Switching Things Up

TheRealParisLove

I've been on MFP for several months now, and appear to have achieved perfect maintenance. Last week, I began adding in more cardio. As a matter of fact, I biked 100.45 miles for the week. I feel sore, but I also feel tighter. I also eliminated some carbs like bread, but I think I may need to go deeper and eliminate breakfast cereal and really any carbs that are in anyway processed. Oh, and reduce sugar further.

Next week I will shoot for 100 grams of protein a day. I'm also scheduling 4 weight training sessions and 6 HIIT sessions for myself. I'm getting frustrated that the scale isn't moving. I want to see a 2 pound loss by this time next week. I also have a goal to keep my calorie consumption between 1400-1600 a day and not worry about eating back my exercise calories.

Today is my free day, where I have a calorie spike to prevent a dip in metabolism. I plan to eat around 2000 calories today.

I used to be able to just mildly exercise and add in a few extra servings of veggies and my weight would drop, but I suspect my age is against me now.

I am open to any and all suggestions. I suspect that I just need to put on some more muscle before I will see any real changes, though.

DanaDark

Weight training will definitely aid in fat loss.

Your diet should be around 25% protein.

Biggest concern I have for you is creating huge deficits in calories. Did you set up MFP manually or did you let MFP do it's thing?

I suggest letting MFP do all the calculations. After that, go back in and manually set macros for 20 to 30% protein.

From there, when you exercise, log those and eat them back.

If your deficit is quite large compared to your eating (So like eating 1500 a day while having a 1500 deficit for example, meaning you burned 3000 that day), can slow weight loss as it is very quick and makes the body start conserving whatever it can.

Wonderob

You definately won't put on any muscle on such a calorie deficit - absolutely no way.

Brilliant idea to do the weight training, it's essential that you keep the muscle you have already got - keep most of that and as the pounds fall it will give you the appearence of bigger muscles and more tone

Have to say though that all that weight training, all that HIIT, all that cardio .... and only 140 calories is a bad idea - burn-out soon in my opinion

If you want to put on muscle you will need a calorie surplus, which if you want to lose fat is not a good idea. You are at the stage where an awful lot of us are - lose fat, build muscle cannot be done simulataneously so here's your choice

1) Calorie deficit: Lose more fat and keep muscle you already have with weight training. Will look more muscley and fit

2) Calorie surplus: Build muscle, then go on a cutting stage after to get bigger muscles THEN lose the fat

You simply wont do both together but that doesnt matter at all as you will look much better