Lifting weights while losing weight

hesn92 · January 2014

I am losing weight now and I want to lift weights but I'm not sure if I should do strong lifts since I will be eating at a deficit... I used to lift weights a couple years ago but I was trying to maintain my weight so I could eat at maintenance or slightly more. (yes I gained my weight back don't judge me). any tips? Is there a better program to do while losing?

meshashesha2012 · January 2014

how big is your deficit and what is your priority.

2 years ago when i was first using MFP i lost around 30 pounds in 8 months and kept a fairly low deficit because i really wanted to work on strength gains. that worked pretty well in terms of being able to get through the workouts and recover and lose some fat in the process.

NOW my priority is to lose all the damn weight :laugh: so my calorie deficit is high enough that i should be losing 2 pounds a week. that combined with my other fitness goals means that i'm not eating enough to do 3 dedicated strength sessions per week AND train for 10Ks. based on the research i've done, in order to preserve muscle mass i should be fine with 1 dedicated strength building session a week. the other 2 resistance training days i do weighted complex style workouts with things like KB swings, KB snatches, assisted pullups, turkish get ups pushups and lat pulldowns.

so basically you can do a program like SL while losing, but how much time you invest in it might largely be determined with aggressive you are with your calorie deficit

4theking · January 2014

You want to lift fairly aggressively to maintain your muscle while you lose fat. Do whatever program you are comfortable with but lift as much weight as you comfortably can without losing proper form.