Weight lifting, HIIT and nutrition
Iragen
Posts: 61 Member
Hi everyone,
So I just changed my goals because I figured "why not, I'm in a rut right now and its been the same for the past 2yrs give or take" and Im a little stunned.
Im 6ft, 30.8%BF and currently 260lbs and I float between 267 and 262 (poor diet and routine), but I started seriously exercising again and am currently working with a coach to figure out my 1RM so I know which weight to focus on growing over the months. MFP gave me 2370 to work with for a calorie limit and I only recently realized it gives you a notification for your week and that was eye opening. I was thinking i was close to a weekly deficit of 7000 calories but I am always just barely at 1-2 thousand so when I changed my goals and activity level (desk job/sedentary job, 2lbs per week loss) MFP dropped me to 1760ish and after reading a few posts as well as the responses to one of my own Im trying to mentally prepare myself for the grind of hunger that is to come, but Im still shakey. The goal is 200lbs or less and 20%BF.
All this in mind, my question(s) is/are:
1: will it be possible to still train with moderate weight and progress, however slowly (still want to keep my bench, squat and deadlift strength building).
2: I read of lot of calories in calories out pieces so that's why im trying for such a calorie cut, but technically doesn't my body burn more calories the more lean muscle I have? So if I get stronger while dieting and utlizing park runs that should increase the deficit right? I know I have to eat SOME of it back to not be too low.
3: if weight lifting with moderate to heavy weight given my goals, is unwise then is hiit a good replacement to keep some strength?
4: Finally, i heard theres two types of fat our bodies store and to get rid of one type, particularly the ones around the abs, chest and back, you have to specifically cut carbs down. This true or any research on that?
So I just changed my goals because I figured "why not, I'm in a rut right now and its been the same for the past 2yrs give or take" and Im a little stunned.
Im 6ft, 30.8%BF and currently 260lbs and I float between 267 and 262 (poor diet and routine), but I started seriously exercising again and am currently working with a coach to figure out my 1RM so I know which weight to focus on growing over the months. MFP gave me 2370 to work with for a calorie limit and I only recently realized it gives you a notification for your week and that was eye opening. I was thinking i was close to a weekly deficit of 7000 calories but I am always just barely at 1-2 thousand so when I changed my goals and activity level (desk job/sedentary job, 2lbs per week loss) MFP dropped me to 1760ish and after reading a few posts as well as the responses to one of my own Im trying to mentally prepare myself for the grind of hunger that is to come, but Im still shakey. The goal is 200lbs or less and 20%BF.
All this in mind, my question(s) is/are:
1: will it be possible to still train with moderate weight and progress, however slowly (still want to keep my bench, squat and deadlift strength building).
2: I read of lot of calories in calories out pieces so that's why im trying for such a calorie cut, but technically doesn't my body burn more calories the more lean muscle I have? So if I get stronger while dieting and utlizing park runs that should increase the deficit right? I know I have to eat SOME of it back to not be too low.
3: if weight lifting with moderate to heavy weight given my goals, is unwise then is hiit a good replacement to keep some strength?
4: Finally, i heard theres two types of fat our bodies store and to get rid of one type, particularly the ones around the abs, chest and back, you have to specifically cut carbs down. This true or any research on that?
1
Replies
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why do you want to drop 2lb per week? I hate being hungry personally and I always end up failing my diets when I get too hungry due to an aggressive deficit. I prefer to take it slow. lose 500g a week (sorry, I do metric). I basically just cut my calories down from maintenance minus about 200 cals. Also, I don't use MFP to tell me my maintenance I use tdeecalculator.net
you can still train hard at a deficit if you're not starving. when you start to get too hungry and weak - again this is my personal experience, then my training was not as good because weak.
I don't eat anything back. I log all my exercise as 1 calorie burnt. At the moment I'm on a little cut and I eat my -200 cals from Sunday to Thursday, then eat at maintenance Friday and Saturday.
Keep lifting heavy.
the carbs thing is *kitten*.2 -
1: You certainly can (and should) keep training. Since you recently started exercising again you may experience some strength gains from neuromuscular adaptation, but at the least you should be able to maintain your strength (if your deficit isn't too deep).
2: A pound of muscle burns about 6 calories per day, a pound of fat burns about 2 calories per day. You'd have to make considerable muscle gains to have any significant increase in your BMR, and that doesn't happen quickly. And you're not going to put on appreciable amounts of muscle while in a calorie deficit.
3: HIIT is not a strength exercise. It also can impair recovery from strength training due to the demands it places upon the CNS, so it would be a good idea to limit HIIT to no more than once or twice a week.
4: Utter, complete BS.
[ETA:] If you find the deficit too hard to handle at your chosen weight loss rate of 2 lbs/week, you may want to try cutting it back to 1 lb/wk. Better to lose the weight slower than to crash and burn on an unsustainable program and lose nothing. A smaller deficit (along with adequate protein intake and strength training) will also be helpful in retaining lean mass while losing the fat. Losing muscle sucks because it's a lot harder (and takes a lot longer) to put it back on than it would have been to maintain it in the first place.13 -
You should definitely keep lifting while you eat in a deficit, it will help preserve the muscle you have. It's possible to make gains while eating in a deficit but that normally only happens with obese newbies. You may not see as much progress while losing weight. But that's the price you gotta pay for getting rid of the fat.
You may want to try a more conservative deficit and a slower rate of loss. You should also eat back your exercise calories. MFP doesn't give calories for individual strength exercises but you can enter "strength exercises" for a period of time under cardio. If after a few weeks you aren't losing, you can adjust your estimated calorie burn downward.
HIIT is good stuff, I love what it does for my body. However, it's not a substitute for strength training. It's a specialized type of cardio. I agree with the poster above that once or twice a week is about all the HIIT you should probably do, done properly it is very taxing and requires recovery.4 -
My advice....
1: Yes still strength train, it's in some ways even more important when losing. You can still get good results in a moderate deficit.
2: Insignificant and not worth considering. A needless complication.
3: No HIIT is not a replacement, it's a very specialised cardio exercise that you should only do if it fits your goals (improving VO2 max for example, complementary to a particular sport). It's also an antagonist to strength training as it's very fatiguing and takes recovery time. Now if you mean circuit training which is often marketed as HIIT then to a degree it can be a replacement for some people - note only to a degree and not appropriate for your goals (squat, bench, deadlift improvements).
4: Absolute twaddle. Whatever source you got that from then I would ignore all their advice!
Have a really serious think about going for the fastest rate of loss, it is never my choice as my exercise performance matters to me and a massive deficit makes it far more likely I can't adhere to it.
7 -
Good posts above. They've provided everything you need to know
2 -
Thank you for all the informative responses. Regarding the 2lb per week goal; I want to see better results. I keep yoyo-ing and could never seem to break through the 250 floor so I want to get halfway to my goal or at least into the upper 230s then I'll dial it back(my goal on MFP) to the losing 1.5lb per week mission.
After looking at the weekly numbers I knew I must have been eating over on too many days and thats why it's been such a slow crawl to lose weight. My workouts are better so my body fat creeped down, but the weight was stuck.
My logic is that if I was assigned 2370ish for calories, then on some days I must be eating close to 2500 - 3000 so it averages out to a small deficit per week so then if I am assigned 1760ish and keep focusing on eating decently, but baring in mind those "slip up days", then I should land in the 2000-2400 range.
Biggest challenge from what I have seen in other posts is getting to accept that slight hunger craving before bed every night.0 -
I agree with sijomial and AnvilHead.
As to your followup post...
You might see better results from simply tightening up your logging and working on some consistency in your diet/intake. For me personally, larger cuts/deficits just increase the likelihood of yo-yoing. ESPECIALLY if progression is important to you, which is sounds like it is.
As for challenges... everyone is different. Figure out a good approach, then give it a go. No sense doing a whole bunch of reading if you're just going to worry about problems that aren't even problems yet.
IMO,- get your intake dialed in, i.e. work on logging more completely, accurately, and consistently.
- get on a decent lifting plan... no need to pay a coach if you don't want to, but probably isn't a bad thing either.
- plan on any sort of progress taking longer than you want it to. MUCH longer.
8 -
You gotten good advice above. The only thing I would add is don't overcomplicate it. Lift weights, hit your calorie target, be patient. And on the size of the deficit, maybe split the difference. Compliance and accuracy are the keys.4
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You gotten good advice above. The only thing I would add is don't overcomplicate it. Lift weights, hit your calorie target, be patient. And on the size of the deficit, maybe split the difference. Compliance and accuracy are the keys.
That^^
But if you're only shooting to lose 30 pounds, 2 pounds a week is too aggressive. You will not be eating enough food to fuel your lifts. Seriously, drop it to 0.5 to 1 lb per week and put on your patient pants.6 -
You got good advice from previous commenters but let me clarify on #4. It is BS but the reason people lower carbs when trying to lose fat is because it is easier for carbs to be stored as fat than protein. It takes more energy to break down protein so you are literally burning more calories by eating protein than you would if you ate carbs. You don’t have to do it that way but if you are having trouble with sticking to your calorie goal because of hunger then you may want to change your macros to help with satiety.13
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quiksylver296 wrote: »You gotten good advice above. The only thing I would add is don't overcomplicate it. Lift weights, hit your calorie target, be patient. And on the size of the deficit, maybe split the difference. Compliance and accuracy are the keys.
That^^
But if you're only shooting to lose 30 pounds, 2 pounds a week is too aggressive. You will not be eating enough food to fuel your lifts. Seriously, drop it to 0.5 to 1 lb per week and put on your patient pants.
I could be wrong but I think he's shooting to lose 60. He is at 260 and wants to get to 200. So, he could be a little more aggressive but I would think compliance would be an issue at 1650. It would be for me and I'm around 180, give or take on any given day.0 -
Thank you for all the informative responses. Regarding the 2lb per week goal; I want to see better results. I keep yoyo-ing and could never seem to break through the 250 floor so I want to get halfway to my goal or at least into the upper 230s then I'll dial it back(my goal on MFP) to the losing 1.5lb per week mission.
After looking at the weekly numbers I knew I must have been eating over on too many days and thats why it's been such a slow crawl to lose weight. My workouts are better so my body fat creeped down, but the weight was stuck.
My logic is that if I was assigned 2370ish for calories, then on some days I must be eating close to 2500 - 3000 so it averages out to a small deficit per week so then if I am assigned 1760ish and keep focusing on eating decently, but baring in mind those "slip up days", then I should land in the 2000-2400 range.
Biggest challenge from what I have seen in other posts is getting to accept that slight hunger craving before bed every night.
Different methods work for different people, but for me, a small slice of cheese before bed keeps me from feeling hungry. The fat in the cheese triggers satiety. And take this with a grain of salt, but some studies have found that this lowers fasting blood sugar in diabetics by reducing stress hormones associated with fasting. Try moving your macros and timing around and see if one way of eating makes you feel more full than another.1 -
quiksylver296 wrote: »You gotten good advice above. The only thing I would add is don't overcomplicate it. Lift weights, hit your calorie target, be patient. And on the size of the deficit, maybe split the difference. Compliance and accuracy are the keys.
That^^
But if you're only shooting to lose 30 pounds, 2 pounds a week is too aggressive. You will not be eating enough food to fuel your lifts. Seriously, drop it to 0.5 to 1 lb per week and put on your patient pants.
I could be wrong but I think he's shooting to lose 60. He is at 260 and wants to get to 200. So, he could be a little more aggressive but I would think compliance would be an issue at 1650. It would be for me and I'm around 180, give or take on any given day.
My bad. More coffee needed. 1 -
There is a chance you're misreading a graph and you should manually verify.MFP gave me 2370 to work with for a calorie limit and I only recently realized it gives you a notification for your week and that was eye opening. I was thinking i was close to a weekly deficit of 7000 calories but I am always just barely at 1-2 thousand
If your goal is 2370 Cal a day when you're set to lose 2lbs a week, this means that 2370 is an expected 1000 Cal deficit a day for you. Thus 16590 Cal eaten in a week would represent a 7000 Cal deficit.
How many calories eaten did you log during your week? Add them up manually.
If you ate 22590 to 21590 net Calories for the week then you WERE "barely at 1-2 thousand". But, if your total for the week was 14590 or 15590 as I suspect it was, then you actually LOGGED an 8000 to 9000 Cal deficit.
Just to be clear: logged deficit does not mean achieved deficit; but it is important to keep goal setting issues and implementation issues separate.so when I changed my goals and activity level (desk job/sedentary job, 2lbs per week loss) MFP dropped me to 1760ish and after reading a few posts as well as the responses to one of my own Im trying to mentally prepare myself for the grind of hunger that is to come, but Im still shakey. The goal is 200lbs or less and 20%BF.
All this in mind, my question(s) is/are:
1: will it be possible to still train with moderate weight and progress, however slowly (still want to keep my bench, squat and deadlift strength building).
2: I read of lot of calories in calories out pieces so that's why im trying for such a calorie cut, but technically doesn't my body burn more calories the more lean muscle I have? So if I get stronger while dieting and utlizing park runs that should increase the deficit right? I know I have to eat SOME of it back to not be too low.
3: if weight lifting with moderate to heavy weight given my goals, is unwise then is hiit a good replacement to keep some strength?
4: Finally, i heard theres two types of fat our bodies store and to get rid of one type, particularly the ones around the abs, chest and back, you have to specifically cut carbs down. This true or any research on that?
1. The usual advice is to maintain intensity of lifts but cut down on volume. If you're a beginner to strength training and you're starting at 30% fat levels you can probably make gains even in a moderate deficit. 2lbs a week pushes the word moderate quite a bit.
2. Extra muscle is more than a rounding error but less than a burger or snickers bar. Walking and running in the park is great for you and will help you build cardio-vascular strength. Park runs won't help you get "stronger"--not unless your park has like a bunch of out-door strength training devices that you're using instead of running. You would eat ALL of your activity calories back in order to not exceed your 1000 Calorie a day deficit.
3. Hiit is not a good replacement and is likely to make you more tired and less active thus reducing the amount of total calories you burn for the day. However high (for you) weight training at lower volume + high protein is probably what you should be aiming for. High protein in your case would be somewhere between 145g and 200g per day of protein.
4. No.1
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