Confused: Lose weight THEN lift heavy? Or just start now?

Lupercalia

I started lifting heavy again when I weighed around 200 lbs back in October of this year. I'm down to 177 now. So the scale does move, but you can't expect it to move quickly or anything like it does if you're not lifting. Before I started lifting, I was easily losing a pound to two pounds per week, like clockwork. Since then it's not been so regular. The scale goes up and down and up, then maybe a few pounds down...it's strange how that works.

But more importantly, I've lost all sorts of inches and my body looks muscular and a lot different than it did as I was on my way UP (when I was gaining weight). So I'm cool....I'm trying to focus on strength/fitness goals instead of scale goals, and also lower my body fat %. That stuff is all more interesting to me than the number on the scale. If you need the scale to show you results every week in order to keep you motivated, lifting might not be the way to go about things at this point.

I do a couple of brief sprint sessions and two or three sessions of just vo2 max kettlebell training each week as well. That's my cardio.

CoderGal

My biggest regret about my whole weight loss is not starting strength training sooner. And I hated it to begin with. Do it. Do it yesterday.

And please throw the bulky myth out the window. Weight lifting does not make people bulky, a calorie surplus does. On a deficit, you're not going to gain mass. That doesn't make sense. And even if you were gaining muscle (which you're likely not, despite the strength gains, that's something different) you'd only be getting smaller everywhere since muscle is denser. Bottom line, if you're getting bigger muscles and increasing in girth, you're on a calorie surplus.

skeo

Thanks everyone for your input; and I've actually given up on the scale about 3 months ago, I literally locked it away in storage, I have a set of callipers and a body tape measure that I carry in my gym bag, as I noticed my clothes fitting better and I was getting stronger, the number on the scale no longer concerned me.

I've been weaning myself off of the cardio machines at the gym, maybe doing 10-20 minutes at the max before and after my work outs to warm up and cool down, and have been focusing more on lifting, like curls, squats, lunges, over head press, bench press..etc..and always doing the most weight that I can do, and always struggle at about 8-10 reps, I feel AMAZING afterwards, just haven't noticed a mass cut down on my body fat, which I can 120% chalk up to my diet, but I am fully aware of what my pit falls were and still are; so I am working diligently on cleaning that up. I just wanted to be sure that I am not doing this backwards. It actually makes me upset when I work with lighter weights, because I KNOW I CAN lift heavier, but am forcing myself not too.

so thank you again everyone for your input. I will continue as follows. :flowerforyou:

erinsueburns

Count me as another one who wishes they had started lifting before they started losing. And despite the truism that you can't build muscle on a deficit, there is some argument on that when it comes to people who have excess body fat and who are complete newbies. Plus, maintaining muscle on a deficit appears to work on the same principle as building muscle, that you have to stress the muscles to keep them, and when losing weight I would hazard to say that maintaining muscle is as good as building muscle is to someone in maintenance. As for lighter vs. heavy and more reps vs. less...I hate the more reps less weight thing too. It is sooo boring.

shannonsky

I know the answer is to start lifting heavy yesterday, but my brain came up with a question the other day that I can't answer. I hate it when it does that.


Ok. So we know that you can't build muscle when you're eating at a deficit, but you can build strength. And being strong is undeniably good! But... If you aren't building muscle--which you want to build because it's more metabolically active--then aren't you putting yourself at something of a disadvantage by building up strength? Wouldn't it be easier later to build muscle if you are not as strong?

I understand lifting to maintain LBM; is that basically the purpose of 'lifting heavy' while in a deficit?

You may not be building muscle, but you ARE building some LBM. Remember, LBM includes much, much more than just muscle. And LBM in general is good for metabolism. And yeah, it might be easier to build muscle later, eating on a surplus, but you're still going to be months ahead of the game if you start early.

CoderGal

Count me as another one who wishes they had started lifting before they started losing. And despite the truism that you can't build muscle on a deficit, there is some argument on that when it comes to people who have excess body fat and who are complete newbies. Plus, maintaining muscle on a deficit appears to work on the same principle as building muscle, that you have to stress the muscles to keep them, and when losing weight I would hazard to say that maintaining muscle is as good as building muscle is to someone in maintenance. As for lighter vs. heavy and more reps vs. less...I hate the more reps less weight thing too. It is sooo boring.

And time consuming
And since it bothers me I'll mention that what I don't like is that some people argue that you are gaining over all mass on a calorie deficit if you start from a couch potato noobie to strength training. You are not. You will get slimmer. There is something called newbie gains, but it seems rather minimal, and with continual weight loss you'll continue to lose both LBM and fat. I'm also not convinced that newbie gains is all muscle. Strength training helps with bone density as well apparently. So it may be your bones getting stronger not your muscles getting bigger? It's highly unlikely that every morsel of weight you lose well be all fat.

CoderGal

I know the answer is to start lifting heavy yesterday, but my brain came up with a question the other day that I can't answer. I hate it when it does that.


Ok. So we know that you can't build muscle when you're eating at a deficit, but you can build strength. And being strong is undeniably good! But... If you aren't building muscle--which you want to build because it's more metabolically active--then aren't you putting yourself at something of a disadvantage by building up strength? Wouldn't it be easier later to build muscle if you are not as strong?

I understand lifting to maintain LBM; is that basically the purpose of 'lifting heavy' while in a deficit?

What on earth is the disadvantage to building up strength first again? And as someone who dieted first and is now trying to gain muscle it is absolutely not easier. It takes forever to gain muscle, and with muscle you gain fat...and weight. So I ended at puny squishy weakling and I now have to gain weight/fat and have to get rid of it all over again...Back do the drawing board. At least that's the quick way to do it. The alternative is to try to maintain your weight and lift which would just take forever to make muscles. And it's taking me forever already to gain strength since I have like no muscle mass at all to build from. I'm going to the gym with several people and I am progressing leaps and bounds slower then everyone else.

As to your last question the purpose is to get rid of a higher ratio of fat. So yes, maintaining muscle, bones, having better health in general etc.

danielleeu

bump

mjterp

I'm confused on how to go about this, my husband tells me that I should lift lighter weight(not pink weights) just lighter, because I tend to max out on what I can at this point, but he says, I shouldn't do that YET, until I drop the initial fat that I want by way of eating better and a touch more cardio.

Example, I squat 135lbs, for 3 sets of 8-10 he says I should cut it back to 95lbs and do longer reps 4 sets of 15 or more.

so lighter weight, longer reps...OR does it not matter? Will lifting heavy at this state, make me what is considered to be "bulky" as a result of the muscle development under the fat, or will it also burn the fat at the same rate? If this makes any sense.

Thanks in advance for your input.

Women can't get bulky, we don't have the right hormones.
Check out New Rules of Lifting For Women
and/or
Body By You (same author as You are Your Own Gym) (fabulous $1.99 app for smart phone)

You are going to be stronger now because you are hauling around the extra weight now (it takes muscle to lift and move the extra). As soon as you aren't hauling that weight around your body will ditch the muscle it isn't using (very efficient that way.) BUT if you can use the muscle enough to keep it, that muscle will burn more per hour (even while you are sleeping) than if you didn't have it.

SO...go muscles!!! ;-) (and seriously, about "bulking" go do some google searching for female body builder IN competition and NOT in competition (posing and not). They do special diets to lower their body fat specifically to show off the muscle for competition, but the rest of the time when they aren't doing that serious fat cut dieting, they look like normal FIT and HEALTHY women. And NONE of them are the Hulk!)