I heard that...

KJackson50

if a big guy (like myself) wanted to lose weight AND gain muscle, that it would be close to impossible to do both. I was told to lose the weight first then try to bulk up.

My issue is that I don't want to lose the muscle that I already have by just focusing on weight loss. My question is: Is there a way to at least maintain muscle while losing weight at a steady pace?

Lozze

It's impossible to not lose muscle. You will lose some while losing weight. The advice I've seen given most often on these boards (and the experts will come along and probably say it better than I can) is to lift weights and not eat at too high a deficit. You might be lucky enough to initially build some muscle but it won't be a lot. Good luck!

DesignGuy

I think about this all the time.

My take on it is that you do resistance training to help preserve what you have and for the extra health benefits (way beyond metabolism boosts). Sure, you're not going to buff up, but you won't end up a twig either.

I'm 278 right now and want to get to 200. I'm hitting the weights 3 times a week and cardio on those days plus 3 additional days.

BTW, make sure you're not going below your BMR in cals. If you take in too few calories, your body will eat up your lean muscle.

jckranz

Joyce Vedral presents good workouts that promise to help build or maintain muscle while helping to lose weight. While they might seem to be geared specifically to women, the workouts themselves are unisex and provide a solid foundation for anyone.

When I get to a place where I can take time for myself and do the workouts like I should be, she's the one I'm going with.

jfaure23

I agree. The best thing you could do is watch your calories (be sure you are getting enough and yet not too much) and also incorporate some weight-lifting into your weekly plan. 1 - 3 times per week is sufficient, but gaining muscle will help you to lose weight going forward, so if you don't lose initially, just think of the muscle you are building to help you lose the weight you want to lose.

Have you thought about looking at body fat percent as a guide for your success? ie. calculate your current body fat percent and what you want your BF% to be. You may not see scale loss at the beginning, but inches lost can be very motivating.

shadowkitty22

Well I've always been told that muscle helps to burn calories, so therefore it only makes sense (to me at least) that you should still work on lifting weights to help maintain your current muscles and help build on them to help you burn your weight off faster. Of course I could be totally wrong but it's what I've been doing for the past 3.5 months and it seems to work out alright for me.

Sidesteal

Great question.

Eat at a slight/moderate calorie deficit. 20% under TDEE is a good starting point but larger folks can go a bit more.
Lift weights, this is critical for retaining muscle mass.
Consume adequate protein. 1g/lb lean mass is a general minimum.
Get rest.

As far as gaining lean mass on a deficit. It's not likely but it's possible, just in small amounts and additionally, this only tends to happen in new trainees and overweight people (or people returning after a long layoff).

KJackson50

How do you calculate body fat percentage?

Lost_Mermaid

Dont quote me on this cause im definetely not an expert, but what ive gathered from paying attention to other posts on here is that if you lift heavy and eat somewhere between your bmr and tdee that you can avoid losing a lot of the lean body mass that you already have while losing weight that is mostly body fat, but you wont be able to actually build muscle/ bulk up while in a deficit to lose weight

jrmav

To preserve as much muscle as possible, kerp your calories as high as possible, but so you are still losing around 2 lbs a week. Then as your weight loss slows down drop a couple hundred more calories and stay there until you stop losing then drop another couple hundred and so on. Also throw some cardio in there and increase that as you go as well. This is exactly what i do and works well for me.

Sarauk2sf

How do you calculate body fat percentage?

There are a bunch of ways to calculate your body fat%, unfortunately they are either a bit expensive and/ot not very accurate. See link for a good explanation: http://exercise.about.com/cs/weightloss/a/bodyfat.htm

The easiest way is to use the military body fat calculator in the attached link - at least it will give you a decent gauge how you are doing over time:

http://www.fat2fitradio.com/tools/mbf/