How do I lose weight instead of building muscle???
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lilharumaki
Posts: 112 Member
Hi all, thanks for taking the time to read!! I am 5’1 and ~159 (down from 165, woo!), but I feel I’ve reached a standstill. I have been trying to eat around 1700-1900 calories a day (I admit I ate a lot this weekend on my birthday) but I feel like every time I try to lose weight, I don’t lose any weight and build muscle instead. I would consider myself to build muscle fairly easily, but I would like to lose weight. Any advice??? (Picture for ref of my body type)
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Replies
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It is very hard (maybe actually impossible) to build muscle while in a calorie deficit. It is more likely that losing weight is just revealing the muscle definition that you already have.16
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Unless you are also doing some significant weight training, you aren't gaining that much muscle. Muscle is extremely hard to gain, even when you are working your butt off and eating at a surplus to allow it to build. I WISH I could build muscle that easily. If you really don't want to gain any muscle, then simply don't do any resistance training, if you are doing any. Work on the calorie deficit, and do some cardio if you feel like it. But having muscle is awesome, and you'll look fantastic when you do cut a bit of fat if you are muscular. What are you doing for exercise, by the way? 1700-1900 sounds closer to maintenance for your height, unless you are burning quite a lot of calories each day in activities.5
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It is very hard (maybe actually impossible) to build muscle while in a calorie deficit. It is more likely that losing weight is just revealing the muscle definition that you already have.
One needs excess calories to build muscle If one has excess fat stores those can be used up to a point to build muscle.
That being said, building muscle especially as a female is difficult, i.e, like maybe a pound a month with a lot of work on a good resistance program.
What type of program is the OP on?4 -
Eat in a deficit vs. a calorie surplus. Even if you are lifting in a deficit and do build some muscle, you will not build so much to outweigh the fat loss. Keep in mind it is normal to retain water for 1-4 weeks after starting a new lifting program. If you aren't losing after that, you are maintaining and need to tighten your logging.12
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Hi all- thank you for your input!! I am a medical student and I walk around a lot in the hospital for work, but as for exercise I do martial arts or cross train 3-4x/week! I think maybe I’ll try taking your advice and cutting the calories to a little less to see if that works!! Thank you, everyone!0
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lilmakiroll wrote: »Hi all, thanks for taking the time to read!! I am 5’1 and ~159 (down from 165, woo!), but I feel I’ve reached a standstill. I have been trying to eat around 1700-1900 calories a day (I admit I ate a lot this weekend on my birthday) but I feel like every time I try to lose weight, I don’t lose any weight and build muscle instead. I would consider myself to build muscle fairly easily, but I would like to lose weight. Any advice??? (Picture for ref of my body type)
sounds like cutting 250 calories per day is worth a try.
i'm 5' 3", my activity level is set to sendentary, and to lose a half pound a week, MFP has me set to eat 1360 calories per day, not counting exercise. that's working for me, but i wouldn't lose weight eating 1700 calories - that's maintenance for me. i add my exercises in my exercise diary. today i did 37 vigorous minutes on the bike and even with that, i am given a calorie budget of 1,678 calories today.
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First off I love your workout gear.
If you want to not gain muscles, just eat at a deficit. As it's been said before, it's very unlikely that you're going to be gaining much, if anything, in deficit.
Do you eat back your exercise calories? I had a look at your diary and I'm assuming the answer is yes judging by your days end calories. I also noticed a lot of "generic" style entries and cups measuring. While right now you may be losing weight with those, tightening up your logging to the actual weight of things and checking MFP database entries for food from restaurants or coffee shops would be a good habit to get into now.
Another thing to consider is that as you lose weight, your muscles will become more visible. Depending on how long you've been doing that level of exercise, you could have a reasonable amount of muscles sitting under your fat just waiting to be shown off. Personally, I spent years thinking I had fat arms. Then I lost a load of weight and discovered my big arms weren't because of fat, it was because of some fat on top of my larger than I thought muscles.4 -
lilmakiroll wrote: »Hi all- thank you for your input!! I am a medical student and I walk around a lot in the hospital for work, but as for exercise I do martial arts or cross train 3-4x/week! I think maybe I’ll try taking your advice and cutting the calories to a little less to see if that works!! Thank you, everyone!
You'll gain STRENGTH with that regimen, which may deceive you into believing that you have also gained muscle.
Try taking measurements. My lying eyes used to claim my biceps were getting bigger, but the tape measure said otherwise.2 -
Plug your weight into a weight trend app.
You've been at this what? two or three months? 6 lbs = 21,000 Cal of deficit.
Divide by Days to figure out what your actual deficit is.
Your feelings of speed of loss are not relevant for an objective decision.
based on things discussed before (assuming my recollection is correct) you should be seeking a slow rate of loss---which you're actually achieving.
Slow rate of loss is often invisible amidst water weight fluctuations.
Water weight fluctuations are common in your age group and common if you exercise.
Don't allow your brain and impatience to over ride objective data.
You're doing fine and unless you have been stalled at the same weight or gaining over a six week period you're losing fine right now....
Too slow is not always good, I admit. Too fast is also not always good.
since your current weight is not life threatening your risks of too fast outweigh
the risks of too slow in your specific case!
Plus you shouldn't be eating or exercising differently than you intend to long term, so the degree of effort you should be applying *should* be minimal.
So.... where is your happy scale or trendweight/weightgrapher or Libra graph.... before we start talking stalls and feelingZ
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Just curious in what you are observing that would lead you to that assumption? Weight goes up?2
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How exactly are you determining that you're building this significant amount of muscle mass? I suggest getting sponsored by a fitness company as you have top tier genetics. Along with mostlikely a myostatin deficiency.
Are you watching the scale? Because if it goes down. You're simply getting leaner. If it goes up then you're gaining fat and muscle.
That amount of calories is a reasonable amount. I wouldnt recommend going much lower. If you stop losing itd be better to increase activity levels opposed to decreasing calories3 -
Unless you were a former athlete returning from a long layoff, building muscle in a calorie deficit isn't very likely. Many associate getting stronger and seeing more muscle definition as an indication of building muscle, but that's basically explained by "neuromuscular adaptation" and "less body fat". Muscle that hasn't been used in awhile will increase in size due to accumulation of glycogen and water in the cells, but unless you're doing a progressive weight lifting program along with a calorie deficit, it's NOT likely you're building muscle. If you're NOT losing weight, it's because you're more likely consuming more calories than you may need.lilmakiroll wrote: »Hi all, thanks for taking the time to read!! I am 5’1 and ~159 (down from 165, woo!), but I feel I’ve reached a standstill. I have been trying to eat around 1700-1900 calories a day (I admit I ate a lot this weekend on my birthday) but I feel like every time I try to lose weight, I don’t lose any weight and build muscle instead. I would consider myself to build muscle fairly easily, but I would like to lose weight. Any advice??? (Picture for ref of my body type)
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
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Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
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