For the last few months i have been eating pretty clean and have had a counter used for the calorie defecit from mfp. i have lost almost 17 lbs from changing my diet from high octane garbage, to healthy leaner foods and lifting and doing cardio. I also am extremely active at work. I walk about 6 miles a day. I would be what i consider skinny fat. I'm 6'0 and am now at 170 lbs. Now the real issue i feel I'm having is that i am not progressing how i should in the gym. I have been doing a steady full body routine 3X a week and doing 15 min of cardio before each session. Does anyone have any tips for me to get more gains from my workouts? Should a stop being in calorie deficit?
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Your x3 a week full body sounds a good template but are you following a specific program with progression designed in or winging it? (The hidden tip here is making your training as efficient as possible.)
Do you have an eventual goal weight in mind?
Also, can you tell what your settings are at?? I'm at 0.5 lb loss per week, and I have built some muscle and lost a little bit of weight.
I have a specific workout that i have been following, but i have only gone up slightly in weight(lifting) in the last 5 weeks. I dont have a specific weight in mind i just want to lose fat and gain muscle and basically just look good. Im not trying to get big just more toned and less flab.
There is not a progression built into the routine I have so what I've been doing is once I hit a point were i can do 3 sets of 12 I up the weight.
Over 23 months, I lost 41# from 196 to 155 and dropped my BF from over 20% down to 8.3% (as last measured by hydro).
I lost the weight/fat by strictly means of diet control.
Lifting made me stronger and developed the muscle tone that could not be seen until the weight/fat dropped but the amount of LBM remained relatively constant at 140-145# throughout.
So, virtually all of the weight I lost was in the form of fat as a result of eating less couple w/lifting which made what was left just "look" better.
The type of lifting recommended for newbies is a progressive program like Stronglifts (SL 5x5) or Starting Strength (SS 3x5), which are designed to achieve the easiest gains available as quickly as possible.
I used both of these programs but eventually adapted them for my own needs/desires by gradually switching to a 4x6, 3x10 and then 3x12 set/rep routine instead.
Having already reached an acceptable strength level for me (which ranked me in the elite class for other men my age/wt based on the Strength Level database for the 4 basic compound lifts used in SL & SS), I did not see any point in trying to continue to lift heavier weight for it's own sake and decided to start lifting just to maintain my existing strength by using a 3x12 routine that allowed me to lift lighter weight (than I am capable of lifting for a true 1RM) but which also reduces the stress on my body thereby reducing the likelihood of injury. I still gradually increase the weight lifted doing 3x12 but not on any set schedule.
If this sounds like what the OP is doing, it is.
The important difference (and I'm speaking to the OP now) is that I already determined that I had reached my max strength goals and intentionally chose to limit any significant additional strength gains by switching to what is mainly a hyperthrophy (not a strength) oriented lifting program after having already lost weight and fat to achieve very noticeable fitness and muscularity.
I have no doubt that starting w/a 3x12 lifting routine would NOT have achieved the same results for me in terms of strength and muscularity in the same period of time and that the OP will significantly retard his progress by continuing to do so.