Need Help, never been on a muscle building regimen

kikkipoo

I've spent my whole life overweight, so the gym is relatively new to me. My fitness level is shot. I lost most of my weight from a restricted diet, and now this last month I have lost 15 pounds through calorie deficit and quite a bit of cardio. I had a consultation with a personal trainer yesterday though and she told me I am approaching it the wrong way. I have a specific goal I want to obtain, 140 lbs. at 20% bf%. I'm currently 155 at 29.5% bf%. When I started I was at 31.5% bf%.

Doing the math based on the 15 pounds I have lost:

170 X 31.5%= 53.5 pounds of fat (before)
155 X 29.5%= 45.7 pounds of fat (now)

That means of the 15 pounds I have lost on the scale this month 7.8 pounds came from fat but the other 7.2 pounds came from MUSCLE loss.

I'm being counterproductive. The less muscle I have, the fewer calories from fat I will burn, the more muscle I will lose, so forth and so on.

She told me as I stand now I need to gain about 10 pounds of muscle, and lose 25 pounds of fat to reach my goal, so that I need to cut out cardio (limit to warm-ups only) and start a strength training program. And then that 10 pounds of muscle gained will automatically burn an additional pound of fat per week naturally. Okay, so other than walking me through about 15 mins of floor and ball exercises, I have no clue where to begin. I have only known one way to do this my entire life and the rules have just changed 180 degrees overnight. Eat more, exercise less, lift weights. HUH? Seriously? But how? And what do I eat? I'm already at a 40/40/20 carb to protein to fat distribution which is what she said she would have recommended, but what do I do now? What should my diet and workouts look like? I don't want to get heavier. I still have 25 pounds of fat to somehow manage to lose in the mix. And, no, hiring the trainer isn't an option. I'm on a pretty tight budget as is.

Any advice and great sources would be much appreciated!

Kristen

sjohnny

I can't really help but I wanted to thank you for saying "regimen" instead of regime or regiment.

kikkipoo

I can't really help but I wanted to thank you for saying "regimen" instead of regime or regiment.

LOL....Thank you. In all that time being fat, I tried to compensate by getting smart. :laugh:

ninerbuff

I've spent my whole life overweight, so the gym is relatively new to me. My fitness level is shot. I lost most of my weight from a restricted diet, and now this last month I have lost 15 pounds through calorie deficit and quite a bit of cardio. I had a consultation with a personal trainer yesterday though and she told me I am approaching it the wrong way. I have a specific goal I want to obtain, 140 lbs. at 20% bf%. I'm currently 155 at 29.5% bf%. When I started I was at 31.5% bf%.

Doing the math based on the 15 pounds I have lost:

170 X 31.5%= 53.5 pounds of fat (before)
155 X 29.5%= 45.7 pounds of fat (now)

That means of the 15 pounds I have lost on the scale this month 7.8 pounds came from fat but the other 7.2 pounds came from MUSCLE loss.

I'm being counterproductive. The less muscle I have, the fewer calories from fat I will burn, the more muscle I will lose, so forth and so on.

She told me as I stand now I need to gain about 10 pounds of muscle, and lose 25 pounds of fat to reach my goal, so that I need to cut out cardio (limit to warm-ups only) and start a strength training program. And then that 10 pounds of muscle gained will automatically burn an additional pound of fat per week naturally. Okay, so other than walking me through about 15 mins of floor and ball exercises, I have no clue where to begin. I have only known one way to do this my entire life and the rules have just changed 180 degrees overnight. Eat more, exercise less, lift weights. HUH? Seriously? But how? And what do I eat? I'm already at a 40/40/20 carb to protein to fat distribution which is what she said she would have recommended, but what do I do now? What should my diet and workouts look like? I don't want to get heavier. I still have 25 pounds of fat to somehow manage to lose in the mix. And, no, hiring the trainer isn't an option. I'm on a pretty tight budget as is.

Any advice and great sources would be much appreciated!

Kristen

If you are on calorie deficit, the chance of building muscle are improbable. Even if your nutrition was spot on, it would be very difficult. You may gain a little amount if you've never lifted weights before, but again it's not going to be up to 10lbs.
If your trainer doesn't know that, then they aren't that well versed in physiology.
You can retain what you still have and boost your metabolic rate by doing it though. So I do encourage you to lift.






A.C.E. Certified Personal Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

elizabethblake

I've spent my whole life overweight, so the gym is relatively new to me. My fitness level is shot. I lost most of my weight from a restricted diet, and now this last month I have lost 15 pounds through calorie deficit and quite a bit of cardio. I had a consultation with a personal trainer yesterday though and she told me I am approaching it the wrong way. I have a specific goal I want to obtain, 140 lbs. at 20% bf%. I'm currently 155 at 29.5% bf%. When I started I was at 31.5% bf%.

Doing the math based on the 15 pounds I have lost:

170 X 31.5%= 53.5 pounds of fat (before)
155 X 29.5%= 45.7 pounds of fat (now)

That means of the 15 pounds I have lost on the scale this month 7.8 pounds came from fat but the other 7.2 pounds came from MUSCLE loss.

I'm being counterproductive. The less muscle I have, the fewer calories from fat I will burn, the more muscle I will lose, so forth and so on.

She told me as I stand now I need to gain about 10 pounds of muscle, and lose 25 pounds of fat to reach my goal, so that I need to cut out cardio (limit to warm-ups only) and start a strength training program. And then that 10 pounds of muscle gained will automatically burn an additional pound of fat per week naturally. Okay, so other than walking me through about 15 mins of floor and ball exercises, I have no clue where to begin. I have only known one way to do this my entire life and the rules have just changed 180 degrees overnight. Eat more, exercise less, lift weights. HUH? Seriously? But how? And what do I eat? I'm already at a 40/40/20 carb to protein to fat distribution which is what she said she would have recommended, but what do I do now? What should my diet and workouts look like? I don't want to get heavier. I still have 25 pounds of fat to somehow manage to lose in the mix. And, no, hiring the trainer isn't an option. I'm on a pretty tight budget as is.

Any advice and great sources would be much appreciated!

Kristen

I'd start with a program like that outlined in New Rules of Lifting for Women (we have a very active group!) or Starting Strength. I'm doing NROLFW and have lost fat while preserving muscle, which is what it sounds like you want. Ninerbuff is right though - you won't gain muscle while in a calorie deficit, but you can improve your strength and body composition. I highly recommend any of Lyle McDonald's articles on body recomposition - http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/adding-muscle-while-losing-fat-qa.html.

eta - friend me if you want, and check out our NROLFW group - lots of people at varying stages of the program there.

kikkipoo

If you are on calorie deficit, the chance of building muscle are improbable. Even if your nutrition was spot on, it would be very difficult. You may gain a little amount if you've never lifted weights before, but again it's not going to be up to 10lbs.
If your trainer doesn't know that, then they aren't that well versed in physiology.
You can retain what you still have and boost your metabolic rate by doing it though. So I do encourage you to lift.


A.C.E. Certified Personal Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

I doubt that it's that she didn't know what advice to give me as much as there is only so much you can shove into a free 30 minute fitness evaluation/consulation. I had a lot of questions, but their time is money and I don't plan on taking out a training package just to ask them.

If I may, since you yourself are a trainer. Would you encourage me to get to goal weight and then worry about lifting, or start now and leave the fat alone for now? I don't know if it's possible to do both at the same time, but if so, I'd sure like to know how. I have already started strength training some, so perhaps I can at minimum maintain my current lean body mass while losing the fat???

kikkipoo

Bump

ninerbuff

I doubt that it's that she didn't know what advice to give me as much as there is only so much you can shove into a free 30 minute fitness evaluation/consulation. I had a lot of questions, but their time is money and I don't plan on taking out a training package just to ask them.

If I may, since you yourself are a trainer. Would you encourage me to get to goal weight and then worry about lifting, or start now and leave the fat alone for now? I don't know if it's possible to do both at the same time, but if so, I'd sure like to know how. I have already started strength training some, so perhaps I can at minimum maintain my current lean body mass while losing the fat???

Many people think they've gained muscle when the fat starts disappearing and definition starts to show. If your intent is for muscle to show, then stay on calorie deficit and lift heavy and hard to retain what you have and increase strength. The fat will come off and muscle will be more defined. If your intention is to gain muscle, then you'll probably want to eat as clean as possible in calorie surplus to minimize the amount of fat you put on.
Again this will depend on what you think you want to do right now.