Weight/Fat loss and Strength loss

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charlesmauch
charlesmauch Posts: 58 Member
edited April 2015 in Health and Weight Loss
At what point did you find yourself loosing strength while dieting off the fat?

I track everything pretty obsessively, and I noticed for the first 3 months of lifting I gained a ton of strength (newbie gains), then those gains tapered off quite a bit but I was still slowly putting more weight on the barbell until about 2 months ago when I stalled out and now the trend is reversing (I seem to be very slowly loosing strength).

FYI: Been "dieting" with occasional bumps up to maintenance every 8 weeks or so for about 18 months now. Been lifting for a little more than a year. TDEE is (currently) about 3500 calories, I pretty consistently eat at about 3000 calories. Lost 115lbs in those 18 months, a bit over 80 since tracking here on MFP.

I'm mostly just curious what other people have experienced regarding strength loss while dieting/cutting for long periods of time. Does it happen once you get below a certain percentage in bodyfat? I just dropped under about 20% in the last month or so.

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  • uvi5
    uvi5 Posts: 710 Member
    edited April 2015
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    I have no answers, but very interested as well. I do lots of cardo, but only just started lifting a bit over 2 weeks ago, 4x a week, 1.5 hours (approx) per session. I don't know if it's mental, or real, but I feel stronger. I am eating at a deficit and still learning where my calorie goals should be at. I don't feel lethargic, so I think i'm on the right track, but will know with time. I am facinated by how I will feel a year from now. So, I will be following your thread to hear what others have experienced. :smile:

    Edit to add: Todays lifting day :smiley:
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    The diet breaks you are taking are very sensible but are you also taking deload weeks from your weight training?
    I tend to push too long before taking a deload, instead of taking them when strength and weights lifted plateau which would be more sensible.

    If you haven't had a deload/easy week would strongly suggest you take one.
  • charlesmauch
    charlesmauch Posts: 58 Member
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    sijomial wrote: »
    The diet breaks you are taking are very sensible but are you also taking deload weeks from your weight training?
    I tend to push too long before taking a deload, instead of taking them when strength and weights lifted plateau which would be more sensible.

    If you haven't had a deload/easy week would strongly suggest you take one.

    I take a programmed deload week every 7th week. If I go longer than that I start to feel beat-up and my joints/tendons don't seem to recover well from the beating they take from 6 weeks of squatting and hill sprints/speed rope work.
  • charlesmauch
    charlesmauch Posts: 58 Member
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    uvi5 wrote: »
    I have no answers, but very interested as well. I do lots of cardo, but only just started lifting a bit over 2 weeks ago, 4x a week, 1.5 hours (approx) per session. I don't know if it's mental, or real, but I feel stronger. I am eating at a deficit and still learning where my calorie goals should be at. I don't feel lethargic, so I think i'm on the right track, but will know with time. I am facinated by how I will feel a year from now. So, I will be following your thread to hear what others have experienced. :smile:

    Edit to add: Todays lifting day :smiley:

    I used to do a lot of cardio. I eventually got really bored with it and now I just do some hard conditioning at least 3x a week (hill sprints/stadium stairs/speed rope) and made it a point to simply walk at least 2 miles a day for my cardio and to help with recovery.

    I've learned to love lifting. It's incredible stress relief.

    There's just something immensely satisfying about looking at a loaded barbell on the floor, minding it's own business (just sitting there being heavy), and then walking up to it and picking it up (while the entire time it's fighting you to get back onto the floor where it thinks it belongs). Or putting a ton of weight on your back, defying gravity and doing your best to prevent that weight from crushing you into a puddle of goo on the floor. Every rep becomes a personal triumph.

    I've come to think of weight lifting as a sort of moving meditation, but with heavy metal music and lots of iron weights. :)

    For figuring out calorie goals, I found that method that worked for me was to track what I ate with the myfitnesspal app, and for 15 or 30 days plug in the total calories I ate into a spreadsheet. Then I would add 3500 calories for every pound I lost in that amount of time, and then divide the total number by 15 (or 30). Gave me a decent TDEE to work with based on my recent activity levels and food "guestimating" habits. Finally I would subtract 500 calories and viola, I had a decent deficit to work with for my activity levels.

    Good luck though!

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