Had a fitness assessment, feel even more confused

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  • srmchan
    srmchan Posts: 206 Member
    She said I should be doing heavy weights followed by about 20 minutes of interval cardio. I'm just so scared to do that.

    I do strength training (stuff like barbell squats, bench presses) 3x per week, high impact cardio 2x per week, and low impact cardio 3x per week. I'm eating 2,000-2,300 calories per day and the weight has been falling off since I've gotten more consistent with my workouts and nutrition. I do HIIT on days I'm not strength training so I'm in the gym 5-6x per week - but I could easily do the cardio on my bicycle and keep the gym visits down to 3x per week.

    I am working with a trainer once per week because I've never lifted until this year. I've been very frank in my feedback to "keep it simple" and not throw a bunch of different exercises at me and to help me focus primarily on strength training. We recently lowered my reps and raised the weights - and the weight loss as accelerated from about 1.25 lbs per week to ~2 lbs per week. The inches are falling off as well. We started in May, got into weights sometime in early June, and I'm already to the point where fat clothes are too loose to wear.

    Sam
  • mrbyte
    mrbyte Posts: 270 Member
    Your assessor wants to increase LBM. Higher LMB results in higher base rate allowing you to eat more and burn more while doing nothing. It's very sound advice.
    They've discovered that a pound of muscle only burns like 6 calories a day. Trying to add more while losing weight in order to increase your BMR isn't very realistic. But strength and maintaining what LBM you have are both good!

    I've lost 6% BF in 4 months while only losing 5 pounds. I started at 205 and now 200. It's possible. Just takes a very intense diet and routine. I'm beat up from it but I'm basically where I want to be so I'm maintaining now until my joints recover and I can start up with high intensity again in 2 months. I don't pretend to be typical.
    I have a feeling that it's harder for females, since we don't easily build muscle tissue.

    Eh, I lost just under 5% body fat in 6 weeks earlier in the year. Definitely possible

    but losing body fat isnt the same as building muscle

    Well, my weight stayed the same and I lsot 5% body fat...

    Very nice.
  • jeansuza
    jeansuza Posts: 148 Member
    If I were you, I'd do what the lady said but then, on the rest days, I would take a slow 30 min. or 60 min. walk. That should give you enough extra calories to eat and to make it sustainable. A real day of rest once a week where you challenge yourself to eat as much food as possible while still keeping at 1200 (lots of low cal.food) would be a good idea.

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