Trying to maintain but still tone and firm?

Mimiche

I finally lost 20 lbs~

It took me a year to do it but I'm completely happy it's gone. I'ma solid 106 lbs and thats a small enough number, and I don't want to lose anymore. But my next challenge is to maintain it, so I changed my goals in MFP to maintain and my calories shot up to 1600 (I was having a hard enough time getting to 1200 :noway: )

I don't want to lose anymore weight but I still want to firm up, in fact I will accept gaining weight if it means gaining muscle. I go to the gym and burn 400 calories on a cardio machine and then I spend some time doing resistance training and weights.
I eat healthy, but I'm having a hard time getting to my calorie goal, especially since I'm adding excersise calories.

I find myself snacking more, on fruit and veggis yes but also on crackers, cherrios and oatmeal and Danone Sillouhette 0 yogurt. And though I'm increasing my calories to match my reccommended level, I'm also increasing my fat grams more then I used to. Which concerns me since I'm trying to lose fat. I rarely ever went over 20 grams of fat before but now I'm going over daily and sometimes even more.

Should I excersise less in terms of calories like cardio and focus more on weight training, should I just snack on vegitables alll daaayyy lonnnggg and not gain the fat grams, or does that even matter? or should I go back to my 1200 calorie diet a day and same excersize since my body is used to it?
Kind of confused on the maintain level.. I still want to firm up my butt!!

Mimiche

I finally lost 20 lbs~

It took me a year to do it but I'm completely happy it's gone. I'ma solid 106 lbs and thats a small enough number, and I don't want to lose anymore. But my next challenge is to maintain it, so I changed my goals in MFP to maintain and my calories shot up to 1600 (I was having a hard enough time getting to 1200 :noway: )

I don't want to lose anymore weight but I still want to firm up, in fact I will accept gaining weight if it means gaining muscle. I go to the gym and burn 400 calories on a cardio machine and then I spend some time doing resistance training and weights.
I eat healthy, but I'm having a hard time getting to my calorie goal, especially since I'm adding excersise calories.

I find myself snacking more, on fruit and veggis yes but also on crackers, cherrios and oatmeal and Danone Sillouhette 0 yogurt. And though I'm increasing my calories to match my reccommended level, I'm also increasing my fat grams more then I used to. Which concerns me since I'm trying to lose fat. I rarely ever went over 20 grams of fat before but now I'm going over daily and sometimes even more.

Should I excersise less in terms of calories like cardio and focus more on weight training, should I just snack on vegitables alll daaayyy lonnnggg and not gain the fat grams, or does that even matter? or should I go back to my 1200 calorie diet a day and same excersize since my body is used to it?
Kind of confused on the maintain level.. I still want to firm up my butt!!

Renae_Nae

If your are having a hard time with calories...then yeah...I would decrease your cardio a little and focus more on the strength and weights, especially now that you are just wanting to firm up. Also you need some fat so I wouldn't worry about that to much as long as you aren't getting it from cookies and cake all the time.

Mimiche

Ok ill give that a try! Thanks

songbyrdsweet

20 g of fat?? Goodness.
Fat doesn't make you fat--and excess of calories does. Fat is vital to life--nerve function, cell membranes, and vitamin absorption. You shouldn't be eating less than 15% of your total calories from fat.

As far as gaining muscle--it's not going to happen if you're not eating enough. It's certainly not going to happen if you're living on 1200 calories of vegetables and eating dangerously low levels of fat. I'm not trying to be harsh, but it is actually hazardous to your health, and this website is about improving it. :flowerforyou:

If you want to change your body composition, you have to challenge your muscles. You can't pump a 5 lb weight for 10 minutes straight and expect anything to change. Your muscular endurance might improve, but that won't change the density or strength of your muscles. You need to work to form failure, meaning you can't perform another repetition with proper form. You can do this with higher reps, 12-15, or lower reps, 8-12; the point is that you choose a weight heavy enough to result in fatigue. Oh and SQUAT. If you want muscular change, you need to work your legs, because they are the largest muscle group in the body and will promote the release of the most hormones. Tons of biceps curls will do very little for the rest of your body, but squats and deadlifts will put you in a good place hormonally to add some muscle mass.

How you work your body is up to you, but start off with just 3 days of training. Do work your whole body within those three days. You can do three full-body days, or two upper and one lower, or push pull, or whatever you like. Rest between lifting days. Try to avoid a lot of cardio on leg day.

Check out exrx.net for exercises. Google 'hypertrophy plan' and you'll get a plan for adding some muscle.

Mimiche

Thanks Songbydrsweet!
This is why I post on MFP, I might sound stupid but the truth is I'm still learning. :blushing: I think I may have been crash dieting a bit- but I really want to do this healthy and make a life style change and not a diet.
And I never understood fat grams :noway: I know in large numbers they are not healthy, but we seem to fear them so much that I assumed they were bad. I know you need some fats, but I thought you could get them naturally though fruits and vegitables.So I never really worried about it unless I was getting what I thought was too much.
(I also never log olive oil on MFP, and that has plenty doesn't it?)

And I'll try working hard and fatiguing my muscles more! Thanks for the tips, excellent information!

songbyrdsweet

I can't think of any fruits or vegetables that have fat. Fruits and vegetables are starch and cellulose--forms of fiber and carbohydrates, respectively. You have to actively ingest fat from things that are fatty--nuts, eggs, dairy, meats, oils. Olive oil has about 14g of fat per 2 tbsp, and it's a great source of fat, but you should measure and log it just like you do everything else to make sure you're not getting too much or too little. Every macronutrient is important, and every one can make you gain fat if you eat too many calories overall, but no single macronutrient can cause fat gain on its own in a calorie-controlled diet. A gram of fat is just a measurement of mass of that nutrient. Each fat gram contains 9 calories; a calorie is a unit of measurement of energy. It just means that, if you were to light that fat gram on fire, it could raise the temperature of one kilogram of water by 9 degrees C. It is just potential energy, not potential fat.