Looking forward advice and feedback

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My name is Joe, I started this journey September 29 and have been feeling good ever since. I started at 348.8 and as of January 1 I weigh 303.8 45 pounds down so far. I've been eating between 1700-2600 calories a daydepending on my activity level. I've been walking 10 to 20,000 steps a day for cardio and have been working out five days a week with weight training. I know at a caloric deficit I can only build so much muscle, I think I've reached that point, I feel from time to time I may have some pre-injury feeling in some of my joints like wrist shoulder and elbow, should I switch to maybe a three day maintenance for the muscle while I'm cutting fat? Or may be a one week off to five weeks on schedule? I'm just looking forward advice so that I can keep moving forward without losing what I've done. If there's anyone else that's been down this path any tips tricks advice would be greatly helpful and feel free to add me.

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  • BusyRaeNOTBusty
    BusyRaeNOTBusty Posts: 7,166 Member
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    Depending on what type of workout you are doing, it's definitely possibly you are stressing your joints (and that probably doesn't have anything to do with your diet). You can switch to a 3 day a week, full body routine and see how it goes. You also might want to move to the lower end of the rep range, so set of 4 to 6 instead of 10 to 12 (if that's what you are doing, I have no idea). And yeah, a week at lower weights or no weights every now and then would be good for you.
  • jemhh
    jemhh Posts: 14,261 Member
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    Congratulations on your loss. That is a great accomplishment.

    You may want to take a deload week. Many programs have them built in. I do one every 7th week. I do the same exercises but use around 50% of the weight. After that you could resume your current program or pick a new one. The following is a list of programs, all of which can be used while cutting. They all differ slightly and the best is the one that most appeals to you:

    * All Pro's - http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=4195843
    * 5/3/1 (get the book but this is a calculator) - https://blackironbeast.com/5/3/1/calculator
    * Greyskull - http://strengthvillain.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=89
    * Fierce 5 (note that there are several variations from beginner to advanced, 3-5 day, plus a dumbbell program) - http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?p=1267226191#post1267226191
    * Lyle McDonald's barbell and machine routines - http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/muscle-gain/beginning-weight-training-part-4.html/
    * A Workout Routine (beginner) - http://www.aworkoutroutine.com/the-beginner-weight-training-workout-routine/
    * Full body dumbbell routine (note: women and men can use the same rep range, if you want to go low do it, if you want to go high do it. I promise that neither will make you gain or lose a Y chromosome.) - https://www.muscleandstrength.com/workouts/dumbbell-only-home-or-gym-fullbody-workout.html
    * Stronglifts - http://stronglifts.com/
  • Liftng4Lis
    Liftng4Lis Posts: 15,150 Member
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    WTG on your loss. Are you doing a progressive lifting program?
  • Josephfunk
    Josephfunk Posts: 31 Member
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    Here's the breakdown of my routine. Monday chest, flat bench,incline, decline 4-6 rep range. Tuesday back, lat pull downs with resistance bands since I'm still too heavy to lift my own weight, lawnmowers, back flys, bent over rows,and when my back doesn't hurt deadlifts 4-6rep range, Wednesday is rest, Thursday is shoulders military press, alternating dumbbell press, Front and side dumbbell raise, Single arm shoulder fly, and shoulder shrugs,Friday is arms easy curls, alternating curls, Single hand preacher curl, pulldown tricep extension, reverse tricep extension, Scull crushers, Saturday is leg day, leg extensions, hamstring curls calf raises squats. Sunday is rest. Having not worked out for a while I wanted to take full advantage of the time that I could build muscle again. None of this is set in stone and I alternate workouts as I see fit for each day there's too many different variations for each muscle group to do the same thing every single time. All exercises are performed 4 to 6 rep range and I try to keep total number of sets between 9 and 12 per workout. As stated before I increase my calories relevant to the amount of work I'm doing in a day.