(muscles?) Am I doing something wrong?

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  • harriethayes
    harriethayes Posts: 25 Member
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    If you feel you've got a way to go, separate cycles are probably more appropriate.
    If you want to lose a chunk of weight, start with that.

    What would be a good cycle to reduce fat first then? At the moment im looking at about 1600cals with 122g protein, 164g carbs, 54g fat and 30-38g fibre (which I seriously can't seem to get!!!)
    Would this be okay for stripping fat? Does that sound about right? /:
  • geebusuk
    geebusuk Posts: 3,348 Member
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    I would decide on a figure you're looking to lose a week and base it around that.
    What you write seems reasonable.

    I managed to sustain a 2lb a week average deficit for 4 months down to my current picture with not much muscle/strength loss - still a bit more fat loss to go at a later point.
    However, the lower body fat perecentage, the more likely your body will start to burn muscle on a high deficit and many may find themselves losing a fair bit of muscle/strength.

    I would look to the scales to work out if you're on track - I use the 'libra' android app which gives you a 'trend' taking out indivdual daily fluctuations - I weigh every day so it's got plenty of data.
    The displays your deficit in calories too, which is useful.
    You can then adjust what you're eating to aim for sustaining that sort of deficit. At 2lb / week I was trying to make sure it didn't get too far over that and not being worried if it went under. If I was at 1lb/week, I'd be less worried about having periods where it was higher than that.

    Personally, I'm not bothered by fibre too much. I looked in to the benefits of fibre and decided that overall it didn't really bother me having less. Fibre does have the 'benefit', however, that it prevents some other food from being absorbed - this may or may not be a good thing, but should mean you can eat more.

    I don't get massively worried on carbs/fat when on a deficit, providing I have some fat (rarely a problem for me!) You shouldn't be storing fat, so it's more a case of making sure you've got enough for your body's hormones to work ok and that you're not going hungry (100 calories of full fat cheese isn't nearly as filling as 100 calories of potato for me, for instance.)
  • lknjohnson
    lknjohnson Posts: 351 Member
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    Bump... Good info!
  • lknjohnson
    lknjohnson Posts: 351 Member
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    If you want to lose fat AND gain muscle it's called "body recomposition".
    While it may sound idea, it's generally considered to be slower than doing each indivdually.
    So it's more suited to people that are pretty happy with their bodies and want to maintain their current composition while tweaking it.

    If you feel you've got a way to go, separate cycles are probably more appropriate.
    If you want to lose a chunk of weight, start with that.

    To keep muscle mass while losing weight:
    Do a weights routine like starting strength or stronglifts.
    Eat at least 1g protein per lb of lbm. Or go for 0.8g/lb of current total body weight - having more doesn't really cause problems.


    I needed this info! lol

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