Body recomposition

Cats_fitness_journey

Hi I’m New to MyFitnessPal! I recently discovered weight lifting about 2 years ago shortly after I lost 20 pounds, and I fell in love 😅 it’s seriously the best. I tend to shift slightly towards body building, only because I realized how much muscles can shape your body. It’s crazy!! I’m currently on a cut right now, trying to slim down and see some more muscle definition. Anyone else out here trying to loose fat and gain muscle at the same time? If so, any tips?

claireychn074

Patience! That’s the only advice I can give - that and trust the process. It takes a while and I have to occasionally get a bit fluffy to build muscle before I can slowly lose a bit of fat again. I train for my sport rather than aesthetics so I could probably have made different progress with a different training regime, but recomp is just slow. Focus on good nutrition, consistency, hit your macros and record your food accurately.

tomcustombuilder

Recomp takes a few factors to be in place to be possible. 90% of the time it’s better to either concentrate on muscle gain or Fatloss with muscle maintenance.

Retroguy2000

How many of these boxes do you tick?

- New lifter.
- Overweight/obese, i.e. not close to lean.
- Small deficit, say 0.5 pounds per week.

The more you tick, the greater your chance of recomp in a deficit. But even then, if you tick all three boxes, you'd probably still reach the same goal faster if you first focused on fat loss with a larger deficit, then maingained from there.

You should keep lifting if in a larger deficit, but your goal there would be retaining what you have.

Cats_fitness_journey

tomcustombuilder wrote: »

Recomp takes a few factors to be in place to be possible. 90% of the time it’s better to either concentrate on muscle gain or Fatloss with muscle maintenance.

Thanks for the tip, right now I’m focused on fat loss

Cats_fitness_journey

claireychn074 wrote: »

Patience! That’s the only advice I can give - that and trust the process. It takes a while and I have to occasionally get a bit fluffy to build muscle before I can slowly lose a bit of fat again. I train for my sport rather than aesthetics so I could probably have made different progress with a different training regime, but recomp is just slow. Focus on good nutrition, consistency, hit your macros and record your food accurately.

Thanks for the advice!! I definitely got a bit fluffy too LOL (although i was also putting on a lot of muscle).

I was never focused on macros before until I got MFP (about a week ago), still trying to figure them out. Do you have any recommendations to what I should set mine to(percentage-wise)? I’m trying to loose fat and gain/maintain my muscle while strength training. I know it’s probably a lot of trial and error, but I’m just confused.

Retroguy2000

I don't go by % for protein, I go by grams. You should target about 0.7g per pound if obese, or as high as 1g if lean. I've only ever tracked protein grams and total calories. Make sure you're getting enough carbs to sustain your workouts, especially in the hours before those.

claireychn074

Cats_fitness_journey wrote: »

claireychn074 wrote: »

Patience! That’s the only advice I can give - that and trust the process. It takes a while and I have to occasionally get a bit fluffy to build muscle before I can slowly lose a bit of fat again. I train for my sport rather than aesthetics so I could probably have made different progress with a different training regime, but recomp is just slow. Focus on good nutrition, consistency, hit your macros and record your food accurately.

Thanks for the advice!! I definitely got a bit fluffy too LOL (although i was also putting on a lot of muscle).

I was never focused on macros before until I got MFP (about a week ago), still trying to figure them out. Do you have any recommendations to what I should set mine to(percentage-wise)? I’m trying to loose fat and gain/maintain my muscle while strength training. I know it’s probably a lot of trial and error, but I’m just confused.

I’m similar to @Retroguy2000 in that I go for grams rather than percentages. I’m by no means an expert on this (only an expert on what works for me personally), but I can share my stats with you. I am in maintenance / always recomp really, and I shoot for 100-130g protein, with highish carbs and medium fat to hit my daily average goal of 2,200cals. I weigh 123lbs, with c23-25% body fat (at an estimate).

I notice worse doms and a longer recovery time if I routinely eat less than 100g protein, and I personally need high carbs to fuel the length of my workouts. If I need to lose a bit of fluff, I will still stick to 100g protein each day as I don’t want to lose strength.

Age may be a factor too as some research papers suggest women over a certain age need higher levels of protein to get the same effect, and I’m 49. Men who are younger may not need such a high percentage compared to bodyweight.

My macros have been worked out with trail and error over a few years to they work for me. Not sure if that’s any help really?!

tomcustombuilder

Grams always. Older people need more protein as MPS gets more difficult.