How to lose fat WITHOUT losing muscle
Omanya
Posts: 50
This is just another great article I happened upon that iterates all the main points. There is some fat antagonism here what with referring to excess fat, and by extension excessively fat people, as "ugly" - and boo to off-handed shaming - but otherwise this article is 100% and needs to be read by everyone attempting to lose 'weight'.
http://www.aworkoutroutine.com/how-to-lose-fat-without-losing-muscle/
Important points:
1) Consume enough protein. They say 1 g per lb of bodyweight, but that's extremely excessive. They might mean 1 g per kg of bodyweight, which is far more ressonable. To figure it out, take your weight in kg (weight in lb divided by 2.2) and multiply by anywhere between 1 and 1.8. You shouldn't be doing serious strength training while on a caloric deficit, so the lower end should suffice.
2) Don't overdo cardio. In fact, there's no 'need' to do it at all to lose weight. I would suggest that you do light cardio to improve your physical fitness, but not to lose weight. Remember to EAT BACK YOUR EXERCISE CALORIES if exercising takes you significantly under your deficit. Also remember that *dieting* is for losing weight; exercising is for *maintaining or increasing physical fitness*.
3) Strength train to ensure that you lose as little muscle as possible while on a deficit. And I mean strength train - not endurance with resistance (i.e. low weight, high reps). You need to encourage your body to maintain your muscle mass, which you do by letting it know that you need to keep your current amount of strength. If you don't, it will decrease its muscle mass in order to more efficiently conserve energy, which it will attempt to do while on a deficit. At rest, muscle requires about eight times the energy of fat. Why keep an unnecessary amount of it?
On another note, if it isn't losing as much muscle, it will lose more fat to compensate. Muscle is much denser than fat. That explains why people can lose inches without losing lb or lose lb without losing inches - fat vs muscle loss.
4) Don't maintain too steep a deficit. The steeper the deficit, the more muscle you lose, the weaker you become, the pudgier you stay. It gets to the point at which your body will drop muscle no matter what you do because it needs to conserve energy more efficiently to survive. Dropping muscle mass is its best bet and it will resort to dropping it as fast as it drops fat if it has to. There are no exact rules, but general guidelines are as follows: you can drop two lb per week if you have >75 lb *of fat* to lose, 1.5 lb per week for 50-75 lb, 1 lb per week for 30-50 lb, and .5 or less lb for <30 lb. And remember that this goes for the entirety of the journey! That means that, even if you start out with 100 of fat to lose and start with a weekly 7,000 calorie deficit, you'll need to decrease it as you approach your goal. You'll also discover that your body will hold onto its weight the best it can as it approacjes its personal ideal fat levels, which makes keeping tabs on the deficit even more important.
Lastly:
5) Eating 'clean' DOESN'T MATTER. You WON'T lose fat simply from eating healthful foods. Your body doesn't store fat in response to nutritional intake; it stores it in response to energy expenditure and that's it. It's an evolutionary defense against starvation and that's (primarily) it. That means that simply swapping your 'dirty' calories for 'clean' ones won't cause you to lose fat. However, 'clean' foods are generally lower calorie, so swapping, say, soda with water *and not replacing the calories* will result in a lower overall caloric intake, which can contribute to overall weight loss *if you also maintain a deficit*. Conversely, eating only junk food will cause you to lose *if you also maintain a deficit*.
Now, is that saying that what you eat doesn't matter? Yes and no. For weight loss, no it does not matter. For health, yes it does. Optimally, you should maintain a deficit with 'clean' foods.
And that concludes the (massively long) summary!
Now go read the article. There are lots of helpful links embedded within.
http://www.aworkoutroutine.com/how-to-lose-fat-without-losing-muscle/
Important points:
1) Consume enough protein. They say 1 g per lb of bodyweight, but that's extremely excessive. They might mean 1 g per kg of bodyweight, which is far more ressonable. To figure it out, take your weight in kg (weight in lb divided by 2.2) and multiply by anywhere between 1 and 1.8. You shouldn't be doing serious strength training while on a caloric deficit, so the lower end should suffice.
2) Don't overdo cardio. In fact, there's no 'need' to do it at all to lose weight. I would suggest that you do light cardio to improve your physical fitness, but not to lose weight. Remember to EAT BACK YOUR EXERCISE CALORIES if exercising takes you significantly under your deficit. Also remember that *dieting* is for losing weight; exercising is for *maintaining or increasing physical fitness*.
3) Strength train to ensure that you lose as little muscle as possible while on a deficit. And I mean strength train - not endurance with resistance (i.e. low weight, high reps). You need to encourage your body to maintain your muscle mass, which you do by letting it know that you need to keep your current amount of strength. If you don't, it will decrease its muscle mass in order to more efficiently conserve energy, which it will attempt to do while on a deficit. At rest, muscle requires about eight times the energy of fat. Why keep an unnecessary amount of it?
On another note, if it isn't losing as much muscle, it will lose more fat to compensate. Muscle is much denser than fat. That explains why people can lose inches without losing lb or lose lb without losing inches - fat vs muscle loss.
4) Don't maintain too steep a deficit. The steeper the deficit, the more muscle you lose, the weaker you become, the pudgier you stay. It gets to the point at which your body will drop muscle no matter what you do because it needs to conserve energy more efficiently to survive. Dropping muscle mass is its best bet and it will resort to dropping it as fast as it drops fat if it has to. There are no exact rules, but general guidelines are as follows: you can drop two lb per week if you have >75 lb *of fat* to lose, 1.5 lb per week for 50-75 lb, 1 lb per week for 30-50 lb, and .5 or less lb for <30 lb. And remember that this goes for the entirety of the journey! That means that, even if you start out with 100 of fat to lose and start with a weekly 7,000 calorie deficit, you'll need to decrease it as you approach your goal. You'll also discover that your body will hold onto its weight the best it can as it approacjes its personal ideal fat levels, which makes keeping tabs on the deficit even more important.
Lastly:
5) Eating 'clean' DOESN'T MATTER. You WON'T lose fat simply from eating healthful foods. Your body doesn't store fat in response to nutritional intake; it stores it in response to energy expenditure and that's it. It's an evolutionary defense against starvation and that's (primarily) it. That means that simply swapping your 'dirty' calories for 'clean' ones won't cause you to lose fat. However, 'clean' foods are generally lower calorie, so swapping, say, soda with water *and not replacing the calories* will result in a lower overall caloric intake, which can contribute to overall weight loss *if you also maintain a deficit*. Conversely, eating only junk food will cause you to lose *if you also maintain a deficit*.
Now, is that saying that what you eat doesn't matter? Yes and no. For weight loss, no it does not matter. For health, yes it does. Optimally, you should maintain a deficit with 'clean' foods.
And that concludes the (massively long) summary!
Now go read the article. There are lots of helpful links embedded within.
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Replies
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You shouldn't be doing serious strength training while on a caloric deficit, so the lower end should suffice.
can you clarify what you mean by 'serious' strength training?0 -
Enough to keep the muscles challengedYou shouldn't be doing serious strength training while on a caloric deficit, so the lower end should suffice.
can you clarify what you mean by 'serious' strength training?
Not lifting lower/decreasing reps in comparisson to what you lift or nr of reps you did before going on a deficit0 -
The article explains it more in-depth. The short version is that you shouldn't be doing too much of any exercise while you're on a caloric deficit because your body's ability to repair and recoup will be impaired. Too much endurance training is bad for your energy stores, especially if you don't eat your calories back, but you can do damage with too much strength training - especially if you train too hard too often. For example, I have to cringe at people who want to do the 30-day shred (1) in literally 30 days (2) even if they're extremely sore (3) on top of being on too steep a deficit. You need to be especially kind to your body while attempting to lose weight because you're impairing its ability to function. That means working out only enough to maintain your strength(i.e. not lose much muscle mass) and maintain a deficit - IF your plan is to incorporate exercise in order to reach your deficit.you clarify what you mean by 'serious' strength training?
This is one reason why I always emphasize that amount of fat is not an indication ofhealth and that fat loss =! health gain. Yes, healthy habits will get and keep you smaller, but your habits are not healthy simply because they're getting you smaller, nor are you getting healthier simply because you're getting smaller. There are good and bad ways to lose weight. Torturing your body is not one of the good ways.
Hope that helps!
EDIT: In the context of what you quoted of me, I mean strength training to increase muscle mass instead of merely maintain it. The former requires doing extremely high weights at low reps to failure - it should be enough for you to do only four or five until your muscles literally give out and you can't do any more until you rest for a little bit. That tells your body that you don't have enough strength - muscle mass - to perform the amount of work you're attempting to perform. If that keeps happening, and if your nutrition and rest is adequate, your body will increase its muscle mass to accomodate the new strength load.
That's as opposed to maintaining strength. In that case, you should find weights that enable you to do around 10 reps until you get to failure(can't continue without a 30-90 second rest) for two or three sets. That tells your body that you need to maintain your muscle mass. If you can do significantly more reps than that, and especially if you're working on training longer instead of harder, your weights is too low, which tells your body that you don't need as much muscle mass to perform the work load, so it will decrease it in order to increase your endurance - which is what you're doing at that point.
The thing is that you need a LOT of energy to repair that damage. Are you aware of bodybuilders' diets? You need to eat well over surplus, not to mention the entire animal kingdom worth of of protein, to keep that up. And you can't be at a deficit and surplus simultaneously, you know? So you should lift only enough to maintain, GET PLENTY OF REST, eat more calories period and protein specifically on lifting days... and take it easy. 0 -
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No, it's not new at all. Just explained in an extremely accessible way that might help folks understand.Not a bad article, nothing really new there though. Reduction in training volume on a cut is something I definitely do.
Don't really care much for the carb cycling advice. It's not necessary.
Calorie cycle in not necessary, no, but I do like the article's tie-in point of taking a week off dieting every now and again - especially if you're exercising a lot. Personally, though, I have more trouble reaching my goals - especially my protein - so taking a break for me might manifest as maintaining too steep a deficit.
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I think that clean eating does matter in the sense that it is easier to stay within the calorie goals. At least for me personally.0
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I would call that more of a blog post than an article. There are no sources listed and the writer's qualifications are that he's been dieting/exercising for 12 years. It's no more authoritative than a forum post, really.0
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TL;DR0
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Article =! research paper. A blog post is a type of article.I would call that more of a blog post than an article. There are no sources listed and the writer's qualifications are that he's been dieting/exercising for 12 years. It's no more authoritative than a forum post, really.
I can post research papers, as I read them often, but this does not strike me as an appropriate place to do so. However, all of the highlighted points are both logically sound are backed by research and hopefully will become common knowledge among people attempting to lose fat.
Which part do you doubt?:
1) Protein is necessary to build muscle. Inadequate protein intake results in an even more impaired ability for the body to repair and restore itself.
2) It's not a good idea to consistently and drastically decrease energy stores via exercise when already decreasing energy consumption.
3) The body builds muscle in response to increased need for strength, maintains muscle in response to continued need for current strength, and decreases muscle in response to lack of need for current strength - especially with an increased need to more efficiently use energy, e.g., when exerting a lot of energy w/o consuming enough to support it.
4) The body will lose more muscle with a steeper caloric deficit in order to more effectively conserve energy because muscle requires more energy consumption at rest than any other potential energy source.
5) Entering and maintaining a caloric deficit is the only way fat loss will occur. In this context, that means that swapping 240 calories in soda for 240 calories in a homemade fruit smoothie will NOT result in fat loss. But eliminating soda *and not replacing the calories* will result in fat loss *as long as overall caloric consumption is at a deficit*. Likewise, replacing 0-calorie water with typucally 240ish-calorie soda will result in fat loss *as long as a caloric deficit is achieved*. This is because the body neeeds energy to function and will create it from itself, as well as alter its energy needs, until it reaches a certain low protein percentage, at which point death by starvation occurs.
Or any point in the article. I don't necessarily endorse every last point explained in the article and won't necessarily attempt to post supporting research, but I do endorse everything I personally said and will back it up.0 -
That's some ding dong's blog.
Don't listen to the fitness gurus. Listen to your doctor and then do what works for you.
If you follow the fitness gurus you will get all kinds of conflicting advice that is not even specifically for you. You will also get very bad advice, sometimes.
Go to someone who is qualified to give you advice.0 -
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That's some ding dong's blog.
Don't listen to the fitness gurus. Listen to your doctor and then do what works for you.
If you follow the fitness gurus you will get all kinds of conflicting advice that is not even specifically for you. You will also get very bad advice, sometimes.
Go to someone who is qualified to give you advice.
Why all this with the doctor all the time? You should listen to both. I've never went to a doctor who knew anything about lifting heavy weights. Then again, I don't have health insurance so...0 -
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I think her mission in life is to get people to stop coming to the forums for advice and instead go to the doctor everyday.That's some ding dong's blog.
Don't listen to the fitness gurus. Listen to your doctor and then do what works for you.
If you follow the fitness gurus you will get all kinds of conflicting advice that is not even specifically for you. You will also get very bad advice, sometimes.
Go to someone who is qualified to give you advice.
Why all this with the doctor all the time? You should listen to both. I've never went to a doctor who knew anything about lifting heavy weights. Then again, I don't have health insurance so...
ay ay ay0 -
Yes, it is some random person's blog. However, I posted it because it happens to coincide with current research.That's some ding dong's blog.
Don't listen to the fitness gurus. Listen to your doctor and then do what works for you.
If you follow the fitness gurus you will get all kinds of conflicting advice that is not even specifically for you. You will also get very bad advice, sometimes.
Go to someone who is qualified to give you advice.
I would ask you if you happen to know of any GP physicians who would disagree with this advice, but that would be silly because 1) this isn't their specity, just like nutrition isn't their specialty (see a dietician) and just like medicine isn't their specialty (pharmacologists =! GP's), and 2) plenty of GP's don't understand weight loss and the effects of it, give harmful, non-evidence-based advice, and are extremely unhelpful/have ridiculous biases against their obese patients. Thus, you're much better off taking advice from people who actually research obesity and weight loss for a living and simply getting your body checked by your GP's to ensure that nothing you're doing is harming your health. Be mindful of the scope of doctors: their job is to monitor, diagnose, and treat illness - not develop an in-depth weight loss plan for you. That's why their weight loss advice is generally simplistic and impersonal.
But seriously you need a new doctor if they managed to miss these basic facts of human biology in med school. Not all doctors are good doctors. That is especially true in the US.0 -
Right... I just suggested in my previous response that people don't seem to understand the scope of doctors. GP/PCP's, at least. They exist to diagnose and treat illness, not to help you lose weight. Their specialty is neither in weight loss nor heavy lifting, as you mentioned. You shouldn't go to your PCP for advice any more than you should go to your dentist for it. Rather, you should enlist the help of people whose education and line of work is specific to diet/weight loss/weight lifting. And you can always keep up with the latest research yourself if you wish to.Why all this with the doctor all the time? You should listen to both. I've never went to a doctor who knew anything about lifting heavy weights. Then again, I don't have health insurance so...
Use your GP's to check your body to ensure that whatever you're doing isn't causing you harm. *That's* what they're for.0 -
im under on my cals every day and im not loosing anymore....I have belly flab that doesnt go away....look at my diary0
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Omanya- Have you read actual research to support #4, especially the claim that your body prefers to use muscle for fuel over fat at steeper deficits (in overfat individuals)? That is the part I've never really seen good support for yet.
Does he mention that we always lose a mix of lean and fat tissue, and that for most of us, that's actually fine? Obese people shrink everything as they lose, even their blood volume and organs. A smaller body doesn't need super-sized calves, hams, quads and heart.0 -
I mean strictly in the sense that simply eating clean in itself will not cause you to lose fat. It helps tremendously in that it can keep you fuller longer, be used to repair your body more effectively, can regulate your hormones better, and will cause increases in overall health. But gaining health is not equivalent to losing weight/fat, and I think that understanding that is important. I promote that message to help people understand that not all weight loss is good weight loss and that they should focus on *both* health and weight loss instead of simply assuming that one inherently leads to the other.I think that clean eating does matter in the sense that it is easier to stay within the calorie goals. At least for me personally.0 -
I liked it.0
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Numbering because it's easier:Omanya- Have you read actual research to support #4, especially the claim that your body prefers to use muscle for fuel over fat at steeper deficits (in overfat individuals)? That is the part I've never really seen good support for yet.
Does he mention that we always lose a mix of lean and fat tissue, and that for most of us, that's actually fine? Obese people shrink everything as they lose, even their blood volume and organs. A smaller body doesn't need super-sized calves, hams, quads and heart.
1) Yes, I have.
2) I did not claim that the body prefers to use muscle for fuel. I claimed that, in an attempt to more efficiently conserve energy, it will drop unnecessary muscle mass because, well, it's a waste of energy. The body will 'prefer' to convert protein to energy only once severe starvation sets in, at which point you don't have too much longer to live if your circumstances don't change.
3) I'd have to check, but I didn't interpret the point as being that you won't lose any muscle, but that you'll lose as little as necessary. Maybe that's a bit high context, meaning you need to already know this, but that is what is implied by the strength training regimen.
3) That actually is not fine, particularly for dieting women who on average already have between 10 and 15 lb less muscle mass than they should have, and that's precisely because they tend to undereat/overdo cardio/not strength train at all. This message is not as important for men, who typically are not trying to be as small and frail as possible.
So yes, you will lose muscle on a caloric deficit, but the point is to lose as little as possible - especially if you're starting behind the curb.0
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