Weekly Goal - Maintain weight

tributcher

I’ve lost 55 lbs and now I would like to maintain my weight but gain muscles, and hopefully losing body fat.

Would the setting “Maintain Weight” be the right setting in MyFitnessPal?

ErickM5500

Unfortunately it’s almost impossible to gain muscle without gaining some fat. To gain muscle and keep body fat gains to a minimum your diet and exercise routine must be perfect. What’s your body fat %?

Talan79

Like Eric said, gaining muscle would add some fat as well. You’d have to be in a surplus.
Do you have access to weights during this lockdown? You can eat at maintenance and lift. It will take longer to see results vs running bulk/cut cycles.

sijomial

Adding muscle while maintaining weight is called recomp these days - it just used to be called "getting in shape".
And it's been done by millions of people who have never heard of recomp or tracked a calorie.
It's just your body's totally normal reaction to an effective training stimulus while supported by an adequate diet.

There's a long running thread in the Maintaining weight forum with plenty of examples -
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10177803/recomposition-maintaining-weight-while-losing-fat/p1

And no you don't need a calorie surplus to gain muscle although it may make the process quicker. Bulking and cutting cycles are not required by people who don't have very high physique goals - they may be a choice but not a requirement.

And no you don't need a perfect diet, a perfectly normal diet will do although a higher than normal protein intake can be helpful for people training hard with aim of gaining muscle.

sijomial

If people want to learn more about recomp here's a good read by Eric Helms & Lawrence Judd......

https://muscleandstrengthpyramids.com/calorie-deficit-gain-weight/