Need advice on my workout routine

maximusdecimus321

Hi,

I'm 33M/1.83m/220lb. I have lost 103lb in 11 months using a diet and a cardio regimen. I am targeting to be another 20lb lighter and tone up as well. My workout has primarily been centered around the recumbent bike. I work out for 60-80 minutes every day. I cannot afford to spend more time on exercise. I am trying to figure out the best of these alternatives:

1. Continue down this path. But as I have become lighter I have slowed down. Now I am losing just 1-2lb per week...and this is making me all the more impatient.
2. I want to take up weight training so that I can start toning. My worry is that this is going to come at the expense of my cardio (because of the time constraint) and that my weight loss would further slow down. Would the muscle gain sufficiently increase my TDEE so as to make up for the reduced kcal burn through cardio?

Thanks!

TavistockToad

A pound a week is a good amount of loss. You don't have much to lose now, you don't want faster loss.

Yes add in strength training. If you're using MFP calculations it shouldn't slow down your loss as the deficit is the same, but you might miss sone of the extra calories.

Expect to gain a couple of pounds when you first start lifting as your body retains water to heal.

There's a thread on lifting programmes around somewhere which would be a good starting point for you.

canadianlbs

maximusdecimus321 wrote: »

Would the muscle gain sufficiently increase my TDEE so as to make up for the reduced kcal burn through cardio?

somebody else will know the technicalities on that. helpful to know your gender just because all new lifters get 'noob gains' but men tend to get more of them.

off the top of my head though, i kind of doubt anyone would gain enough muscle to make a significant spike in tdee over a short term. on the other hand, strength training is awesome and maintaining your existing muscle mass is awesome, and it's not like lifting is calorie-neutral.

it's sort of up to you, i guess. you might 'lose' a little on the swings of overall daily deficit, but you'd be making up for that in ways that are not directly about the calorie burn. if it means anything to you, it sounds like something very similar was my own entry point to starting lifting. i'd got to where i had only about 5-10% of my total weight left to lose (6 to 12 pounds) and i was frustrated at the scale stall based on just riding my bike.

i added lifting and even though it didn't live up to the 'muscle burns calories!' hype that had sucked me into it, i've never regretted it. it's one time where misinformation actually did me a much bigger favour than the cold truth. [tempted to lie to you, too, only i'm not that kind ].

sijomial

Well done on that huge loss.

Why recumbent bike? An upright bike will allow you to work harder and also transfer to much more enjoyable outdoor riding. Working harder could shorten your workouts to get some time back.

You need to reset your weight loss expectations. As you get leaner and closer to goal then a slower rate of loss becomes more and more desirable. You aren't 120lbs overweight now!
It takes the mind a while to catch up with the body - you will need a mind shift from exercise for calorie burns to exercise for health, fitness, enjoyment, body composition....
Your "tone up" goal taking over from your weight loss goal as your primary target if you like.

Yes take up weight/strength training.
Yes strength training is a far lower calorie burn than cardio but burning calories isn't the goal - it's gaining strength, body composition, preserving muscle while dieting (possibly even adding a little). Being the best possible version of you.
Strength training doesn't have to take ages - train efficiently using a proper program rather than waste a load of time doing a random collection of isolation lifts.

"Would the muscle gain sufficiently increase my TDEE so as to make up for the reduced kcal burn through cardio?"
No - it's a very old fashioned myth that muscle burns huge amount of calories, it doesn't sadly. At rest a lb of muscle burn c. 6 cals/day. Whooppeee!
And any ability to gain muscle is severely limited by being in a deficit, bigger the deficit the less likely it is to happen at all. Preservation of existing muscle mass is really the primary goal, a gain is a bonus.

RuNaRoUnDaFiEld

Start to work out smarter not longer.

Running 30 minutes and weights 30 minutes should give you near enough the same calorie burn.

Your weight loss will continue to slow to a crawl the closer you get to goal. You can't create the same calorie deficit.

sijomial

RuNaRoUnDaFiEld wrote: »

Start to work out smarter not longer.

Running 30 minutes and weights 30 minutes should give you near enough the same calorie burn.

Your weight loss will continue to slow to a crawl the closer you get to goal. You can't create the same calorie deficit.

Disagree with the bolded statement.
Walking and strength training are similar rates of burn but not running at any decent pace.

METS for strength training is around range of 3.5 to 6
METS for walking at 4mph is 5
METS for running at 6mph is 9.8

DancingMoosie

I thought she meant that replacing recumbent bike with 30running/30lifting would give the same calorie burn as just recumbent bike for 60. Doing only cardio while losing 1-2 lbs a week would mean losing more muscle. Pick up the weights asap and find a good program. Recalculate your weightloss goals. Lose less weight, but keep more muscle. You are unlikely to build much, if any, but you can try to keep what you have. You can always recomp or bulk later if you find yourself lacking the muscle mass you want at the end of your weightloss stage.

Tacklewasher

DancingMoosie wrote: »

I thought she meant that replacing recumbent bike with 30running/30lifting would give the same calorie burn as just recumbent bike for 60. Doing only cardio while losing 1-2 lbs a week would mean losing more muscle. Pick up the weights asap and find a good program. Recalculate your weightloss goals. Lose less weight, but keep more muscle. You are unlikely to build much, if any, but you can try to keep what you have. You can always recomp or bulk later if you find yourself lacking the muscle mass you want at the end of your weightloss stage.

Agree on what @RuNaRoUnDaFiEld seemed to be saying. I think @sijomial just mis-understood what was meant.

I'm 6' and ~210, so close to the same stats. Also started at 330+. At this point I'd aim for 1 lb per week and focus on making it as much fat loss as possible. So lifting 2-3 times a week would be a huge benefit. A program like Strong Lifts is a good one if you have access to a squat rack. I'm still trying to figure out a good dumbbell routing as the squat racks where I go are grabbed first thing in the morning. Even if it means you don't do cardio every day, the weightlifting will help. But it will slow your weight loss down, and I think that is a good thing. I'm trying for 1 lb a week now with a target of 195.

Better to keep the muscle we have with a slower loss than lose muscle and try to build it back up later.