Strength training

FitnessFreak1821

So I'm finally out of my plateau but I'm eating more. I'm making sure with my calorie burn during excercise I'm at net of at least 1500-1600 minimum now.(instead of 1600 and below consistently) I'm doing a zig zag calorie diet where I go to maintenance for a couple days and other days in 1600-1800 cals. I have lost another pound in a week and half. So not to bad, it seems to be working what im doing. Slowly but my trend is going down which is great


If I do more strength training would that be hard to get to where I want to be on the scale because of building muscle? (I'm doing combo of strength and cardio together 3-4 days a week. Working out different areas of my body each day)
I'm 145 now(I was stuck 148-149 for months) and I'm trying to just be 130s-140 max. Max goal is to be minimum 130 pounds(im 5'5.5 feet tall). I know weight can flunctuate big time so I'm thinking that range is realistic but I love the strength training. I don't know if I should hold back abit if I want to see the scale go down consistently

DancingMoosie

No, it will not hold you back. You might see a slight increase at first, because of water retention, but that will pass. As long as you remain in a deficit, you will not gain weight. Strength training is (imo)a very important part of fitness and weight loss. Without it, you will lose more muscle as you lose weight and won't positively change your body composition.

FitnessFreak1821

DancingMoosie wrote: »

No, it will not hold you back. You might see a slight increase at first, because of water retention, but that will pass. As long as you remain in a deficit, you will not gain weight. Strength training is (imo)a very important part of fitness and weight loss. Without it, you will lose more muscle as you lose weight and won't positively change your body composition.

Thanks! Yes I noticed when I lost all my weight the first time when I was 136 I still looked flabby, definitely still didn't have much more muscle because i did more cardio. At 144 pounds I'm more toned looking. Definitely gained more muscle. I'm doing more strength this time around and love it.

AnnPT77

Realistically, muscle gain is a fairly slow thing that requires patience, especially so alongside a calorie deficit for fat loss.

Strength training is 100% worth doing, but it's unlikely to result in such fast mass gain that the muscle increase overtakes fat loss on the scale, when in a meaningful calorie deficit.

Under ideal conditions, a really good result for a woman would be a quarter pound of muscle mass gain per month, maybe twice that for a man.

Ideal conditions include a well-designed progressive strength training program faithfully performed, excellent overall nutrition (especially but not exclusively adequate protein), relative youth, favorable genetics, relative newness to strength training, and a calorie surplus (not deficit). That doesn't mean no one can gain muscle mass in a deficit, but it would be reasonable to expect it to be slower than that.

On the flip side, half a pound of fat loss per week (via calorie deficit) is about the slowest observable rate, and even that can take a month or two to show up on the scale amongst the 2+ pounds daily water weight fluctuations that many of us can see.

The good news is that strength gain is faster than mass gain (through neuromuscular adaptation, basically better recruiting/using existing muscle fibers), and increased strength is useful in daily life. Even appearance improvement can be quicker: Some tautness and definition can come from the water retention involved in muscle repair, for example.

You're doing Good Stuff, and you'll see results long term. Short term, water weight - for dozens of reasons - can mask gradual fat loss on the scale. Patience conquers, in that scenario. Muscle mass gain is gradual, a long-term thing.

I can't even tell you how much I wish muscle mass gain were quicker and easier! 😉

JBanx256

You may see a bump on the scale due to water retention when you first start lifting, but gaining muscle is a SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW endeavor and unless you start taking absolutely MASSIVE quantities of PED's, you're not going to gain that much muscle that fast.