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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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