.

sardelsa

I would not recommend gaining/bulking if you are at a higher body fat % and still have quite a bit of fat to lose, it will only make things worse, and at that point the amount of muscle to fat gained will not be optimal. If you are happy with your weight and only have a few problem areas, you can look into recomp or eating at maintenance while lifting weights. OR you can run a small deficit (I would keep it very small since you are nursing) to lose weight slowly and retain muscle by lifting.

How many weeks/months postpartum are you? It takes time to get the belly back to normal after carrying a baby.

cochran16

When it comes to weight loss diet is really key. You can't really reach a weight loss goal without a dietary change. With gaining muscle mass I find the opposite is true. It has more to do with the time you spend doing resistance training and targeting your muscles. Of course nutrition timing of protein repletion plays a huge role in this. You will most likely need to increase your protein intake and pay attention to metabolic windows. Aim for 20g protein within 45 minutes of weight training and then every 4 hours during the day after that. -Serena C. RD

cityruss

cochran16 wrote: »

When it comes to weight loss diet is really key. You can't really reach a weight loss goal without a dietary change. With gaining muscle mass I find the opposite is true. It has more to do with the time you spend doing resistance training and targeting your muscles. Of course nutrition timing of protein repletion plays a huge role in this. You will most likely need to increase your protein intake and pay attention to metabolic windows. Aim for 20g protein within 45 minutes of weight training and then every 4 hours during the day after that. -Serena C. RD

Hi Serena C. RD

Could you expand on the 20g of protein within 45 minutes of resistance training.

As it appears most expert opinion is that the idea of the old 'anabolic window' is widely inflated and that in all but the elite 1% of performance athletes and for those training in a complete fasted state nutrient timing doesn't matter.

https://jissn.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1550-2783-10-5

And an interview with the author of that here...

http://www.bornfitness.com/the-truth-about-nutrient-timing/

Could you expand on what these metabolic windows you speak about are?