vertical feet and weight loss

babymamahowell

I have been doing our treadmill minimum 5 days per week, sometimes 7, Sunday I was on there for 50 minutes, 4 miles 700 calories and did 1100 vertical feet. My husband made the comment that doing that many vertical feet might actually be helping me build muscle as opposed to the ten or so pounds I would still like to loose. I am definitely not opposed to the toning and muscle building, but I want to be loosing first. Do I decrease my incline on the treadmill in order to help with this?

sarahrbraun

just keep going! I have been doing hill intervals on the treadmill for MONTHS, my weight loss has been slow...but I have seen BIG changes in my thighs Even though I am still 50lbs overweight, my thighs are pretty firm except a small area at the top of my inner thighs. I have hamstring definition ( back of thighs), and should have quad definition ( front of thighs) in the next few months.

this is the side of my thigh at the beginning of December

IMG00877-20121209-0835 (2) by crochetmom2010, on Flickr

this is the same leg the beginning of January

20130112_144909 by crochetmom2010, on Flickr

this isn't the best edit job, but this picture shows the change in the backs of my thighs in the same time period. In the first picture, I have some cellulite bumps towards the center...in the second picture it is gone, and you can see the curve of muscle on the left leg.

dec-jan hammy by crochetmom2010, on Flickr

waldo56

I have been doing our treadmill minimum 5 days per week, sometimes 7, Sunday I was on there for 50 minutes, 4 miles 700 calories and did 1100 vertical feet. My husband made the comment that doing that many vertical feet might actually be helping me build muscle as opposed to the ten or so pounds I would still like to loose. I am definitely not opposed to the toning and muscle building, but I want to be loosing first. Do I decrease my incline on the treadmill in order to help with this?

If you are in a calorie deficit trying to lose weight, you won't build any muscle at all. Muscle is only built in a calorie surplus. When losing some of your weight loss will be muscle, a process you should try to minimize as much as possible. The leaner you get the greater % of weight lost will be muscle, eventually the ratio of muscle to fat loss will reach a point where you will cease losing BF% as you lose weight; you might actually begin gaining BF% (welcoming you to the world of skinny fat).

This is why pretty much everyone that is lean that you see strength trains. It is almost physically impossible to get lean without strength training.

Strength training does not slow fat loss, quite the opposite. The goal for virtually everyone that is losing weight is not in fact losing weight, it is losing fat. Losing fat and losing weight do not mean the same thing, the leaner you get the more the meaning diverges.

The process of getting stronger and gaining muscle is very sloooowwwwwwwwww. An order of magnitude slower than "losing weight". When dieting to lose cardio is not necessary at all. Strength training is by far the most important thing you can do. It should not be thought of as a process you do after losing weight. Unless your diet is right for muscle gain, you will gain no muscle. And when losing weight, your diet is about as wrong as it could be for muscle gain.

nguk123

>>If you are in a calorie deficit trying to lose weight, you won't build any muscle at all. Muscle is only built in a calorie surplus.

I don't believe this to be true. Particularly not for beginners who have both never done muscle building work before, and who are overweight. However ,I would agree that in time it will come to be true, once the earliest muscle gains have been made, and when the bodyfat percentage has normalised, then it will become important to be in surplus for continued muscular development

waldo56

>>If you are in a calorie deficit trying to lose weight, you won't build any muscle at all. Muscle is only built in a calorie surplus.

I don't believe this to be true. Particularly not for beginners who have both never done muscle building work before, and who are overweight. However ,I would agree that in time it will come to be true, once the earliest muscle gains have been made, and when the bodyfat percentage has normalised, then it will become important to be in surplus for continued muscular development

Beginner gains are pretty much just your muscles charging the C-P energy system and glycogen energy system. This effect makes muscles hard, they get a little bigger, and you gain weight.

By any means of measurement you have gained muscle.

This is a transient non-permenent effect. Quit strength training and in a few weeks you'll pee away all this new muscle.

Real muscle gain is above and beyond this. It will remain even after you shed the excess energy systems if you quit strength training, and seem just like other untrained muscle (soft); your muscles will be bigger, but just as soft.

nguk123

I'm sure there is a lot of truth to what you say vis sarcoplasmic growth, but I have read sources which inform me that you may be underplaying the capacity of protein synthesis in overfat and understrained individuals who engage in strength training, based on advantageous insulin response.