Gaining Muscle

Evilbad · September 2015

Hi all, new here.

I've got about 30 lbs to lose, and I joined a kickboxing/mma school. I'm working hard, and I feel great and love the classes. However, I'm gaining muscle but I don't seem to be losing fat. Been at this for roughly 2 months now, I'm up about 5 lbs. No huge changes in body shape yet, but I feel stronger and my endurance has gotten better.

I don't have a huge amount of time but can probably fit in other short workouts, but should I just stick it out? Physically I'm usually sore after a workout and I definitely sweat a lot.

Thanks!

stevencloser · September 2015

Well, if you want to lose fat, you need to eat less than you burn. If you've gained 5 pounds in the last 2 months I can tell you with high confidence that you're probably not eating less than you burn.

rileysowner · September 2015

stevencloser wrote: »

Well, if you want to lose fat, you need to eat less than you burn. If you've gained 5 pounds in the last 2 months I can tell you with high confidence that you're probably not eating less than you burn.

This is likely the case.

TheopolisAmbroiseIII · September 2015

An average person aged 25+ will generally peak out at gaming 5-10lbs of muscle in a year, given very intense training and perfect nutrition (and calorie surplus). If you are gaining more or faster than that, it's either water or fat.

I say 25+ because when you're 15-25, particularly a male, your body is absolutely drowning in natural growth hormones. It's possible, and even normal, for a 16-18 year old boy to put on a whopping amount of muscle as they grow into their adult body.

kristen6350 · September 2015

You haven't said anything about your diet? Are you weighing your food? Are you counting calories? It's really difficult to out exercise a calorie surplus.

And by the way, if you ARE eating in a calorie deficient, you aren't gaining 5lbs of muscle..

WBB55 · September 2015

You might not "need" other workouts, but it might help you to lose weight if you tracked your intake as accurately as possible. Ideally using a food scale to weigh everything. It can be tough at first, but after a couple weeks when your food is saved in your "frequent" list, it's pretty easy and takes maybe 5 minutes per day at the most.

123juliaj123 · September 2015

I suggest you pay close attention to the foods you are eating, weigh portions etc so you can be sure what cals you are taking in daily. You could having issues with water retention, I have had this problem in the past though I would have expected you to have more fluctuation in your weight over time up and down if it was water

PinkPixiexox · September 2015

If you are gaining muscle, putting on weight and not losing fat - you are eating at a surplus, not a deficit.

TheopolisAmbroiseIII · September 2015

PinkPixiexox wrote: »

If you are gaining muscle, putting on weight and not losing fat - you are eating at a surplus, not a deficit.

That's true. The caveat is that some people are getting stronger, in that they can lift more each workout, and they think they're putting on muscle but that doesn't mean they're actually gaining muscle. Most of your strength gains in a new workout routine is neurological in nature. You generally only use a fraction of the strength your muscles are actually capable of. Your brain has biological limiting factors in it that keep you from using 100% of your strength, because if you used muscles at 100% all the time, you'd be prone to injury.

When you lift heavy, your brain slowly becomes accustomed to it. In rough terms your brain says "ok, we lifted 200lbs without injury, I'm getting used to that. Lets build a few more pathways so next time we can do a little more". You're not actually gaining any muscle matter, but you are using what you have to it's fuller extent.

This is the reason you hear of these incidents where a person performs seemingly impossible feats of strength to save their kids. Their body is in such a state that they bypass those limiters and go full out for that one act. Probably then injuring themselves in the process, or at least waking up super sore the next day.

All this is to say that just because one is getting stronger, doesn't mean their putting on muscle, and if one is getting stronger and getting heavier this fast, one is probably getting fatter or at least retaining water.

Evilbad · September 2015

I'm a woman, and I am now eating vegan because my stomach can't handle dairy and I don't like meat or eggs. I don't (and won't) weigh my food because I just don't have the time or the patience or the attention span. I do, however, log my food to make sure I stay under 2k calories. For instance, yesterday was a protein shake with almond milk for breakfast, lunch was some leftover lentil veg soup with brown rice, and dinner was a big salad with almonds and a vinaigrette. For snacks I had an apple, an orange, and a luna bar. Some days are better than others but I'm burning roughly 800 calories per class, 4x/week. I'll soon be doubling up and doing 2 hours 2x/week plus the regular bag workout classes.

I only say gaining muscle because my body always does this with a new workout. My legs have gone from squishy to fairly solid and my shoulders and back are getting more defined and my abs are also getting harder. This is the reason I stopped doing p90x, I was gaining and everything was getting bigger (even with food logs and counting calories). When I deployed, I gained a ton of muscle just from wearing body armor every day. Took me a couple of months to fit back into my regular shirts when I got home.

I'll start logging my food to see if I can cut anything out, but to be honest there's not much. I don't really eat much processed food, don't drink soda, portion sizes are reasonable, and I'm not big on desserts or sugary stuff.

I'm not lifting, so that's not really the issue right now. Everything is body weight or bag workouts.

Just curious. Thanks.

arb037 · September 2015

A great article from Lyle McDonald that talks about the amount of muscle gains to expect per year from 1-5years with proper training.

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/muscle-gain/whats-my-genetic-muscular-potential.html/

5 lbs is "probably" not all muscle, possible but not likely. Probably some water retention as well. As others have stated tighten up on your diet logging and ensure a deficit to lose fat if that is the goal.

janejellyroll · September 2015

Evilbad wrote: »

I'm a woman, and I am now eating vegan because my stomach can't handle dairy and I don't like meat or eggs. I don't (and won't) weigh my food because I just don't have the time or the patience or the attention span. I do, however, log my food to make sure I stay under 2k calories. For instance, yesterday was a protein shake with almond milk for breakfast, lunch was some leftover lentil veg soup with brown rice, and dinner was a big salad with almonds and a vinaigrette. For snacks I had an apple, an orange, and a luna bar. Some days are better than others but I'm burning roughly 800 calories per class, 4x/week. I'll soon be doubling up and doing 2 hours 2x/week plus the regular bag workout classes.

I only say gaining muscle because my body always does this with a new workout. My legs have gone from squishy to fairly solid and my shoulders and back are getting more defined and my abs are also getting harder. This is the reason I stopped doing p90x, I was gaining and everything was getting bigger (even with food logs and counting calories). When I deployed, I gained a ton of muscle just from wearing body armor every day. Took me a couple of months to fit back into my regular shirts when I got home.

I'll start logging my food to see if I can cut anything out, but to be honest there's not much. I don't really eat much processed food, don't drink soda, portion sizes are reasonable, and I'm not big on desserts or sugary stuff.

I'm not lifting, so that's not really the issue right now. Everything is body weight or bag workouts.

Just curious. Thanks.

If you aren't weighing your food, you can't be sure you're staying under 2,000 calories. Things like protein powder, beans, nuts, and fruit can have a lot more calories than you think (trust me: I'm a vegan who went from not weighing to weighing and saw immediate results in my weight loss).

You can easily gain weigh even while avoiding "processed food" (I'm not sure how you define this term because things like almond milk, protein powder, and Luna bars ARE processed -- not that there is anything wrong with that). You can gain weight without soda or sugary foods. If you eat more calories than you burn, you will gain weight. And that can happen to vegans as easily as it can to non-vegans.

juggernaut1974 · September 2015

Evilbad wrote: »

I don't (and won't) weigh my food because I just don't have the time or the patience or the attention span. I do, however, log my food to make sure I stay under 2k calories.

Logging alone may not be enough. Unless you're weighing, you're only logging estimates. Logging inaccurate estimates is no better than not logging at all.

The fact you've gained weight is proof that you're eating more calories than you're burning.

I'm burning roughly 800 calories per class, 4x/week.

How are you measuring this? I find this very hard to believe.

I only say gaining muscle because my body always does this with a new workout. My legs have gone from squishy to fairly solid and my shoulders and back are getting more defined and my abs are also getting harder. This is the reason I stopped doing p90x, I was gaining and everything was getting bigger (even with food logs and counting calories). When I deployed, I gained a ton of muscle just from wearing body armor every day. Took me a couple of months to fit back into my regular shirts when I got home.

As a woman, I can say with utmost certainty that you aren't gaining significant amounts of muscle doing things like kickboxing or wearing body armor. Gaining muscle - especially for women - take dedicated effort at progressively overload weight lifting. It does NOT just happen by accident. A little bit?? Sure, maybe. Enough that it not only covers up any fat weight loss but also increases overall body weight over only 2 months? Not a chance.

jeepinshawn · September 2015

Evilbad wrote: »

I'm a woman, and I am now eating vegan because my stomach can't handle dairy and I don't like meat or eggs. I don't (and won't) weigh my food because I just don't have the time or the patience or the attention span. I do, however, log my food to make sure I stay under 2k calories. For instance, yesterday was a protein shake with almond milk for breakfast, lunch was some leftover lentil veg soup with brown rice, and dinner was a big salad with almonds and a vinaigrette. For snacks I had an apple, an orange, and a luna bar. Some days are better than others but I'm burning roughly 800 calories per class, 4x/week. I'll soon be doubling up and doing 2 hours 2x/week plus the regular bag workout classes.

I only say gaining muscle because my body always does this with a new workout. My legs have gone from squishy to fairly solid and my shoulders and back are getting more defined and my abs are also getting harder. This is the reason I stopped doing p90x, I was gaining and everything was getting bigger (even with food logs and counting calories). When I deployed, I gained a ton of muscle just from wearing body armor every day. Took me a couple of months to fit back into my regular shirts when I got home.

I'll start logging my food to see if I can cut anything out, but to be honest there's not much. I don't really eat much processed food, don't drink soda, portion sizes are reasonable, and I'm not big on desserts or sugary stuff.

I'm not lifting, so that's not really the issue right now. Everything is body weight or bag workouts.

Just curious. Thanks.

I have never heard of anyone really burning 800 calories in a workout, how are you figuring that, and are you sure thats legit?

janejellyroll · September 2015

jeepinshawn wrote: »

Evilbad wrote: »

I'm a woman, and I am now eating vegan because my stomach can't handle dairy and I don't like meat or eggs. I don't (and won't) weigh my food because I just don't have the time or the patience or the attention span. I do, however, log my food to make sure I stay under 2k calories. For instance, yesterday was a protein shake with almond milk for breakfast, lunch was some leftover lentil veg soup with brown rice, and dinner was a big salad with almonds and a vinaigrette. For snacks I had an apple, an orange, and a luna bar. Some days are better than others but I'm burning roughly 800 calories per class, 4x/week. I'll soon be doubling up and doing 2 hours 2x/week plus the regular bag workout classes.

I only say gaining muscle because my body always does this with a new workout. My legs have gone from squishy to fairly solid and my shoulders and back are getting more defined and my abs are also getting harder. This is the reason I stopped doing p90x, I was gaining and everything was getting bigger (even with food logs and counting calories). When I deployed, I gained a ton of muscle just from wearing body armor every day. Took me a couple of months to fit back into my regular shirts when I got home.

I'll start logging my food to see if I can cut anything out, but to be honest there's not much. I don't really eat much processed food, don't drink soda, portion sizes are reasonable, and I'm not big on desserts or sugary stuff.

I'm not lifting, so that's not really the issue right now. Everything is body weight or bag workouts.

Just curious. Thanks.

I have never heard of anyone really burning 800 calories in a workout, how are you figuring that, and are you sure thats legit?

I burned about 900 calories on my long run the other day, but if I tried to do that four times a week I would die.

Evilbad · September 2015

I won't argue with you. The size of my shoulders after wearing 50lbs of body armor daily tells me I'm not crazy lol. I couldn't fit any of my shirts over my shoulders/arms, and that wasn't fat.

Either way, I'm not going to weigh but I do measure out portions based on serving sizes. Again, I will start looking at what I'm eating closer and see if my portion sizes are too big.

By processed I don't eat canned food, premade mixes, etc, mostly fresh fruit and veg, the protein powder is the vegan stuff but it's a quick way to make sure I have a decent breakfast (some days I do refrigerator oatmeal as well). We don't really eat fast food, don't buy sugary drinks, etc. I cook regular non-vegan stuff for my family and I don't use box mixes or jarred or anything, I cook everything from scratch. Next year we'll be doing raised garden beds and I'm hoping I won't even need to buy tomato sauce after that (fingers crossed).

It's always really frustrating because people always throw that out as advice "Oh just eat less processed food/fast food/cut out the sugary beverages" so I just say it first because it isn't really helpful lol. If I have one more thrive person try to guilt me into buying their crap by claiming that if I just cut out the starbucks and Mcdonalds, I might scream, ha.

janejellyroll · September 2015

Evilbad wrote: »

I won't argue with you. The size of my shoulders after wearing 50lbs of body armor daily tells me I'm not crazy lol. I couldn't fit any of my shirts over my shoulders/arms, and that wasn't fat.

Either way, I'm not going to weigh but I do measure out portions based on serving sizes. Again, I will start looking at what I'm eating closer and see if my portion sizes are too big.

By processed I don't eat canned food, premade mixes, etc, mostly fresh fruit and veg, the protein powder is the vegan stuff but it's a quick way to make sure I have a decent breakfast (some days I do refrigerator oatmeal as well). We don't really eat fast food, don't buy sugary drinks, etc. I cook regular non-vegan stuff for my family and I don't use box mixes or jarred or anything, I cook everything from scratch. Next year we'll be doing raised garden beds and I'm hoping I won't even need to buy tomato sauce after that (fingers crossed).

It's always really frustrating because people always throw that out as advice "Oh just eat less processed food/fast food/cut out the sugary beverages" so I just say it first because it isn't really helpful lol. If I have one more thrive person try to guilt me into buying their crap by claiming that if I just cut out the starbucks and Mcdonalds, I might scream, ha.

This board doesn't generally fall into the myth that you have to eliminate processed foods (which is a really vague term, as your example demonstrates), fast food, or sugar to lose weight.

But if you are gaining weight, you are likely eating more than you think. Weighing is a really good way to determine how much you're eating. I'm not sure how else you would determine if your portion sizes are "too big." If you are eating more than you think, how are you going to tell without an external measure?

Gaining Muscle

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