New To Lifting Heavy

Mell00546

Hi All,

Hope everyone is having an amazing Tuesday!

I recently (Friday) just rejoined the gym world and started to lift heavy. I was swimming 5 days a week and running 1-2 days a week (no weight training). I did see changes in my body (lost 10lbs) but I am afraid of losing muscle in the process. I am reading NROL4W but have not started the workout routine from the book because I would like to read it first (hard to fit in reading time with work and school).

So for now I have started Jamie Eason's weight lifting program. However, I have not upped my calories. I was eating between 1700-1900 calories and the scale stopped moving for 3 weeks (before I started to lift heavy). So taking the advise from some MFP members I lowered my calories to 1300-1500 and the scale started moving again. But now I am lifting and am worried that this is not enough to see the muscle changes in my body that I am after. I still need to lose 40lbs so I am worried about taking in to many calories. My diary is open if anyone is interested (exscuse my weekend).

Also my TDEE is 2405 and my BMR is 1552
Age: 24 and my weight is 165
Workout 6 days a week/work at a desk during the day.

Thank you for your time and opinions

jackiecroberts

Glad you are getting into lifting!! It will give you a great shape...the only problem I have is toning down my cardio. It is hard to walk away from the treadmill etc when I have finished arms or legs on lifting days. Okay about your calories, you want to be at your TDEE if you want to stay at your current weight, or minus 15% which is 2044. So if you figured out your exercise correctly to get your TDEE then you should eat 2044 calories. I think of the food as fuel and your body needs it, especially on days that you lift. I am sure Lucia will give you her input, but I thought I would put in my two cents. Hope it helps:)

chrisb75

What kind of Macro's were you hitting? You should be eating 1924 calories a day for 1lb a week. If you were consuming a lot of fat AND a lot of carbs, that could have been the problem.

ANewLucia

You must eat at least your cut to fuel your body. Don't worry about the scale so much because of the heavy lifting, you will bounce a little...for me, there was a fat for muscle exchange going on so sometimes I didn't see any loss, but my clothes were fitting better and I was getting into smaller clothes. I now don't even think about the scale, but how I look and my bf. If I end up being 10lbs over what I thought I "NEEDED" my goal to be, but wear the size I want to be ultimately, then really who cares about the scale.

Mell00546

What kind of Macro's were you hitting? You should be eating 1924 calories a day for 1lb a week. If you were consuming a lot of fat AND a lot of carbs, that could have been the problem.

My Macros are set to 40% Carbs, 30% Protein, 30% Fat
I was going over here and there but nothing to crazy. I know I need to keep better track of my Macros.