Tips on weight loss and muscle gain?

Sarauk2sf

To gain muscle you need to eat at a surplus, outside a couple of pounds of 'newbie gains' that new lifters get. You will gain fat and muscle (assuming an appropriate lifting routine and enough protein).

Are you really sure you want to gain muscle or do you just want to look more defined?

ninerbuff

I mix cardio in with strength training when I workout. You can gain muscle but you need the cardio to burn off the fat that will be over top of it

While "newbies" gains can happen in a person that's NEVER worked out in their life, muscle gain on a calorie deficit isn't probable unless you're really very overweight/obese, or an athlete returning after a long layoff.
People that "see" muscle when fat is reduced are mistakenly assuming they gained muscle when that's not the case.

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Huh that's weird since I've lost almost 40 lbs, never plateaued, eat the calories mfp says to eat, and have muscle that I didn't have before. Super JM fan here and she says strength and cardio circuit training burns fat while building muscle and that's what I've done believe it or not

Everyone has muscle. Unless you measured your actually muscle fiber in a particular area, you can't know if you gained muscle. It may "appear" you have because you've never seen it (40lbs is a good amount lost) under fat, but that doesn't mean you gained muscle. Not to mention that every weight loss (with the exception of a couple of "types" of individuals) will include lean muscle loss. Even with "enhanced" people.
Circuit training DOESN'T build muscle. It builds muscle endurance. To build muscle you need progressive overload, calorie surplus, and a rep range of about 8-12 reps. Jillian should know this, but I'm betting like all marketing ploys it's just a reference to sell more programs.

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ninerbuff

Ok......here is my question/scenario....

My husband is 6'4" and needs to lose atleast 30 pounds. Right now he is totally focusing on weight lifting. He is eating better only because I am cooking better for him. He is not keeping an eye on calories. I believe he is just attempting to build muscle. Will this in turn help him shed some pounds???

Calorie deficit is needed to lose weight. If he's in deficit, he'll lose some weight.

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ninerbuff

I have to disagree with some of these statements, while having a caloric deficit, it makes it difficult to build muscle, it is possible, muscle is built by resistance training and then using protein to help muscle regrowth. even with a caloric deficit you should be having the correct amount of low GI carbs mixed with protein before a training session to give you ample glycogen levels to train hard through the session, and then replacing the stores with high GI carbs and protein after a session, to help muscle repair and growth.

so it is possible.

Possible yes, probable in most cases no. The few that can do it (very overweight/obese, returning athlete after long layoff, newbie who has never exercised before) gain very modest amounts. To gain muscle IS to gain mass. That means gaining weight. You can recomp, but losing weight then isn't likely to happen.

A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
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Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

ninerbuff

To gain muscle you need to eat at a surplus, outside a couple of pounds of 'newbie gains' that new lifters get. You will gain fat and muscle (assuming an appropriate lifting routine and enough protein).

Are you really sure you want to gain muscle or do you just want to look more defined?

I will add to this that the training regimen will involve progressive weights in training. Sara, Sidesteel, and others know this too.

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Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

jessykab74

Thanls for the thread topic! I got a lot from it too!

~Jessica

JoanB5

To the person who said you can't build muscle on a deficit above, that's not exactly true.

If you have a BF greater than about 20%, your body can convert fat to muscle for energy. You have to lose the fat to ever see the muscle, which means some cardio and some muscle building are in order. Why I love circuit training. You get some lifting along with some cardio, and some ab work...this alone is what has made Jillian millions. Unless you want to do heavy lifting, then you have another equation on your hands. It's just not practical for me. I am lifting, but body weight, bands, and light weights for now.

Sarauk2sf

To the person who said you can't build muscle on a deficit above, that's not exactly true.

If you have a BF greater than about 20%, your body can convert fat to muscle for energy. You have to lose the fat to ever see the muscle, which means some cardio and some muscle building are in order. Why I love circuit training. You get some lifting along with some cardio, and some ab work...this alone is what has made Jillian millions. Unless you want to do heavy lifting, then you have another equation on your hands. It's just not practical for me. I am lifting, but body weight, bands, and light weights for now.

For women, that BF% would be much higher than 20%. In fact, in studies on women of 40% BF, they actually only maintained, but they were on very low calories. I have never seen any studies to indicate that women will build muscle at less than a significantly overweight/obese BF% - and 20% is far from overweight. The OP is not obese or significantly overweight based on the amount her ticker says she has to lose.