Recomp stalling

BeccaLoves2lift
BeccaLoves2lift Posts: 375 Member
in Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
https://www.aworkoutroutine.com/how-to-build-muscle-and-lose-fat/

What do you guys think of this article? I've been maintaining/recomping since July. I made a ton of progress from July to December but I feel like my rate of body fat% loss has stalled since then. My weight is steady. I'm still lifting with progressive overload. I'm wondering if I've capped out what I can achieve in maintenance.
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Replies

  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
    A better article with links to studies that directly contradict "fact 2".
    https://muscleandstrengthpyramids.com/calorie-deficit-gain-weight/

    How are you measuring body composition?

    Are your lifts still going up? (You should now be past the stage where strength gains are coming from CNS adaptation and technique improvements.)

  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
    edited March 2018
    Would the person who clicked woo care to engage or discuss?

    I'm sorry if I take more credence from Eric Helms with his string of qualifications than someone with no formal qualifications at all but instead presents unsubstantiated assertions as facts.
    https://muscleandstrengthpyramids.com/authors/
  • BeccaLoves2lift
    BeccaLoves2lift Posts: 375 Member
    sijomial wrote: »
    A better article with links to studies that directly contradict "fact 2".
    https://muscleandstrengthpyramids.com/calorie-deficit-gain-weight/

    How are you measuring body composition?

    Are your lifts still going up? (You should now be past the stage where strength gains are coming from CNS adaptation and technique improvements.)

    I'm tracking my weight, measurements, progress photos, and I have calipers and a scale to measure body fat.
    My lifts are still increasing. I did back off on my squat weight a bit because my form started to suffer.
  • bbell1985
    bbell1985 Posts: 4,572 Member
    What's your programming like? Recomp is slow though
  • BeccaLoves2lift
    BeccaLoves2lift Posts: 375 Member
    bbell1985 wrote: »
    What's your programming like? Recomp is slow though

    I'm doing a 4 day upper lower split. It has a mix of strength focused lifts as well as hypertrophy focused lifts. My progress from July to December was very evident and didn't seem slow at all. Maybe that's what it is, just slowing down. It might be too slow for me...
  • StevefromMichigan
    StevefromMichigan Posts: 462 Member
    edited March 2018
    sijomial wrote: »
    A better article with links to studies that directly contradict "fact 2".
    https://muscleandstrengthpyramids.com/calorie-deficit-gain-weight/

    How are you measuring body composition?

    Are your lifts still going up? (You should now be past the stage where strength gains are coming from CNS adaptation and technique improvements.)

    Excellent article. Thank you for posting. I think this is what's been going on with me. After losing 2lbs a week for months, rate of loss has slowed to a crawl. Waist size, however, keeps decreasing, and I recently stepped up my lifting program big time, not only in weight lifted, but volume of exercise as well. Calories are set to where I still should be in a deficit.
  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,521 Member
    I think there are some good points in the "How To Build Muscle..." blog post. It's not backed-up in any way with hard science, but I think there is good reason behind it. I summarize it by the point that it's hard for most already fit people to gain significant muscle mass without increasing overall body weight. This would explain why body-builders cycle their weight.

    "Can You Gain Weight In A Calorie Deficit?" is a bit more rigorous (in a meta-scientific way), but it comes to the same basic conclusion. The answer to the question in the title is "usually no." But the article really takes on the question of recomp, which can cause slight weight gain during calorie deficit for untrained individuals. I would guess that this is a pretty rare case.

    Speaking personally, I have found that weightlifting makes me disproportionately hungry, meaning I tend to want to eat back more calories than I burned. I have to consciously override that urge. Cardo, however, seems to do that less so, in part because it burns more calories.

    Best of luck!

  • BeccaLoves2lift
    BeccaLoves2lift Posts: 375 Member
    sijomial wrote: »
    BeccaLoves2lift wrote: »
    Why would someone woo my post? I asked a question.


    It is natural for rate of progress (increasing strength, changes in body comp) to decline. That's normal as you become more highly trained.
    Obviously strength progress is easy to track but slow body comp changes are hard to accurately gauge with estimation methods that are very broad brush measurements at best.
    As you are still seeing strength progress then something is definitely happening.
    I hadn't spotted changes in musculature until I recently put on some clothes that I hadn't worn for months - but I knew my strength on certain lifts had gone up.

    It may be that you respond better to a bulk/cut cycle but you won't know until you try. But of course there's no free lunch and both bulk/cut and recomp methods have downsides.



    When I first entered into maintenance I think I was "skinny fat" and so the rate of change in my composition was actually pretty fast. Now I'm much leaner and I guess it's just slower and more difficult to see. Bulking/cutting is something I'm considering, but honestly I'm a bit scared to gain weight.
  • BeccaLoves2lift
    BeccaLoves2lift Posts: 375 Member
    Thank you for all the replies.
  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,521 Member
    BeccaLoves2lift wrote: »
    When I first entered into maintenance I think I was "skinny fat" and so the rate of change in my composition was actually pretty fast. Now I'm much leaner and I guess it's just slower and more difficult to see. Bulking/cutting is something I'm considering, but honestly I'm a bit scared to gain weight.

    Consider your goals carefully. Do you really want to be an bodybuilder? It means putting a significant amount of your time and energy into the goal of looking muscular. No judgement from me if you do!

    I messed around with bodybuilding in my 20s, intentionally overeating and pushing protein. But, I did it in pursuit of a couple of sports I liked, including windsurfing, which we're much more fun with a bit more strength. As I got older, I became overweight, and I had to totally change my eating habits to get my weight in check.

    Best of luck!
  • fb47
    fb47 Posts: 1,058 Member
    edited March 2018
    BeccaLoves2lift wrote: »
    sijomial wrote: »
    BeccaLoves2lift wrote: »
    Why would someone woo my post? I asked a question.


    It is natural for rate of progress (increasing strength, changes in body comp) to decline. That's normal as you become more highly trained.
    Obviously strength progress is easy to track but slow body comp changes are hard to accurately gauge with estimation methods that are very broad brush measurements at best.
    As you are still seeing strength progress then something is definitely happening.
    I hadn't spotted changes in musculature until I recently put on some clothes that I hadn't worn for months - but I knew my strength on certain lifts had gone up.

    It may be that you respond better to a bulk/cut cycle but you won't know until you try. But of course there's no free lunch and both bulk/cut and recomp methods have downsides.



    When I first entered into maintenance I think I was "skinny fat" and so the rate of change in my composition was actually pretty fast. Now I'm much leaner and I guess it's just slower and more difficult to see. Bulking/cutting is something I'm considering, but honestly I'm a bit scared to gain weight.

    The advantage of the bulk and cutting cycles is that you progress much quicker than recomp especially if you have years of lifting under the belt. In my case, it's been 5 years of cutting and bulking, every time I get lean, I can see a big difference from my previous cuts. Instead on a recomp, at this stage I wouldn't see any significant changes short term. Since you're a woman, building muscles is tougher than a man, because our rate of muscle growth is superior.
  • BeccaLoves2lift
    BeccaLoves2lift Posts: 375 Member
    fb47 wrote: »
    Jthanmyfitnesspal wrote: »
    BeccaLoves2lift wrote: »
    When I first entered into maintenance I think I was "skinny fat" and so the rate of change in my composition was actually pretty fast. Now I'm much leaner and I guess it's just slower and more difficult to see. Bulking/cutting is something I'm considering, but honestly I'm a bit scared to gain weight.

    Consider your goals carefully. Do you really want to be an bodybuilder? It means putting a significant amount of your time and energy into the goal of looking muscular. No judgement from me if you do!

    I messed around with bodybuilding in my 20s, intentionally overeating and pushing protein. But, I did it in pursuit of a couple of sports I liked, including windsurfing, which we're much more fun with a bit more strength. As I got older, I became overweight, and I had to totally change my eating habits to get my weight in check.

    Best of luck!

    If her goal is to have a nice round butt like most women go after, you need to build muscles. You don't get a round butt just losing weight and not lifting unless you have exceptional genetics.

    I do want a more muscular body. When I was overweight I carried much of my excess fat in the hips/butt and that is where I lost most of my weight as well. While I'm not straight up and down right now, I would like more curves.
  • fb47
    fb47 Posts: 1,058 Member
    edited March 2018
    BeccaLoves2lift wrote: »
    fb47 wrote: »
    Jthanmyfitnesspal wrote: »
    BeccaLoves2lift wrote: »
    When I first entered into maintenance I think I was "skinny fat" and so the rate of change in my composition was actually pretty fast. Now I'm much leaner and I guess it's just slower and more difficult to see. Bulking/cutting is something I'm considering, but honestly I'm a bit scared to gain weight.

    Consider your goals carefully. Do you really want to be an bodybuilder? It means putting a significant amount of your time and energy into the goal of looking muscular. No judgement from me if you do!

    I messed around with bodybuilding in my 20s, intentionally overeating and pushing protein. But, I did it in pursuit of a couple of sports I liked, including windsurfing, which we're much more fun with a bit more strength. As I got older, I became overweight, and I had to totally change my eating habits to get my weight in check.

    Best of luck!

    If her goal is to have a nice round butt like most women go after, you need to build muscles. You don't get a round butt just losing weight and not lifting unless you have exceptional genetics.

    I do want a more muscular body. When I was overweight I carried much of my excess fat in the hips/butt and that is where I lost most of my weight as well. While I'm not straight up and down right now, I would like more curves.

    You need to build muscles then by either recomp which is a slow process especially if you have been lifting for years or by bulking. If you just started lifting, since you're affraid of weight gain, I would recomp, otherwise I'd say do the bulk and cutting cycle. I prefer the bulking and cutting cycles because it's motivating to see the results. If you decide to bulk, it doesn't have to be a big caloric surplus, your goal would be to gain somewhere around 0,25 lbs per week which is not that much. Women don't need to have a big surplus like men who usually need to gain somewhere around 0,5 lbs per week. It also depends also on your bf too, if you're at 25% bf, then you shouldn't bulk.
  • bbell1985
    bbell1985 Posts: 4,572 Member
    BeccaLoves2lift wrote: »
    fb47 wrote: »
    Jthanmyfitnesspal wrote: »
    BeccaLoves2lift wrote: »
    When I first entered into maintenance I think I was "skinny fat" and so the rate of change in my composition was actually pretty fast. Now I'm much leaner and I guess it's just slower and more difficult to see. Bulking/cutting is something I'm considering, but honestly I'm a bit scared to gain weight.

    Consider your goals carefully. Do you really want to be an bodybuilder? It means putting a significant amount of your time and energy into the goal of looking muscular. No judgement from me if you do!

    I messed around with bodybuilding in my 20s, intentionally overeating and pushing protein. But, I did it in pursuit of a couple of sports I liked, including windsurfing, which we're much more fun with a bit more strength. As I got older, I became overweight, and I had to totally change my eating habits to get my weight in check.

    Best of luck!

    If her goal is to have a nice round butt like most women go after, you need to build muscles. You don't get a round butt just losing weight and not lifting unless you have exceptional genetics.

    I do want a more muscular body. When I was overweight I carried much of my excess fat in the hips/butt and that is where I lost most of my weight as well. While I'm not straight up and down right now, I would like more curves.

    So it's settled. The girl wants muscles and she wants to lift. The woman, sorry.

    Bec I think you posted a pic of yourself recently on IG or your mfp page. Lemme look again. I honestly had the best luck growing glutes and changing the shape with a bulk and cut (thought I suck at cutting). I had initial success in recomp but that's a big muscle yo. It needs a lot of attention.

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