2nd/3rd/4th opinions...

Hopefullysane
Hopefullysane Posts: 27 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I'd love any feedback/suggestions about my program. Is there anything I could be doing better/different to more efficiently reach my goals?

I'm 45. 142lb. 5'6". Approximately 25% body fat.

Goals: 19% bf and to become as strong as possible.

My program:
M,W,F I lift for an hour with the help of a PT. Mostly doing squats, deadlifts, bench press and other compound lifts. 5 x 5. As a relative newbie (got off my fat *kitten* 1 year ago), I'm making rapid gains and the weight I'm able to lift/pull is increasing quite dramatically.

T,Th,Sat I do 20 min of interval running on the treadmill followed by 4 min HIIT on either the bike or rowing machine.

Plus I walk or bike pretty much everywhere I go (my Fitbit logs an average of 6 miles per day).

Diet:
In the past year I have lost 25lb and 12% body fat on roughly 1800 cal per day. Recently I've upped my calories to 2000 cal cuz I'm not really interested in losing more weight. More interested in decreasing body fat and building strength/muscle.
My diary is open.

So there it is. Any fine tuning that I could do?

Replies

  • ana3067
    ana3067 Posts: 5,623 Member
    Overall, I'd say that as long as your form is good and you feel well rested/recovered.. then it's fine. Although I'd personally change up the cardio a bit - either 1-2 20 min HIIT sessions or have 2 LISS/MISS days and then one HIIT day. But if it's working for you without compromising muscular composition then that's fine to keep it.

    Just make sure you are eating back your calories if you use MFP net method. If your goal is to still lower your body fat, then a slight reduction of calories is still needed. 10% or 0.5lbs a week is totally fine for this.

    As far as diet, if you have been successful with measuring food then that's fine, but weighing is more accurate. Otherwise, keep doing what is working and tweak your calories up/down to meet your goals and needs. You could probably eat less protein as well and still benefit from your routine, but overall if you like higher protien that's fine. I was eating the same amount as you for months without ill-effects.

    And another thing, just about the MWF full-body: After a while I found that I was no longer able to maintain this routine. It could have been due to the deficit, too many exercises you know. But I find that an upper/lower day split works well for me (just tried push-pull split for a week or two.... baaaaad idea. Overtrained and overused some muscles and now I'm injured inn my shoulder, although I've realized that my elbow issues could be due to my elbow since I did injure it earlier in the year). So if you find that your energy or lifts decrease, talk to your PT about changing up the split.

    ETA: since you are a newbie, you can make some muscle gains while in a deficit, but generally one does not lose body fat and gain muscle. They are separate phases. So you might do well looking at your training/eating in this manner as well, in a cut/bulk/maintain cycle. If you are at a BF that you are happy with, then embark on maintenance just to see how much you need for your new weight and mark that down somewhere. Then increase by 200 cals to bulk, add more if/when needed. Then when you are ready to lower your body fat again, go on a cut/deficit, repeat this whole cycle.
  • juggernaut1974
    juggernaut1974 Posts: 6,212 Member
    Overall pretty good...the only thing I didn't see mentioned was your macro breakdown of your calories.

    Ensure you're getting adequate protein and fat, and fill in the rest with whatever you want (carbs, or additional fat/protein).
  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
    Recomp if you're eating at maintenance will take longer than bulking and cutting.
  • Hopefullysane
    Hopefullysane Posts: 27 Member
    Recomp if you're eating at maintenance will take longer than bulking and cutting.
    but I thought I had to first reduce bf before bulk/cut?
  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
    Recomp if you're eating at maintenance will take longer than bulking and cutting.
    but I thought I had to first reduce bf before bulk/cut?

    So you want to cut... Which you can't do eating at maintenance.

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