Lose fat but gain muscle mass

digidoomed

Hello. I have restarted my fitness journey after taking some time off to heal from a pretty huge loss in my family. Now that I'm ready to start again, I have a question. How do I go about losing fat while also gaining muscle mass? I lost some muscle during my time off and want to get rid of the excess fat on my body but also gain muscle back in places like my biceps and gluts. Currently I'm at 1400 cals/daily and I weigh 158 (roughly. sometimes I fluctuate and go down and come back up)

sardelsa

First sorry for your loss.

Second, how tall are you? How do you know you lost muscle (were you losing weight without any exercise?) While you can maybe gain some muscle in a deficit in some casess, it is dependent on many factors and usually fairly minimal in the grand scheme of things. You can recomp and maintain your weight to lose fat and gain muscle over time, but I would only do that if you are closer to your goal weight and want to work on body composition (again I don't know your full stats so that would be helpful). Otherwise, keep your deficit small, get adequate protein (0.8-1g per lb goalweight/bodyweight) and follow a progressive lifting program.

cwolfman13

If you don't have a lot of fat to lose, you could re-comp which is essentially eating at maintenance and hitting the weight room. It's a slow process, but it works.

If you want to cut fat with dieting, you aren't really going to be able to put on appreciable muscle, but you will maintain the muscle mass you do have. Under certain circumstances you can build a bit of muscle in a deficit with noob gains if you're 1)actually a noob; 2) significantly overweight/obese. Noob gains are rather minimal though and short lived.

In a deficit, you are catabolic and building muscle is an anabolic process.

digidoomed

sardelsa wrote: »

First sorry for your loss.

Second, how tall are you? How do you know you lost muscle (were you losing weight without any exercise?) While you can maybe gain some muscle in a deficit in some casess, it is dependent on many factors and usually fairly minimal in the grand scheme of things. You can recomp and maintain your weight to lose fat and gain muscle over time, but I would only do that if you are closer to your goal weight and want to work on body composition (again I don't know your full stats so that would be helpful). Otherwise, keep your deficit small, get adequate protein (0.8-1g per lb goalweight/bodyweight) and follow a progressive lifting program.

I'm 5'2. And I just feel like I lost muscle because whenever I look at my arms, they just seem to be smaller than they were before. I started back at the gym yesterday with chest/back and noticed I wasn't able to lift as heavy as I was before. And as far as losing weight without the exercise, I think I stayed in maintenance. I will usually be around 156-158, 160lbs tops and before I fell off I weighed at 156, and yesterday I weighed in at 158(but that was at the end of the day. Usually I try to weight myself before I eat). Also I still have the same measurement for my waist which was a little before 30" which it also was before my break. I definitely wasn't counting calories

digidoomed

cwolfman13 wrote: »

If you don't have a lot of fat to lose, you could re-comp which is essentially eating at maintenance and hitting the weight room. It's a slow process, but it works.

If you want to cut fat with dieting, you aren't really going to be able to put on appreciable muscle, but you will maintain the muscle mass you do have. Under certain circumstances you can build a bit of muscle in a deficit with noob gains if you're 1)actually a noob; 2) significantly overweight/obese. Noob gains are rather minimal though and short lived.

In a deficit, you are catabolic and building muscle is an anabolic process.

I want to be able to see my abs or atleast the lining of my obliques. I'm at a little below 30% body fat on my stomach when I checked with my calipers yesterday

sardelsa

You definitely want to eat in a deficit in that case.

When you lose weight, even if you are maintaining your muscle, your size will typically go down as you lose fat. If you took a break then not being able to lift as heavy is normal, not always an indication you are losing muscle. In fact many people gain strength in a deficit without muscle gain.

Seeing abs as a female can be very difficult. Lots of patience required.. as well as lower bodyfat and adequate muscle base. This is a great thread if you haven't seen it already:

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1161603/so-you-want-a-nice-stomach/p1

rsclause

Nothing wrong with lifting weights while in calorie deficit. Just don't expect bulk up but you will gain some strength. If Abs are what you want you wont see much of them until you get in the low teens of body fat. I say go for deficit to reduce fat and lift with lots of ab work. When you hit BF goal then increase calories and workouts to hit your mark.