cutting body fat but putting weight on. Am i doing something

neesham

Hi all, Over the last couple weeks i have lost 10lb. I train at the gym 4 times a week and managed to get my bf down to 13%. I weighed myself on friday and it said i have put 2 lb back on. Is it because of water retention or just building muscle. I am on a diet so average eating about between 1k - 1.3k cals a day

Anyone help

Jillk1023

bump

Naomi91

Its just water retention. take a lot longer to build muscle trust me haha especially on those low calories xD

amicklin

I severely doubt that on a 1,000 to 1,300 calorie diet you put on any muscle especially 2lbs of muscle. Muscle is soemthign that takes consistent and methodical work, in both diet and exercise to gain. Four weeks seems a bit low for a timeframe to have put on muscle

In essence, you are trying to get your body to gain muscel while in a deficit which is, at best, incredibly difficult. Your body needs an excess of nutrients, meeting its basic needs, additional metabolic needs and then will use calories to repair the muscle causing gains.

Congrats on being able to drop the bdy fat percentages!

cocoagyrl77

I have been using the BODPOD as my measurement because my weight is going up and down. It is a good test to see how much body fat that you have. My first test was 1/31/2011 and I tested again 4/15/2011. I dropped 10lb (overall) and 4% body fat. When I read the entire sheet, it said that I gained 2.4 lbs of muscle so, if it wasn't for the muscle gain, I would have lost 12.4lbs.

Oh, you might want to bump up your calories a little, you might not be getting enough to fuel your fat burn.

TurtlesRule

Muscle takes less space than fat but wieghs more and drink water like there's no tomorrow :happy:

brewingaz

I severely doubt that on a 1,000 to 1,300 calorie diet you put on any muscle especially 2lbs of muscle. Muscle is soemthign that takes consistent and methodical work, in both diet and exercise to gain. Four weeks seems a bit low for a timeframe to have put on muscle

In essence, you are trying to get your body to gain muscel while in a deficit which is, at best, incredibly difficult. Your body needs an excess of nutrients, meeting its basic needs, additional metabolic needs and then will use calories to repair the muscle causing gains.

Congrats on being able to drop the bdy fat percentages!

Agreed!

DaddyMantz

http://www.scoobysworkshop.com/caloriecalculator.htm

Above is a good calorie calculator. Without knowing your age or height, I roughly estimated that you should be eating about 2300 calories per day at your current weight and activity level to lose weight and retain as much muscle as possible. I imagine that you will be losing a lot of muscle at 1000-1300 calories per day.

I am 168 lbs, trying to gain fat-free muscle, and I eat 2900-3800 calories per day 5 days a week and about 2200 per day 2 days a week.

TTHdred

It’s hard to say without knowing what type of “training” you are doing at the gym. Is it cardiovascular or strength and are you doing one more than the other. How often are you weighing? Your body weigh fluctuates so be consistent with weigh-ins. As another poster said, your calorie intake is very low, especially for a guy. A person cannot add actual true muscle weight without being in a calorie excess. I agree with others that to increase muscle weight you’ll need to increase your calories, the right kind and have a strength and aerobic training balance for your age, height, body etc.

Good job so far btw