Relatively light people trying to get leaner

NitaCB

Hi, like a few other people on this VERY extensive thread, I'm an endurance runner. I'm just starting to train for my first full marathon. I really don't want to accept that I can't try and lose weight while marathon training. I've been on here for about 6 weeks, haven't lost a thing, in fact I think I've put on a few kilos instead. Great.

I'm 5"3, 128 lbs, and 23% body fat. I try and reach my 1350 cals a day, but it's hard to make that up when you've done a really long run, I don't always get there. I'm trying to make sure I eat 5-6 small meals a day, with complete carb/protein/fat at each. I've also recently been at a great nutrition workshop, which emphasised having a high carb meal (still with protein and fat as well), immediately after exercise, and tapering your carbs down through the rest of the day.

It's interesting what you say about stresses on the body. At the moment I'm seeing a physio regularly about my glutes not firing properly, being tight in my IT band and then overworking my adductors. I did 62km this week (38 miles). Add to that, three weeks ago my city was rocked by a massive earthquake, meaning life has kind of been turned upside down dramatically. It means also, that my gym, although hardly affected, is in a no-go zone, possibly for up to 8 months, so I don't have access to weights any more. Any suggestions on what I should do here? I know I need to be keeping up some strength training.

I'd really appreciate any advice.

pamp1emousse

Hi Stroutman, I was wondering if I could ask you another question? Calorie related this time

So I've been maintaining these past few weeks, gradually increasing my calories from BMR (1350) to 1500 where I am now (50 calories a week). I've started a new job which involved 5.30am starts and being pretty busy in the day (care work) so the amount I've been exercising has gone down from 5-7 times a week (burning 350-500 calories) to 2-3 times a week (burning 350-450) with 1 hour of walking to work 4 times a week. I've been trying to increase my strength training in the way you suggested, so it's been lots of compound exercises - inverted rows, pushups, lunges etc, rather than exercises like bicep curls.

My problem is is that I'm pretty sure I'm gaining weight! It's definitely not muscle mass - I haven't been exercising enough for that, plus I can see the weight on me. My weight does fluctuate quite a lot but I haven't seen that 120 on the scale for a while now and instead it's been between 122 and 124. What's going on?? I'm being very honest with my logging, I've had some bad days but I've made up for them calorie-wise the following days. Surely my maintenance level can't be lower than 1500 (I'm only 22)?? I was planning to continue increasing to 1600-1700 like MFP suggests!

I was wondering if you could have a quick look through my diary for me? If you have any suggestions they would be much appreciated. I've been quite busy recently with quite a hefty change in routine (and therefore sleeping patterns) and I've come off the contraceptive pill (apparently it takes a few months for your periods to come back - they haven't yet... sorry if TMI!) but those are the only things I can think of that have changed. I don't know if they make a difference...

Anyway, I've now reduced my calories back to BMR for a few days because I'm panicking! I can't bear the thought of all that hard work going to waste :frown: I was losing around 0.7lbs a week on 1350 before I started maintaining so my maintenance calories being below 1500 doesn't really make sense to me...

Anyway, sorry for rambling. Any ideas would be great!

stroutman81

Thank you for posting all of this information. Your thoughtful and educational responses to all of the questions people have about metabolism/lean muscle mass etc. were much more appreciated than a previous "trainer" who basically came on MFP and chided people for starving themselves (eating less than 1500-2000 calories a day) and said basically we should ALL be doing the same thing nutritionally (eating 2000 calories a day) without taking into account gender, bone structure, exercise habits, body fat percentage, metabolism or health issues, and so on...I will definitely come check out your blog. (even though I'm a heavier person just trying to be "average" at this point

Well thanks, I appreciate your kind words. And for the record, while this thread is earmarked for lean getting leaner, I typically write about more global topics that apply to everyone interested in fat loss. I just saw a need for this sort of thread in this community based on what I was reading.

And don't get me started on trainers. They're bad enough in person. Give them a veil of anonymity via the web and they're even worse!

stroutman81

Hi, like a few other people on this VERY extensive thread, I'm an endurance runner. I'm just starting to train for my first full marathon. I really don't want to accept that I can't try and lose weight while marathon training. I've been on here for about 6 weeks, haven't lost a thing, in fact I think I've put on a few kilos instead. Great.

I'm not suggesting you can't lose while training for endurance racing. I'm stating that if you try both at the same time, there's going to be a watering down effect. We've so much capacity to deal with stress and when we're dieting, that capacity is diminished.

But this isn't global. Say a woman has 50 lbs to lose and she wants to compete in an endurance race. Well in her case, losing weight will improve her performance.

But if you're relatively small already, chances are good that you can run into problems.

And here's the real moral of the story. Pay attention to energy availability. What we'll see more often than not is someone in your shoes will pick a calorie intake without factoring in the fact that they're doing more than the average exerciser. They're not training for fat loss. They're logging lots of volume to train for their event. And that's fine if they don't mind the potential hit to performance that a calorie deficit can have. But they still need to tailor their calories to the high workload. Where 10-12 calories per pound may be a good deficit for the typical fat loss person, the marathoner might want to stick with 12-14 cal/lb (pulling those numbers out of my *kitten*).

The point being, you can't drive energy availability into the ground and expect a lot of good to come of it.

It's interesting what you say about stresses on the body. At the moment I'm seeing a physio regularly about my glutes not firing properly,

Common among people in your category. Tight hip flexors lead to something known as reciprocal inhibition. Namely, muscle group opposite the overactive or tight muscle will become weakened. Which is why with tight flexors you get weakness in the glutes. This can, in turn, cause hamstring and low back issues as they takeover the extension duties for the weakened glutes.

Add to that, three weeks ago my city was rocked by a massive earthquake, meaning life has kind of been turned upside down dramatically. It means also, that my gym, although hardly affected, is in a no-go zone, possibly for up to 8 months, so I don't have access to weights any more. Any suggestions on what I should do here? I know I need to be keeping up some strength training.

That depends if you've any sort of equipment at home.

I'd really appreciate any advice.
[/quote]

stroutman81

Hi Stroutman, I was wondering if I could ask you another question? Calorie related this time

So I've been maintaining these past few weeks, gradually increasing my calories from BMR (1350) to 1500 where I am now (50 calories a week). I've started a new job which involved 5.30am starts and being pretty busy in the day (care work) so the amount I've been exercising has gone down from 5-7 times a week (burning 350-500 calories) to 2-3 times a week (burning 350-450) with 1 hour of walking to work 4 times a week. I've been trying to increase my strength training in the way you suggested, so it's been lots of compound exercises - inverted rows, pushups, lunges etc, rather than exercises like bicep curls.

My problem is is that I'm pretty sure I'm gaining weight! It's definitely not muscle mass - I haven't been exercising enough for that, plus I can see the weight on me. My weight does fluctuate quite a lot but I haven't seen that 120 on the scale for a while now and instead it's been between 122 and 124. What's going on??

Way too many confounding variables to say:

new job
some bad days calorically speaking
new to true strength training which can lead to muscle gain easily in the novice
working on increasing calories which means it should be expected that you see some upticks in the scale

On and on it goes. Who's to say what's really happening. But I wouldn't be worrying about it if I were you.

There are 3500 calories in 1 lb of fat. That means to gain 1 lb of fat, hypothetically speaking, you'd need to be eating 3500 calories above and beyond what your body needs for maintenance. Say you "gained" 4 lbs. Do you think you really ate 14000 calories above and beyond what your body needs since we last spoke?

I'm guessing the answer is no way.

To which I say, then who cares? This isn't about some weight. It's about how you look.

Now if you're saying you feel like you're getting softer and softer, it could very well be water from bumping calories up gradually. But I highly doubt you're packing on fat unless you're not telling us about some SERIOUS binges that equate to 14000 calories.

I'm being very honest with my logging, I've had some bad days but I've made up for them calorie-wise the following days. Surely my maintenance level can't be lower than 1500 (I'm only 22)?? I was planning to continue increasing to 1600-1700 like MFP suggests!

Not unless you've something going on metabolically speaking. I'd say, with your exercise, your maintenance is someplace around 1700 assuming everything's working as it should be. And if you were driving your body into the ground too far with insufficient calories before, it may take your metabolism a bit to "catch up" to where things should be, which is the point of systematically bumping calories up.

I was wondering if you could have a quick look through my diary for me? If you have any suggestions they would be much appreciated. I've been quite busy recently with quite a hefty change in routine (and therefore sleeping patterns) and I've come off the contraceptive pill (apparently it takes a few months for your periods to come back - they haven't yet... sorry if TMI!) but those are the only things I can think of that have changed. I don't know if they make a difference...

Even more confounding variables which makes it impossible to say, "this is the problem."

And sorry, but I don't look at food diaries. I lay the foundation with nutrient recommendations and it's up to you (as in everyone) to fill in the foods.

backinthenines

Stroutman, just letting you know how I'm getting on from all the advice I've taken from the thread and received via the mails...

I could tell from my clothes that I was doing ok... but when I saw a thread on the forum recently where a girl had posted that she had lost 5lb, but when her PT did her body stats she lost it all from lean mass and her BF% was up my heart sank...

So today I had my body composition re-checked after doing it 6 weeks ago... and the good news is...

2.4% body fat lost
ALL my weight loss (of about 7lb) was from body fat
ZERO loss of lean mass
in fact despite eating at a calorie deficit I managed to gain a pound of muscle

:bigsmile:

Thank you Stroutman. :drinker:

JaneP2011

Brilliant thread - thank you!
Bookmarking to read in full :flowerforyou:

stroutman81

Stroutman, just letting you know how I'm getting on from all the advice I've taken from the thread and received via the mails...

I could tell from my clothes that I was doing ok... but when I saw a thread on the forum recently where a girl had posted that she had lost 5lb, but when her PT did her body stats she lost it all from lean mass and her BF% was up my heart sank...

So today I had my body composition re-checked after doing it 6 weeks ago... and the good news is...

2.4% body fat lost
ALL my weight loss (of about 7lb) was from body fat
ZERO loss of lean mass
in fact despite eating at a calorie deficit I managed to gain a pound of muscle

:bigsmile:

Thank you Stroutman. :drinker:

VERY happy for you! Be proud.

And spread the good word. Too many people are blindly chasing numbers on the scale without paying attention to the costs of the losses they're realizing.

stroutman81

Brilliant thread - thank you!
Bookmarking to read in full :flowerforyou:

Thanks Jane. I think you'll find that while the thread is long, it'll be well worth your time. Better than the crap you'll see on the shelves of B&N and the like... I promise you that.

When done, if you have any questions, let them fire.

EbonyGemstoneHealth

BUMP!

sweetsarahj

Hi Steve.

I have a question for you, and I am posting it here since I thought others may be interested too.

I have been lifting heavy weights for about 5 weeks now. I am definetly noticing improvements, such as being able to lift heavier weights and changes to how my clothes are fitting me. However, there are some exercises that I know I can lift heavier weights on. For example, on the leg press I am now up to 200 pounds. I've been able to press 200 lbs 10x for 5 sets for about 4 sessions over two weeks. I'm guessing that now it is time to increase the weight, and I'm tempted to jump up to 250. My aim is to be doing 5 sets of 5-6 reps. Is this too much of a jump? I'm feeling very confident in my form on this one, but I don't want to screw that up by increasing the weight too dramatically.

Also, i was wondering about muscle soreness after a workout. Sometimes I am sore, others times not. Is it true that if I am not sore then I didn't work out as hard? Or perhaps I just did a better job of stretching that day?

Thanks Steve!

Sarah

stroutman81

Hi Steve.

I have a question for you, and I am posting it here since I thought others may be interested too.

I have been lifting heavy weights for about 5 weeks now. I am definetly noticing improvements, such as being able to lift heavier weights and changes to how my clothes are fitting me. However, there are some exercises that I know I can lift heavier weights on. For example, on the leg press I am now up to 200 pounds. I've been able to press 200 lbs 10x for 5 sets for about 4 sessions over two weeks. I'm guessing that now it is time to increase the weight, and I'm tempted to jump up to 250. My aim is to be doing 5 sets of 5-6 reps. Is this too much of a jump? I'm feeling very confident in my form on this one, but I don't want to screw that up by increasing the weight too dramatically.

As a general rule of thumb with my clients, I like to keep a weight constant until they're able to complete every goal rep for every goal set of a workout for 2 straight sessions. And when that happens, I'll generally increase the weight by 5-10 lbs. Small exercises will be 5lb jumps while larger exercises will be 10 lb jumps.

But that's assuming the rep range is staying the same.

In this particular case you're obviously ready for an increase since you've been completing all sets and reps for 4 sessions now. However, you're also talking about decreasing the rep range you're training in. Lower reps per set means more weight can be used, logically. Just as higher reps mean you have to drop the weight used. That said, it's pretty hard to tell what would be the right jump in this case.

You could estimate it based on an estimated 1 rep max, but that's silly in my opinion.

What I would do is start with a 20 lb increase on the first set. If that's very easy, jump another 10 and keep doing this for each set until you find that sweet spot. Then, next session, start at that sweet spot.

The sweet spot, by the way, is a weight that allows you to complete all reps without failing. And failure means either true failure where you're unable to complete your final rep or technical failure which is a point where you can still lift the weight but form has deteriorated. We don't want failure. So the sweet spot is where you're able to complete the goal reps while leaving 1-2 good reps left in the tank.

Also, i was wondering about muscle soreness after a workout. Sometimes I am sore, others times not. Is it true that if I am not sore then I didn't work out as hard? Or perhaps I just did a better job of stretching that day?

To keep it short - muscle soreness is not an indicator of workout efficacy. Don't worry about it.

sweetsarahj

Great, thanks so much Steve!

cutmd

Bump! I also need help

I recently started getting into lifting heavier with lower reps on chest press, lat pulls, squats, etc for the last month or so. I recently went from a stabilization phase to one with even heavier work with supersets, Not sure if that had anything to do with my problem. I usually do circuit training 3x a week and like 45-60 min of cardio 5x a week.

My problem is I suddenly hit a wall. I just want to eat and lost my motivation to workout for the first time in a year. This has been going on for almost a week. I was spinning after my strength training the other day and was just too tired to go on. It was also hard to get my heart rate up, i tried taking an extra break day, loosening up my diet (I stopped doing IF for a while and started eating more), and doing less cardio. Now I'm retaining water and feel yucky. Could it be related to my diet, etc not being optimized for strength training? What should I do? I was doing great just before this happened...

stroutman81

Bump! I also need help

I recently started getting into lifting heavier with lower reps on chest press, lat pulls, squats, etc for the last month or so. I recently went from a stabilization phase to one with even heavier work with supersets, Not sure if that had anything to do with my problem. I usually do circuit training 3x a week and like 45-60 min of cardio 5x a week.

My problem is I suddenly hit a wall. I just want to eat and lost my motivation to workout for the first time in a year. This has been going on for almost a week. I was spinning after my strength training the other day and was just too tired to go on. It was also hard to get my heart rate up, i tried taking an extra break day, loosening up my diet (I stopped doing IF for a while and started eating more), and doing less cardio. Now I'm retaining water and feel yucky. Could it be related to my diet, etc not being optimized for strength training? What should I do? I was doing great just before this happened...

It's almost impossible to say. I doubt heavy strength training is the culprit. It might be the one thing that threw you over the threshold of "doing too much." You say you tried to work in recovery but maybe it wasn't enough for the workload, life, and calorie intake you're working with.

What are your current stats?

How many calories are you consuming?

How are you strength training, specifically?

Is your circuit training your strength training?

What do your cardio sessions consist of?

When's the last time you simply took a break from dieting and training and for how long? I'm not talking about rest days here.

backinthenines

If I think how much training has changed for me since last year...

Coming from an endurance cardio background I found it hard psychologically when I first started weight training, as it took time away from running, cycling etc. You have it in your head that you must do X-number of hours to maintain a certain level of fitness, burn calories etc. But my body was exhausted and I had become so hooked on carbs I stored fat like nobody's business despite hours of cardio each week. I needed loads of sleep just to feel vaguely normal and I had very little functional strength.

Now energy-wise, as well as in terms of biomechanics, I can't believe how well I'm feeling. I bounce out of bed in the morning, my joints feel much more stable (I'm hypermobile), I can't beliiieeeve how much belly fat I've lost whilst only doing a fraction of the cardio that I used to (4" off my waist), and I genuinely love being able to do stuff like press-ups on my toes etc... plus I feel I've become a stronger cyclist, my hip no longer aches after long runs and my shoulder no longer complains after long swims.

Hard weights rock! :smokin:

cutmd

Sorry, I missed your response! Pls see my answers below

It's almost impossible to say. I doubt heavy strength training is the culprit. It might be the one thing that threw you over the threshold of "doing too much." You say you tried to work in recovery but maybe it wasn't enough for the workload, life, and calorie intake you're working with.

What are your current stats? I'm 5'3" and about 120lbs (fluctuates). Supposedly 15% body fat by calipers but probably closer to 20. Resting heart rate 55. What else is included in stats,lol?

How many calories are you consuming? I was doing 1200 (cardio day) - 1700 (weight training day) zig zags, but fell off of counting recently. Up until a week ago was doing this with leangains 16hr intermittent fasting, but wasn't always getting my calories in

How are you strength training, specifically? I got a routine from a YouTube trainer :blushing: . For instance it's

Cable chest press 8-10 (I'm up to 45# now)
Alternating dumbbell chest press on stability ball 12-15 (at15#)

To controlled failure 90 sec break (usually jumprope), then repeat x3-4 sets

Vertical cable pull downs 8-10 (I'm up to 65#)
Supermans on stability ball 12-15

To controlled failure, 90 sec break, 3-4 sets

Squats with dumbbell 8-10 (i'm up to 35#)
Single leg bench bridge (12-15 each side)

90 sec break, 3-4 sets

Is your circuit training your strength training?
It was, or p90x or no more trouble zones. Now I do the above or a similar routine 3x/week

What do your cardio sessions consist of?
Intervals on the elliptical 2min at hr 150s (75% mhr) 2 min at hr 170s (85-90% mhr) x 30minutes, or spinning avg hr 160s x30-60 min, or insanity (intervals 45-60min, hr to 180s, the rest, repeat), or occasionally I'll do varying inclines on the treadmill, avg hr 140s for something light.

When's the last time you simply took a break from dieting and training and for how long? I'm not talking about rest days here.
Yeah, I realized it's been a while shortly after writing my post to you. I took a dieting break (unintentionally!) around the Xmas holidays. i cant remember my last training break more than 2 days. did take 4 days off from dieting and 2 days off from training, felt good doing strength training NOT followed by cardio the day before yesterday and did insanity yesterday without issues.

So maybe i've been doing too much since my body loved that short break. It's hard to scale back cause I'm 2 lbs away from my goal weight and just want to lose another inch in my waist and hips. I feel like I'm so close and also don't want to lose strength or gain fat resting too long. What do you recommend?

Thanks

dailyorange

Great tips! Just replying to keep this in my topics

tobeinshapeagain

...same with me...bump

Ampierce

bump