Trying to lose fat and gain muscle

rwilliamberry · April 16, 2018 7:32AM

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?

keeler521 · April 16, 2018 7:51AM

It requires a surplus to building muscle. In a deficit, you pretty much work out to maintain what you already got and building a bit of strength. use it or lose it I say. I don't go hard in the gym. I get a good pump, give myself about 2 calories per minute that I worked out, eat back to reach my daily goal.

sijomial · April 16, 2018 8:21AM

Stopping the deficit would no doubt help - you don't need to be in a calorie surplus to build muscle though but a deficit makes it really hard to build any muscle beyond some initial gains.

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?

djeffreys10 · April 16, 2018 3:03PM

In addition to what they said, I would cut the cardio down to maybe 5 minutes before lifting. Just enough to get the heart pumping a little. Save that energy for the weights. But that's just me, ymmv.

stanmann571 · April 16, 2018 3:14PM

It might help if you give a little better idea of what sort of strength program you're running. And what sort of progression is built into it.

Spliner1969 · April 16, 2018 3:19PM

I do body weight exercise to warm up before I hit the free weights. Then I do cardio afterward. If I do cardio before hand I end up too tired to do any good with weights.

jflongo · April 16, 2018 3:25PM

I hop on the treadmill at a decent speed of walking for 10 minutes, then I hit weights. It doesn't tire me out at all, but does warm up the body and get your heart rate up a little.

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.

rwilliamberry · April 16, 2018 5:12PM

sijomial wrote: »

Stopping the deficit would no doubt help - you don't need to be in a calorie surplus to build muscle though but a deficit makes it really hard to build any muscle beyond some initial gains.

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?

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.

rwilliamberry · April 16, 2018 5:15PM

Thank you everyone for the tips and advice. I really appreciate it.

rwilliamberry · April 16, 2018 9:48PM

sijomial wrote: »

Stopping the deficit would no doubt help - you don't need to be in a calorie surplus to build muscle though but a deficit makes it really hard to build any muscle beyond some initial gains.

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?

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.

fb47 · April 17, 2018 1:03PM

Like everyone says, being in a surplus will make it tough or almost impossible for you to gain muscles (there are exceptions, but the majority of us can't). Only way to build muscles is by doing recomp (staying near maintenance) or bulk. Recomp will give you slower results than bulking especially if you have many years of lifting under your belt. If you are new, recomp will be a big benefit since you recruit muscles faster than someone who has lifting experience.

sgt1372 · April 17, 2018 5:59PM

Everyone says they want to "lose fat and gain muscle" but what actually happened to me while lifting and eating at a deficit (and at maintenance) was that I got stronger and lost weight/fat that that made me "look" more muscular and fit w/o actually significantly changing the amount of LBM (including but not limited to muscle) that I had.

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.

fb47 · April 17, 2018 7:28PM

fb47 wrote: »

Like everyone says, being in a surplus will make it tough or almost impossible for you to gain muscles (there are exceptions, but the majority of us can't).

I meant to say being in a "caloric deficit" will make it tough.... and not surplus.

MDC2957 · April 17, 2018 9:17PM

If you lift weights, simply losing fat will make you look more muscular like sgt was saying.

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Trying to lose fat and gain muscle

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