Gaining Muscle while still 'fat'?

I'm in the same boat as the OP. I feel great and I have been working with a trainer lifting weights along with finishing the Couch to 5k and now I am on the 10k trainer. I haven't dropped a pound. In fact, I have gained 3. I lost almost 60 pounds last year through doing cardio alone (mostly zumba). Now I am trying to get the last 40 off. But when I go back and look at my daily intake I am 100% sure part of my reason for gaining is that all along I have never counted my morning coffee in my daily calories. I add cream to it and a little sugar. That crap adds up! So starting yesterday I decided to count every single thing I put in my mouth and hopefully that will keep me better on track.

I hope this doesn't get lost in all the argument...but I'd like to say how important it is to drink enough water. It sounds like we are at a similar place in our fitness journeys. I can definitely say from personal observation that these things happen when I make it a point to drink at least 56 oz of plain water in a day: my muscles feel less sore the day after I lift, my weight number doesn't fluctuate in the up direction as much, and I pee A LOT! LOL.

I've lost 4 lbs over the last 6 weeks....gone down one pant size and those are feeling comfortable, almost loose, now too.

Good luck! Keep up the great work!

stevencloser wrote: »

Muscle is not denser than fat. If you put the fat at the bottom of Mariana Trench and the muscle into a vacuum then fat is denser. Density is not absolute. Water is more dense than water, if you boil one and freeze the other.

That's needlessly pedantic. On a living human being, muscle is going to be denser than fat.

I have also been trying to loose fat but don't want to loose muscle and in fact, have gained muscle on a deficit. I've been on a physician supervised plan and been working with an on-line personal trainer to guide my workouts and had a body fat analysis done at the beginning, at 4 months and I'll have another in a couple weeks. I'll share some bullet points on what I've learned.

5 pounds of fat is approximately the size of a football (American). 5 pounds of muscle is about the size of a 6" hoagie roll. And it takes a LOT of work to gain enough muscle to impact the scale.

To gain muscle at a deficit, getting enough protein is essential. If you know your body fat percentage (NOT BMI - that's different) then you know the % of your weight that is lean (non-fat). You need approximately 1gram of protein per pound of LEAN weight. No less than .85g, no more than 1.2g for most people (i.e. not body builders). Track your food - you have to be able to support the muscle gain nutritionally or you are fighting an uphill battle.

Do your strength training before your cardio. You want to use the sugar in your bloodstream and muscles to fuel the workout. Alternate upper body/lower body twice a week. I added a 5th day for abs and back.

Now do your cardio. I found on leg day I couldn't go as fast on treadmill/elliptical/etc. but I still put in my time. 30 minutes at least. Now you are burning fat because your body used up all of the available blood sugar.

Eat 3-6 meals per day, staying within your targeted calorie deficit. I found that having a cheat day or two where I broke even with my calories was most helpful - it was as if my body were saying "ahhh she isn't going to starve us indefinitely - I can let go of this now".

To make sure I was estimating calorie burn as closely as possible, I wear a Body Media armband 24/7 (minus showers) which is 95% accurate in estimating calorie burn - more than fitbit and those others that only use the accelerometer. I link it to MFP because I like the food database here better - much more info. Now I know both what is going in (MFP) and what is going out (Body Media). I am for a 500-800 calorie deficit. No more than that. I have learned I burn 2000/day when I don't exercise; 2300 when I do 30 min of cardio and 30 weight training.

I have lost 52 pounds of fat since March 7th and I have gained a two pounds of muscle.

SpecialKH wrote: »

I have also been trying to loose fat but don't want to loose muscle and in fact, have gained muscle on a deficit. I've been on a physician supervised plan and been working with an on-line personal trainer to guide my workouts and had a body fat analysis done at the beginning, at 4 months and I'll have another in a couple weeks. I'll share some bullet points on what I've learned.

5 pounds of fat is approximately the size of a football (American). 5 pounds of muscle is about the size of a 6" hoagie roll. And it takes a LOT of work to gain enough muscle to impact the scale.

To gain muscle at a deficit, getting enough protein is essential. If you know your body fat percentage (NOT BMI - that's different) then you know the % of your weight that is lean (non-fat). You need approximately 1gram of protein per pound of LEAN weight. No less than .85g, no more than 1.2g for most people (i.e. not body builders). Track your food - you have to be able to support the muscle gain nutritionally or you are fighting an uphill battle.

Do your strength training before your cardio. You want to use the sugar in your bloodstream and muscles to fuel the workout. Alternate upper body/lower body twice a week. I added a 5th day for abs and back.

Now do your cardio. I found on leg day I couldn't go as fast on treadmill/elliptical/etc. but I still put in my time. 30 minutes at least. Now you are burning fat because your body used up all of the available blood sugar.

Eat 3-6 meals per day, staying within your targeted calorie deficit. I found that having a cheat day or two where I broke even with my calories was most helpful - it was as if my body were saying "ahhh she isn't going to starve us indefinitely - I can let go of this now".

To make sure I was estimating calorie burn as closely as possible, I wear a Body Media armband 24/7 (minus showers) which is 95% accurate in estimating calorie burn - more than fitbit and those others that only use the accelerometer. I link it to MFP because I like the food database here better - much more info. Now I know both what is going in (MFP) and what is going out (Body Media). I am for a 500-800 calorie deficit. No more than that. I have learned I burn 2000/day when I don't exercise; 2300 when I do 30 min of cardio and 30 weight training.

I have lost 52 pounds of fat since March 7th and I have gained a two pounds of muscle.

And you fall 100% into the category of individuals whom everyone has said that could.

VanillaBeanSeed wrote: »

o0o0o0o0oo0k

So after all these lovely posts I have decided that I am awesome and everyone else is crazy

But I do love to watch you all fight.. so0o0o00o0o0o0o0 maybe the next question I should ask is if I can spot reduce?

Haha you're great OP.

And yes, you can totally spot reduce! My arms used to be flabby so I just CUT THEM OFF and INSTANTLY lost like 14 pounds!

:P

Anyway, back to your actual post - just keep doing the same thing. Building muscle and losing fat takes a long, Long, LOOOOOOOOOOONG time and 8 weeks will only show tiny progress. If you're lifting consistently and raising the weight every week or 2 to keep yourself progressing then you'll get stronger and lose weight.

I'd say keep lifting, eat at a deficit and when your fat shrinks the muscles below will start to show more and more. Then, when you get below your goal weight [yes, i'd say go lower than you intended] you can start really lifting and eating again and gain a bit back, but not feel awful about it. Also, you can just measure yourself and see if that changes. Once your body gets used to the weights you'll lose some water weight and BAM you'll be like 2-5 pounds lighter one morning. That's been happening to me the last 2 months, I'll stay in a range and then drop 2 pounds, then hang out in that range for a month and drop 2 more pounds.

So yeah, keep lifting and try to increase the weight [a weight you can barely or almost do 3 sets of 8 full reps of is a good place to start] then work at that weight until you get stronger, then increase weight and repeat until you're where you want to be.