Losing fat, not muscle?

monica_621

Hi! I am brand new to my fitness pal. I set my goal to losing two pounds a week.. trying to lose 15 pounds-ish but in reality I don't care about how much I weigh-- I just want to burn fat. I'm 19 but still have baby fat on my upper body that I really just need gone. I kickbox 3-4 times a week and try to do some sort of light exercise one day a week as well. If I follow the caloric defect principle with my kickboxing workout [burns ~500 calories].. will I be able to effectively lose fat as I gain more muscle from kickboxing? I also don't really have a problem with portion control and I am a very healthy eater. I just want to make sure that I'm not going to be losing muscle and getting soft! Any tips/advice/experiences would be a great help! :-)

P.S. I've noticed in the past that when I under eat my nails and hair get a lot weaker. I want to be sure that any caloric defect is not going to affect my health!

michellekicks

If you are at a healthy weight and want to lose fat, don't set your goal to 2 lbs/week. You should set it to 1/2 a pound weekly at most. I have trained for over 10 years in kickboxing... you need the calories for those workouts. You will lose muscle if you aim for a 1000 calorie daily deficit (from trying to lose 2 lbs weekly).

SezxyStef

If you are at a healthy weight and want to lose fat, don't set your goal to 2 lbs/week. You should set it to 1/2 a pound weekly at most. I have trained for over 10 years in kickboxing... you need the calories for those workouts. You will lose muscle if you aim for a 1000 calorie daily deficit (from trying to lose 2 lbs weekly).

Thisx2

I eat 1700 a day and lose 3/4lb a week on average...and I am 2x your age...trust me you need to eat food.

edited to add weekly average weight loss.

monica_621

Thanks so much. I haven't weighed myself in a while so I will have to do that ASAP. If I wasn't at a healthy weight, hypothetically, should I try to lose more than 1/2 a pound per week? I ask only because I have a lot of visible fat that I really would like to get rid of, most of it is in my stomach but I know that I will have to burn fat all over to lose it.

michellekicks

Thanks so much. I haven't weighed myself in a while so I will have to do that ASAP. If I wasn't at a healthy weight, hypothetically, should I try to lose more than 1/2 a pound per week? I ask only because I have a lot of visible fat that I really would like to get rid of, most of it is in my stomach but I know that I will have to burn fat all over to lose it.

I can see your profile pic. You are a healthy weight and probably a healthy body fat %. If you want to get absolutely shredded, the way to do that is not a bigger caloric deficit, it's lifting heavy weights. Keep your deficit small and your tracking exact.