What do you think?

angel2846
angel2846 Posts: 5 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Hi!

I could really use some new input, and more importantly, a little reassurance that im on the right track 💪 Googling did not provide me with the right answer yet.

36 year old mother, 1.62m/63kg and been doing 3x weight training (home, weights) and daily dogwalks for 3 months now. No big results, so time to ditch the 1200 calories a day (which did include atleast 120g protein, lots of veggies and low carb).

And tips what my target calories/macros would be to still lose fat, but gain lean muscle?

Looking forward to hearing your experiences, very curious to see how many differences there will be in opinions.

And ofc feel free to add me.

Regards, J
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Replies

  • Retroguy2000
    Retroguy2000 Posts: 1,853 Member
    Your average TDEE should be about 1850. Your BMR should be about 1300. This means your 1200 is below your BMR. If you were actually taking in 1200 per day for the last 3 months I am certain you would lose weight, probably at least one pound per week. I suspect something is wrong with your tracking.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    Define "big changes". Are you talking strictly about losing weight? Are you talking about body composition and muscle? For losing weight I agree with the above...at 1200 accurate calories you should be losing at a decent clip. As far as physique goes, that takes more than a handful of months to see "big changes" despite the marketing claims of 30 days this and 30 days that programs. Your actual programming is going to matter a lot here too.
  • tomcustombuilder
    tomcustombuilder Posts: 2,234 Member
    edited May 2023
    At a TRUE 1,200 you'd be losing. Most likely you aren't counting everything you eat\drink and\or underestimating the calories.

    Loss will depend on WEEKLY calorie amounts so track every day of the week as accurately as possible then divide by 7 and that is your true daily amount as nobody consumes the same amount of calories every day.

    Many people don't count weekends or they cherry pick low days as their actual amounts.

    5-4 and about 130 lbs and you don't really have much, if anything to lose though. If your weight is not moving then you're at your maintenance calories and that is ok for gaining muscle without raising calories.

    If you DO slightly raise calories that would be more beneficial for muscle gain though. Training at home with limited equipment it'll be harder to add muscle.
  • nsk1951
    nsk1951 Posts: 1,304 Member
    I don't see how you can gain muscle mass in a caloric deficit. But maybe you can. I guess maybe you can ... I'm remembering the times I worked really hard out on the farm and was too busy to eat much at all yet I got stronger and leaner until I stopped working hard and resumed normal eating.

    ... Eating excess protein isn't the answer, from what I've read and heard ... although you can use more if your have more muscle and especially if it needs repair.
    ... because if you eat more than your CURRENT muscles can uptake, it gets stripped of a molecule and thus converted into glucose and fat. Fat gets stored, excess glucose (beyond what your liver can store) gets converted to fat also. ...
    ... A working muscle needs more fuel than a resting muscle. A muscle needs to be worked HARD to grow ... it needs to have it's fibers torn up through the hard work. It's the repair of them that builds them up....
    ... So .. walking the dog won't do much unless you are building up your leg and butt muscles from a lot of long, hard, fast walking. ... and exercising at home will help keep you limber but probably not grow your muscles. The weight lifting might, depending on what and how hard it is.

    Good Luck .. don't get discouraged and do your research. There's a lot of it out there that is much more on-target than what you'll get from the likes of me and almost everyone else here on these forums.



  • Retroguy2000
    Retroguy2000 Posts: 1,853 Member
    nsk1951 wrote: »
    I don't see how you can gain muscle mass in a caloric deficit. But maybe you can. I guess maybe you can ... I'm remembering the times I worked really hard out on the farm and was too busy to eat much at all yet I got stronger and leaner until I stopped working hard and resumed normal eating.
    Sure you can. You need an energy surplus to build muscle, and that's what your fat is. Granted, it's not as easy as when you're in a calorie surplus, and the bigger the calorie deficit the harder it will be, but it's definitely possible.

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