Losing without gaining muscle

jaydubbayu

Here's the thing... I work for a living. I do HVAC maintenance and I use my muscles while working. I want to lose weight, but not do any weight training. Maybe on my legs just to gain strength, but mostly I just do cardio currently. My goal is to get down to 190 (currently 217), and then start to do weights to tone everything, basically. Is this unhealthy or inconsistent? Opinions, please!

doubglass

Cut 500 calories per day thru diet or exercise or a combo. Thats 4 beers or a couple of big gulp sodas. If you are a fast food junkie, as many of us were, all you may need to do is cut that out and pack a sensible lunch. Yes, you can lose w/o weights but cardio and weights help. I assume concentrating on lower body will make your job easier. Clearly losing weight will. Take the program and check calories for stuff you eat a lot--especially fast food and prepackaged prepared food. It will be pretty easy to determine what you need to eliminate.

jaydubbayu

Well, I've cut out fast food, pretty much. The pre-packaged stuff still exists in doses as well. Basically for now I'm doing Cardio only to lose weight. When I get down to goal weight, I'll work on tone and muscle. I mainly need weight off of my knee, is the main thing. If there's less weight on it, less pressure on it.

ninerbuff

It's almost impossible to gain significant muscle on a calorie deficit even if you do lift weights. If all you do is cardio for weight loss, you'll lose lean muscle along with it. Then you want to "tone" (not really a real fitness term) the muscle by lifting, which WILL bring your weight back up.
Why not just do it right the first time. Hit the weights along with cardio. You'll not only lose FAT more efficiently, but at the same time you can strengthen the muscle around that knee and help it get the pressure off of it.


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jaydubbayu

That's the kinda thought I guess I expected to hear. Makes sense.