Losing weight and muscle

brandwylie

I weight 275 and have a good muscular frame. I do have the beer belly though. I want to get down to 235 or so. Im not interested in getting any bigger muscles but want to lose weight. How should i be working out and eating? I do cardio 45 minimum 6 days a week. I also workout 5 days a week for an hour. Im told i should build muscle cause it will help get rid of fat but i feel im muscular enough.

ILiftHeavyAcrylics

bumping this for you-- sorry, I don't have an answer

tannerjared

i am by no means an expert but i would recommend doing some strength training. Just use a little bit less weight and shoot for 12-15 reps. that should help to tone the muscle you have. It will increase muscle but not nearly as much as if you stayed in the 6-10 rep range.

ItsLessOfMe

From my understanding you have to lift weights to keep the muscle you already have. Not sure if you could build a whole lot of muscle with a calorie deficit but I could be wrong

Whats wrong with loosing muscle? Muscle burns fat...You dont want to have less muscle...

CaseRat

Basically, you need to work out your BMR - Myfitness pal can help you out with that!
When you've got that, and I'm gonna guess it's around 2,500-2700 calories, deduct 400-500 calories per day.

With your food intake, you NEED to make sure you're eating enough protein, minimise the fat and still have a steady intake of carbs. I've heard a lot of different equations to do with protein/carbs/fat percentage intakes, but I've found the best to lose weight (sorry - but you're going to lose a little bit of muscle - it's almost inevitable) is with a 40/40/20 split. That's a diet of 40% protein, 40% carbs and 20% fat.

Doing weights seems to be the best way to lose that fat IF you're eating correctly, however cardio also works. HIIT (that's High Intensity Interval Training) has had many raving reviews as the best form of cardio exercise to lose fat. You'll be able to find workout plans on the internet for HIIT cardio sessions pretty easily.

Over the past few months I'd lose a steady 500-750grams per week doing 5 weights sessions a week, each lasting 45 minutes to an hour long. So I'd recommend doing weights if you have access to them, and mix in a bit of cardio either in the morning when you wake up or straight after your weights session.

However when I first started using this about 18 months ago, I went about it a bit wrongly, simply ate 1500 calories/day and did upwards of 90 minutes of cardio each day. Sure, it lost me 13kg's in 10 weeks, but a lot of that was muscle mass.

Doing weights and eating correctly, you'll end up losing the fat and keeping most of your muscle, possibly even building some muscle if you're doing your training sessions correctly.

Gt3ch

Pretty much everybody here is looking for the same as you. We want to loose fat but not muscle. Just follow the standard program of caloric restriction. Add cardio and strength training, and make sure you get enough lean protein.

Unfortunately you will notice that as you drop the lbs you will appear less big all over. It may look like you lost muscle. It's more likely that you just weren't as muscular as you thought- the fat exaggerated the appearance of muscle. Completely normal. Don't freak out when it happens. The only way to know for sure if you've lost or gained muscle mass is body composition testing.

brandwylie

Its not that i mind losing some muscle i just dont want to put none on. Feel like my body is changing for the good but want to be around 235 not 270 and cut

jacksonpt

Keep lifting, and keep your protein high. This will help you burn a higher percentage of fat while retaining a greater percentage of muscle.

You will likely have a very hard time building muscle if you are on a deficit, so don't worry about getting more muscular.

Gt3ch

Honestly it isn't trivial to get muscular hypertrophy that is bulky. It requires a very special, targeted, intense workout and diet regime and the right hormonal levels. I don't think you should worry about getting bulky unless you are powerlifting right now, and planning to move to 2 hours a day and spiking your diet. It's more likely that you will shrink IMHO- even with upping strength training.

I don't know how tall you are but if you were, say 6'6" and 235 that would put you at a BMI of 27.2. In my mind at least that wouldn't make you cut unless you are on a very specific, very extreme program. You'd still likely need to loose lbs and inches to be cut.

People overstate the metabolic role of adding muscle. It's thought to be only about 15-30cal/lb each day. Furthermore it's very possible, even more desirable, to pack strength into the same muscle mass. Since I lost the last 20 lbs my chest is significantly smaller but my lean body mass is essentially the same. My old shirts swim on me. At the same time I now bench 5x more weight comfortably.

I'd follow the typical advice and see if you can get periodic, reliable body composition testing to ease your mind. Just my $0.02.