What Would Happen if Weight Training with a Calorie Deficit?

albayin

I am seriously curious. Say what would happen to a person if she's eating 1200 calories and doing weight training 2-3 times a week?

Thanks,

You would look hotter than ever. That's what would happen.

LOL, as long as I am not gaining inches..I am ok with being hot or not hot.

amyoliver85

I saw another person say they eat mostly clean...about 90%. I strive to do that as well.

I eat a lot of carrots and peppers. Florina peppers are my favorite food. I stuff them with chicken and homemade tomato brushetta and grill them. They're quite tasty. Sometimes I throw in a little feta cheese, but not much. Just enough to hold it together.

There's about 8 million ways to cook a carrot. My favorite is to saute in a little water in a pan, then add a little olive oil to coat (and we're talking less than a tablespoon to coat the whole pan of sliced carrots). Oh yeah, I slice them longways. Then I add a little Garam Masala.

I also love mashed potatoes but don't eat them a lot. When I do, I trade 3/4 quarters of the potatoes for parsnips. Then I add a little bit of fat free milk (about 1/4 cup to roughly 3 lbs of vegetables) and a little fresh parsley or basil. Yummy!

Bobby_Clerici

You'd work your muscles and minimize the loss of lean body mass which increases metabolism at rest.
Simple...
DO IT!

kajpen

I am seriously curious. Say what would happen to a person if she's eating 1200 calories and doing weight training 2-3 times a week?

Thanks,

I lift really heavy 3 x a week. I have lost almost 10 pounds (136 down to 126.6) and my body fat has dropped from 26.6% to 23% (and still dropping). I have not only maintained lifting the same weights as when I started, but have made gains in the amount of weight I can lift. I also do some form of cardio 6 days per week. But I mix up my cardio constantly with varying methods... High Intensity Cardio, Steady State Cardio, and HIIT Intervals.

I have lost inches all over my body and feel healthier than ever. One big caveat to this is that I eat as clean as possible 90% or more of the time. I allow myself one "free" meal per week that is usally something with sugar. Otherwise I am sugar free, other than natural sugar from fruits and vegetables. I am also celiac so can't eat gluten (bread, pasta, etc), but made the choice to avoid even the gluten free varieties of those foods. I try to eat as much natural based foods as possible and treat processed foods like the plague :-).

Hey, thank you for the details. Mind sharing how much you eat? and do you feel hungry?

If you add me as a friend you can see my diary log which shows everything I eat. I actually have a hard time getting in enough calories because I don't have any added "fillers" (breads, sweets, cereals, candy, etc). I'm still working on my macros, and the first thing I did was to change the defaults that MFP has on the macros.

It's hard to get a lot of calories from fresh vegetables, lean meats, and fruits.

Although, it takes a while to detox from all the processed foods when you stop eating them. The first two weeks were brutal. I was a cranky, tired, detoxing person who had to live with headaches and cravings. But I held firm and drank a ton of water with squeezed lemons (to help clean out my system). Once I got past that stage it got a LOT easier!! Now, even when I have my "free" meal each week, my tummy doesn't like me if I eat something with too much sugar.

To me, the eating is the hardest part to get right. And I see a lot of people say that there has to be a balance so that you can still enjoy the foods you love. BUT, what I've found is that the longer I eat clean, the more the foods I enjoy have changed from sugary, processed foods, to healthy, clean foods. :-) So I don't feel deprived at all. And the change in my overall fitness, health, mentality, clarity, etc is the perfect balance.

But, I will also say that this is an individual journey for each and every one of us. What works for me, won't work for someone else. But this definitely works for me! And I'm enjoying the heck out of my journey! lol

meshashesha2012

i lift on a deficit. i lift heavy 75-90% of my 1 RM, so 1200 calories isnt near enough to help my muscles recover. i tried it and i had DOMS far longer than needed. longer DOMS -= more time to recover = less time i'd get to spend lifting heavy = sad meshashesha. if i lifted further away from my 1 RM, i could get away with only 1200 calories a day.

right now what works best for me to lose fat and properly heal from my lifting session is to eat at like 10% below my TDEE. for me that's 1900-2100 calories