Disect my diary: Eating under hindering gaining muscle!???

IveLanded

I think I'm plateauing again and contemplating a calorie increase to bump it.

I hit a plateau in July and I increased calories and changed up my work outs to break out of it. My work outs are more geared towards weights and resistance, but admittedly still cardio heavy. I like running, I love the elliptical.

I'm wondering if I need to cut back? increase?

And I had a thought.......what if you start building muscle but don't eat enough calories? Will that reverse your progress? Can you inhibit muscle development by not eating enough?!!??

I know I need to tighten up my diet, open to suggestions if anyone wants to be nit picky. I'm thinking of a bump up to about 17-1800 calories and I changed my percentages today to a 30% protein, 45% carbs, 15% fat.

Acg67

I think I'm plateauing again and contemplating a calorie increase to bump it.

I hit a plateau in July and I increased calories and changed up my work outs to break out of it. My work outs are more geared towards weights and resistance, but admittedly still cardio heavy. I like running, I love the elliptical.

I'm wondering if I need to cut back? increase?

And I had a thought.......what if you start building muscle but don't eat enough calories? Will that reverse your progress? Can you inhibit muscle development by not eating enough?!!??

I know I need to tighten up my diet, open to suggestions if anyone wants to be nit picky. I'm thinking of a bump up to about 17-1800 calories and I changed my percentages today to a 30% protein, 45% carbs, 15% fat.

Besides the slight gains you can get if you are obese, new to lifting, coming back to lifting off a long layoff or using steroids, you need to be in a surplus to build muscle

dinosnopro

IMO if you are looking to build muscle I would try to decrease your cardio, or like you already stated eat more.

IveLanded

Well, either way if I'm being honest, I want to build muscle because it's a vehicle to burn fat. I do want to look toned and have muscle definition, but not be a body builder.

wellbert

not be a body builder.

You should avoid taking hormones/steroids then, and you will be fine.

Eat more to build muscle. Bulk/Cut exists for a reason. You can try leangains. Google it.

AlsDonkBoxSquat

Don't worry, you won't accidentally end up looking like Jamie Eason. I work hard at strength training and can't purposefully look like her.

AllTehBeers

I'm not sure what you're wanting to accomplish. Do you just want to break out of a plateau, build muscle or drop more weight? To build muscle, you have to eat excess calories. How much do you have to lose? If you're in that "last 10 pounds" range, maybe you chould look into recomposition or bulk/cut cycling and focus on adding more lifting to your plan.

Polly758

As long as you're not in a deficit, you can build some muscle. A surplus is best.

If we know your height and weight we can better advise your calorie intake.

Side note: have you considered Tabata interval training?

AllTehBeers

not be a body builder.

You should avoid taking hormones/steroids then, and you will be fine.

Eat more to build muscle. Bulk/Cut exists for a reason. You can try leangains. Google it.

That. For the most part, unless you're taking roids, a woman can only build a few pounds of muscle a year. Maybe.

vytamindi

Don't worry, you won't accidentally end up looking like Jamie Eason. I work hard at strength training and can't purposefully look like her.

Oh man, I wish that COULD happen!

*bump* to read later

mustgetmuscles1

What the others have said is true. You need to eat in a surplus to add muscle and do strength training. If you want to lose body fat and retain muscle you need to eat in a moderate calorie deficit and do strength training. Unfortunately it is not realistic to do both at the same time. There are a few exceptions to this but they are short lived opportunities and not really worth worrying about.

Either way you choose to go the muscle gains will be very slow and take a lot of work so you will not end up looking like a bodybuilder by accident.

Cr01502

I would say increase your calorie consumption 10-20% and cut back on the cardio. If you're like me and love cardio make it interval training or something like that 3 times a week.

Edit: Sorry, just looked at the past three days of your diary. I would up your protein intake. MFPs protein is set really low and your not meeting those. Ideally you want about 1 gram of protein per pound of lean body mass. Maybe even more if your goal is to gain muscle.

brjustice2000

I plateau over and over. Losing lbs was easy at first but now it is very hard even when I have a 7000 plus calorie deficit for the week. Cardio is good for the heart but strength training can build muscle which burns fat.

Your question of cut back or increase is tough to answer because everyone's metabolism works a little different. Too few calories and your body will break down muscle and keep fat.

Your question about building muscle is the right question! If you build 10 lbs of muscle, each lb of muscle needs about 50 calories a day at rest just to exist or 50 calories x 10 lbs x 7 days = 3500 calories a week (equals a lb of tat) that the 10 lbs of muscle will need.

I looked at your food diary and not interested in being nit picky, just constructive suggestions. You are not eating the protein that you need because you had protein left over every day. You have to eat protein to build muscle. You can have a heavy for you weight lifting program and lose muscle because without the needed protein to repair the micro tears (how you grow muscle) you will lose muscle and may gain fat even with a calorie deficit.

My goal is to eat near or above my basic calorie need and achieve my calorie deficit with exercise. You don't have to become a body builder. You might consider investing in yourself by purchasing some time with a personal trainer. At the gym, I see many people who will not use a personal trainer doing weight training incorrectly - terrible form, too light weights, lack of knowledge on how to do sets, different progressions, etc. I made a friend who asked me to look at what he was doing. He did the same weight lifting routine every day - 1 set of 10 reps; he was not letting his muscles have recovery time. He wasn't building any muscle but damaging what he had.

Let's go back to the amount of protein you need. If you eat enough meat to get the protein, you may be getting too much cholesterol. If you focus on beans to get the protein you will probably eat too many carbs. I have to watch my carbs and blood sugar. I looked at many protein powders but found they had cholesterol. I finally found a protein powder without cholesterol, but it is only available at Sam's Club. The protein powder is Naturade and made for people over 50 with extra antioxidants and vitamins. I now can get in enough protein without having the extra cholesterol. I also work in several eggs a week because that is the best protein you can buy!

If you don't want to invest in a personal trainer, consider buying the Women's Health Big Book of Exercises, lots of pictures and diagrams to help you. You can also go to the website and get emails with videos of how to do exercises or just search the website for exercise videos. I have the the Men's Health Big Book of Exercises for me and the Women's version for my wife who hated to exercise because she would sweat. Now she is into exercise and has lost over 30 lbs and building some muscle.

How do you know if you are building muscle? We use a body fat loss monitor each week. If you multiply the body fat % times your weight what is left over is everything else (organs, bones, muscle). If you increase the weight of what is left over it is probably an increase in muscle. Strength training can also help increase bone density.

What is a good weight for you to lift? Start with light weights. Try 10 repetitions, if it was easy the weight was too light. Most people like to do 3 sets of 10 repetitions. Currently I'm doing progression sets of 8 reps, 6 reps, 4 reps, 2 reps and increase the weight at least 5 lbs on each set. If you were doing the bench press starting at 40 lbs, a progression set would be

8 reps at 40 6 reps at 45 4 reps at 50 2 reps at 55

At the next session of bench press, I try to increase 5 lbs on each set. You can do progressions in reverse starting with the heaviest weight.

The best weight exercises are Total Body which involve dumb bells or barbells. I recommend that a person start learning on the machines for safety reasons. An example would be bicep curls with a 5 lb dumb bell in each hand. You stand (forces your core to work to stabilize your balance) focus on correct form and you get a better workout than the bicep machine which does the balancing.

Always give your muscles a minimum of 48 hours of recovery time. I'm doing 3 workouts which cover the entire body over 3 days, a day of no heavy lifting, and then repeat. My muscles get a 4 day rest because what I do on Monday doesn't get repeated until Friday. You can repeat what you do on Monday on Wednesday if you want, but I'm trying to have fewer injuries and plateaus. I have had to back up and lift lighter weight when I admitted to myself that my form was bad.

There is so much more to all of this than just counting calories.

Best of luck in achieving your goals. Keep at and you will get there.

IveLanded

I don't know how to multi quote here so I'm gonna try to respond to all this as best I can:

1) Yes yes I know I'm not going to "accidently" look like a body builder and yest I know it takes a LOT of specific work to get there. Just wanted to be clear about my goals.

2) Hrrmm.....I would say my main goal is weight loss. I am in that "last 10lbs" of my GOAL, but I suppose there might possibly be more fat for me to lose. My body fat percentage is 22%. My goal is 19 or 20. I feel like I'll LIKELY look like I want at that body fat percentage, and thats more based on asking other folks I know.

3) Maybe my plan should be to lose the body fat I have and retain the muscle I have and once I get the fat off, work on the muscle definition? In that 22% body fat, I have a very obvious (at least to me) spare tire as well as a lot of excess fat on my thighs. So I know it's there to lose. Really..my first goal is to get that spare tire GONE and then make it a six pack. (i'd settle for a two pack, really...ha)

4) I started this whole thing with a personal trainer and nutritionist. I have access to them still.

5) I try to eat always in a deficit.......so I"m wondering then how that is impacting my work outs now??? Am I damaging myself my eating in a deficit but doing more weights???

kooltray87

bump

mmapags

Assuming a reasonable amount of mucle conditioning, muscle definition for a woman is determined by body fat %. To continue resistance training while in calorie deficit will help maintain lean muscle mass. Sounds like you don't really want to "gain muscle" at all in the sense of grow new muscle tissue and have larger muscles.

I don't get why you are concerned about "damaging yourself" while weight training in a deficit. The only "damage" would be loss of lean muscle mass by too large a deficit. What is you TDEE and what is your daily deficit?

yoovie

3) Maybe my plan should be to lose the body fat I have and retain the muscle I have and once I get the fat off, work on the muscle definition? In that 22% body fat, I have a very obvious (at least to me) spare tire as well as a lot of excess fat on my thighs. So I know it's there to lose. Really..my first goal is to get that spare tire GONE and then make it a six pack. (i'd settle for a two pack, really...ha)

hiiii i want to help with this part!!!

we are so used to thinking that we must do these little baby steps at a time, like were trained when we were much more overweight and it was a huge lifestyle change - running in and attacking everything at once was a recipe for being overwhelmed and failing... HOWEVER!

Now that we've come so far that we are within ten pounds of our goal- you dont need to do this, THEN this, and then THIS so you can do THIS.

What you CAN do is this:

tighten up your eating (which means - get smart about how many calories you are taking in and try to aim high on protein!) while going hard on building muscle which will do the two things you want to happen... simultaneously!!!

Build muscle by steadily increasing your weight training, plus doing circuit strength training (to use strength training AS cardio) and keeping up at least one good run each week- cause you love it and it keeps you sane.

Building your abs and your sleek girly arm curves and your defined pretty lady legs meant for heels WHILE you are slowing weight will cut that process in half.

If you try to whittle down to the right body fat percentage without building muscle, or try to lose the last ten pounds by focusing on cardio later, its going to be harder to switch into building - harder especially in that- you are waiting to start.

Dont wait to start. There is no reason to wait because this combination is magic.

In July and August I focused only on lifting with very little cardio except a short run here and there and my warmups - everything else was lifting and circuit training. I knocked off a whole percent of my bf and got two more inches off my waist.

Im where you are- 10 pounds away- and I cant bothered by that number when I know what Im doing to that defenseless fat!

DONT WAIT! LIFT WEIGHT!

IveLanded

In July and August I focused only on lifting with very little cardio except a short run here and there and my warmups - everything else was lifting and circuit training. I knocked off a whole percent of my bf and got two more inches off my waist.

Im where you are- 10 pounds away- and I cant bothered by that number when I know what Im doing to that defenseless fat!

DONT WAIT! LIFT WEIGHT!

I do LOVE circuit training.......it's what I MOSTLY do. What was your weekly routine like?

IveLanded

oh in in general I wanted to add that yes my diary looks below on protein.

I read a thread around here once that said the percentage was just UNDER 1 gram per lb of body fat, so I was guessing. I just finally went in and re did my "goal" numbers today, though, so in hindsite, now it makes my protein look under where, yesterday, my diary always looked like I was over. So anyways.....yes......working on higher protein diet for sure. Just was guessing about numbers, though, before.

letjog

Hi, I've had a look at your diary and personally I think you're eating too much fat Your calories are fine but you're eating 60g fat on some days!!

DopeItUp

Hi, I've had a look at your diary and personally I think you're eating too much fat Your calories are fine but you're eating 60g fat on some days!!

Why would that be a problem? 60g of fat is fine, not even a high number.

mustgetmuscles1

Hi, I've had a look at your diary and personally I think you're eating too much fat Your calories are fine but you're eating 60g fat on some days!!

Why would that be a problem? 60g of fat is fine, not even a high number.

^Yep. Thats a good amount. Good fat is good for you. : )

yoovie

Hi, I've had a look at your diary and personally I think you're eating too much fat Your calories are fine but you're eating 60g fat on some days!!

Why would that be a problem? 60g of fat is fine, not even a high number.

^ you need that! they are right!

my routine is non-existent right now. I am lifting once a week - twice if Im stressed out more than usual, running about 25 miles a week, and working in pilates or something similar in between for active rest days and usually nothing on fridays.

BUT Im about to switch to a gym down my street and then I want 4 lifting days (one of which would be bodyweight circuit style so it would count as a cardio day too) and 2 short runs and a long run. I mean a LONG run. Yesterday I did 13 for the first time in a very long time- id been stuck at 9 and just wanted that growling extra oomph.

But i think of it this way. If I could drive to my fitness goals, would I only put half a tank of fuel in my car, or enough to get me all the way there?

:drinker:

IveLanded

Hi, I've had a look at your diary and personally I think you're eating too much fat Your calories are fine but you're eating 60g fat on some days!!

Why would that be a problem? 60g of fat is fine, not even a high number.

^ you need that! they are right!

my routine is non-existent right now. I am lifting once a week - twice if Im stressed out more than usual, running about 25 miles a week, and working in pilates or something similar in between for active rest days and usually nothing on fridays.

BUT Im about to switch to a gym down my street and then I want 4 lifting days (one of which would be bodyweight circuit style so it would count as a cardio day too) and 2 short runs and a long run. I mean a LONG run. Yesterday I did 13 for the first time in a very long time- id been stuck at 9 and just wanted that growling extra oomph.

But i think of it this way. If I could drive to my fitness goals, would I only put half a tank of fuel in my car, or enough to get me all the way there?

:drinker:

I *try* to eat good fats........I cook only in evoo or coconut oil, etc.

When you go to the gym to lift, do you have a time goal? That's what I mainly do now........I will go in and say I'm going to play with weights for, say, 20 minutes. And just see what work I get done in that time. Or should I be going in with a certain amount of work to do in however long it takes to do it?

And, so you're saying........raise my calories, raise my weight training, keep in some cardio...???

DopeItUp

When you go to the gym to lift, do you have a time goal? That's what I mainly do now........I will go in and say I'm going to play with weights for, say, 20 minutes. And just see what work I get done in that time. Or should I be going in with a certain amount of work to do in however long it takes to do it?

Personally I do the latter. I have a specific amount of sets of specific exercises that I intend on doing, and I stay till they're done. Usually takes me 60-75mins. Having a plan leads to better progress, in my opinion.

mtlkate

Bump. Wow! That's a lot of useful information. Thanks for going into detail.

mustgetmuscles1

When you go to the gym to lift, do you have a time goal? That's what I mainly do now........I will go in and say I'm going to play with weights for, say, 20 minutes. And just see what work I get done in that time. Or should I be going in with a certain amount of work to do in however long it takes to do it?

It is going to depend on a few things. If 20-30 minutes is an intense workout for you then that is enough. I have a set routine that I try to finish. They usually take 45-60 minutes plus some cardio at the end. What you dont want to do is over stress your body.

Pick a proven program and stick to it. 5x5, New Rules for lifting and a few others get a lot of great reviews. Just going in and hitting a few machines with no plan is just spinning your wheels.

mmapags

When you go to the gym to lift, do you have a time goal? That's what I mainly do now........I will go in and say I'm going to play with weights for, say, 20 minutes. And just see what work I get done in that time. Or should I be going in with a certain amount of work to do in however long it takes to do it?

It is going to depend on a few things. If 20-30 minutes is an intense workout for you then that is enough. I have a set routine that I try to finish. They usually take 45-60 minutes plus some cardio at the end. What you dont want to do is over stress your body.

Pick a proven program and stick to it. 5x5, New Rules for lifting and a few others get a lot of great reviews. Just going in and hitting a few machines with no plan is just spinning your wheels.

Dead on advice here! I would suggest Starting Strength. The volume is a little less than 5x5 and it stiill is an easy to follow and uncomplicated program. But have a plan.

catpow2

Not enough protein--too many refined carbs. Eat whole wheat English muffins instead. I think I saw a blueberry muffin mix, chocolate stix, Trader Joe's tortilla. Don't eat that kind of stuff. Your diet's not bad but refined carbs and lack of protein is probably the biggest problem.

JenGranzow

From what I have seen of your diary, it doesn't look like you are doing strength training beyond whatever might be included under your circuit training entries. I highly encourage you to start lifting heavy, because it will really help change your shape and the development of lean muscle will help your metabolism.

radeema

bump