New to muscle gain, need some advice

JohnPaulEightyOne

For the past 16 months, I've been at a calorie deficit. I'm 5'11.5 (bad posture, might be 6') and I started at 350 lbs. Currently at 220-ish lbs. I've been doing resistance training with a personal trainer since January. I have built some muscle (because lean muscle helps burn fat?) but now it feels like I'm only maintaining. I think I have decided to focus a little more on building muscle.

Considering that I still have a significant amount of body fat (something like 25% based on what a little handheld machine said), should I stay at somewhat of a caloric deficit? Should I be at a surplus?

I have tried to study this some, but it can get pretty confusing. From what I've read, I should lift heavy during a surplus for a few weeks, then go into a deficit and lift lighter to maintain lean mass while burning fat? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

MikePTY

Why do you feel you need to gain muscle mass? While you have made tremendous progress so far, and you should feel proud, 220 is still quite a bit outside the healthy weight for your height.

Unless you are already very muscular, you are probably quite a bit higher than 25% body fat at your current stats. I am 5'11 and under 205, and my body fat is likely around 28%. I am not sure what handheld machine you used but they are traditionally not very accurate.

Due to your substantial loss, and your long period of time in a deficit, it may benefit you to take a diet break of at least a couple of weeks, possibly a month or even longer, where you eat at maintainence and reset mentally and physically for the final phase of your weight loss. Keep lifting during this time.

After your diet break, I would continue with a deficit, but a slower one than you have done in the past. Target no more than a pound a week, and keep lifting weights to improve strength and maintain the muscle mass you have.

heybales

If already doing training - you are likely past the form improvement stage for reason of the gain on the bar.

During that time and a tad after you go through adding weight just to fully use the muscle you got.

After that you have to add muscle to keep progressing - and while you have excess fat - you can do that while in a reasonable deficit. You won't add the same amount of muscle possible while bulking obviously, but you really don't need to gain more fat with that muscle anyway, with a bit still to lose. When under 15% can think that route.

If you still have 15-30 lbs to go - 500 cal deficit is reasonable. 250 deficit when going below 15 left.
And you can make some muscle gains that may not be possible to see until you lose more fat - but you should still have progress on the bar.

You aren't in position for bulk/cut cycles to work well - besides the fact it's more than a few weeks.

And don't lift lighter! It's the heavier weight that says you need this muscle you got - you go lighter in a deficit you are telling body you don't need that muscle.

And should already be heavy for you lifting. And progressing.
You got a 3 x weekly full body type program?
That could be 3 x split program for 6 days a week too.
If trainer is doing a major muscle group 1 x weekly - fire them for jumping on a bro lifting program that is sub-optimal for beginners.

To maintain muscle mass in a deficit - need 3 things - reasonable deficit, enough protein, resistance training.
If enough fat to spare, could even gain some muscle in that deficit.

And there is no such thing as lean muscle except what you order from the butcher. You have no control if it's lean or has fat in it (except endurance cardio) - body decides that - genetics.

Try that, if you want progress on the bar more and willing to accept less fat off the body to see the muscle - nothing says you can't eat at maintenance for a week, diet for a week. Increase weights during the maintenance week, maintain weights during the deficit week. That's more about having more energy and better recovery to allow better benefit from a hard workout.

JohnPaulEightyOne

Thank you so much. I was honestly dreading the idea of going into a surplus. I'll try what you've suggested here to get try and just get the fat loss out of the way.

heybales

Are you using MFP correctly to really have only that 1 lb weekly loss?
Some create bigger deficit because they don't log workouts correctly - that'll make things worse for you - and could be reason for what seems a stall.

Besides progress does slow down anyway.

JohnPaulEightyOne

I'm not so sure I am using MFP correctly for that. I don't include the workouts into the calorie counter.

And I meet with my trainer three times a week, but we never just work on a major muscle group. It's fully body, combing body groups to push or pull weight, super sets, things of that sort. The other three or four days I'll do 45 minutes on the StairMaster while doing calf raises.

heybales

If you are eating to a goal that MFP estimated, it includes no exercise expected.
You get a deficit from estimated daily burn that is just daily life - if you guessed that correctly.

So all those workouts and not logging it the way the tool works - you are creating a bigger deficit.

No wonder your progress has stopped - one of the 3 things to retain muscle mass in a diet is reasonable deficit.
You are likely not doing that.
You can lose muscle mass even with lifting if diet is too extreme for body. Somewhere.

As you have lost weight off your body, any lifts you are doing using full body weight like squats and deadlifts should have gone up by at minimum the weight lost off your body, and a whole lot more for form improvement and actually getting stronger.
If they have not....

For instance, if you lost 25 lbs since Jan, and your squat and deadlift have only gone up 25 lbs and it feels just as difficult - you've probably lost muscle mass.
Don't count the initial weeks of figuring out what weight to lift, but when it actually got hard and feels just as hard now.
Weight increase should have been a whole lot more than 25 lbs.

Lifting is logged in the database as Weights - it's not much compared to cardio, but it counts though small.
The stairmaster - it probably tells you a calorie burn and watts since it has a motor - use that if you told it your weight, which usually you do have to.
Log it.

Eat to your new goal. That keeps your deficit reasonable.

gonnasnap

If your calories are based on your tdee you want to be sure you’re eating enough to build muscle. You might wanna swap the scale for a tape and track progress that way

simonwood1981

I would do fullbody training three times a week (stick to compound lifts), keep your protein high, 0.8 - 1 lbs per bodyweight and stay in a calorie deficit until you can see your six pack. It will take time but keeping the calories high will ensure you keep as much lean mass as possible while you lose the fat.

Chieflrg

Literature suggests that If you're male and have a waist measurement of 37" or greater(female 33" or more), it's in your best interest to continue to lose weight over gaining muscle. As your weight continues to drop along with your health risks then entertaining hypertrophy goals would be more appropriate.

Also lifting heavy or light is very vague in terms of correct dosage of intensity. One can take light weights and apply more fatigue and stress then heavy weights. I'll generally program a lighter average intensity for either hypertrophy or weight loss but with more volume.

Spadesheart

MikePTY wrote: »

Why do you feel you need to gain muscle mass? While you have made tremendous progress so far, and you should feel proud, 220 is still quite a bit outside the healthy weight for your height.

Unless you are already very muscular, you are probably quite a bit higher than 25% body fat at your current stats. I am 5'11 and under 205, and my body fat is likely around 28%. I am not sure what handheld machine you used but they are traditionally not very accurate.

Due to your substantial loss, and your long period of time in a deficit, it may benefit you to take a diet break of at least a couple of weeks, possibly a month or even longer, where you eat at maintainence and reset mentally and physically for the final phase of your weight loss. Keep lifting during this time.

After your diet break, I would continue with a deficit, but a slower one than you have done in the past. Target no more than a pound a week, and keep lifting weights to improve strength and maintain the muscle mass you have.

It's very possible that the body fat could be accurate if he was working out on the way down. Often to cope with the weight of a larger body, there is a significant amount of muscle to begin with. Walking around with 350 pounds daily isn't a joke. If he was working out on the way down with adequate nutrition, he could very possibly have maintained much of his musculature.

Chances are this isn't the case, but it's very possible.