Weight loss plus strength training OR Weight loss and then strength training
BlackJack96
Posts: 43 Member
For most of the last 7 months I've been doing stronglifts and intermittent fasting. For the last 3 weeks I've been doing IF only and paused SL (It's Ramadan so I'm fasting for some of the days although not truly IF). I noted that with IF/SL I'm losing about 0.4-0.5 pounds per week. Without SL I'm losing closer to a pound a week. In 1.5 weeks I can start SL again. I suspect the answer may be 6 of 1 and 1/2 dozen of the other, but is it better to do IF only and lose a bunch of weight and then liberalize the diet and focus on weight training OR is it fine to do both together?
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Replies
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You should do both of them together. The difference in weight loss you are seeing is likely just a change in water levels in your body due to a change in eating schedule and dropping the exercise.
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It's only been 3 weeks. There's a possibility that you've retained a bit of water from the workouts. Some people do not only at the beginning of a new workout, but always. And now you stopped working out the water is coming off. It will likely come back once you start SL again. But nothing to worry about as it's just water and not body fat.
Happy Ramadan!2 -
I was six months in before I started weights. I’m happy with the end result, but wish I would have started weights earlier.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone here say “glad I waited”.4 -
The only way weight training (or any exercise) can slow *fat* loss is if a person:
* Overdoes it, until it's so fatiguing that the person does less in daily life so burns fewer total calories, or
* Overestimates the exercise calories and eats them all back, or
* Gets hungry as a consequence, eats more, doesn't count calories accurately, doesn't realize it's happening.
Otherwise, variation in the scale is water retention changes. That's not fat, so why worry about it. It'll sort out on the scale eventually.
Don't overdo, estimate the exercise calories reasonably accurately (MFP database is better than a heart rate based estimate, for strength training), log eating carefully . . . keep lifting, it's good for you.
Ramadan Mubarak.4 -
Too much exercise will slow fat burning because the body will switch to 'distressed' mode will try to reserve its energies. Weight lifting is great but one has to be careful doing it, you have to find the balance to not overdo it. You will still lose some weight but most of it will be muscles instead of fat, and will likely result in injuries long term.0
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Too much exercise will slow fat burning because the body will switch to 'distressed' mode will try to reserve its energies. Weight lifting is great but one has to be careful doing it, you have to find the balance to not overdo it. You will still lose some weight but most of it will be muscles instead of fat, and will likely result in injuries long term.
Oh come on. Please finally stop peddling this nonsense. Your body needs more energy to exercise, and as a reaction it starts using less energy? You're a stone age hunter in a group hunting a mammut over days. It's hard work. Suddenly all bodies start to preserve energy and the whole group can't go on anymore and as a result end up without food, pelts and bones? What's the evolutionary explanation behind that?
In some exceptional situations fat loss can slow down, but not with everyday exercise.6 -
Too much exercise will slow fat burning because the body will switch to 'distressed' mode will try to reserve its energies. Weight lifting is great but one has to be careful doing it, you have to find the balance to not overdo it. You will still lose some weight but most of it will be muscles instead of fat, and will likely result in injuries long term.
Oh come on. Please finally stop peddling this nonsense. Your body needs more energy to exercise, and as a reaction it starts using less energy? You're a stone age hunter in a group hunting a mammut over days. It's hard work. Suddenly all bodies start to preserve energy and the whole group can't go on anymore and as a result end up without food, pelts and bones? What's the evolutionary explanation behind that?
In some exceptional situations fat loss can slow down, but not with everyday exercise.
The body can use its energy resources in the form of muscles too. Muscles are energy. If I try doing a bench press exercise with say 300 lbs my muscles will try to do it to prevent me dying, to survive. Maybe I will succeed, that doesn't mean I did much good to my muscles in the process. It will hurt them. An extreme example but shows the body will do anything in order to survive, even if that means muscle loss. If forced that is exactly how the body will react.0 -
Too much exercise will slow fat burning because the body will switch to 'distressed' mode will try to reserve its energies. Weight lifting is great but one has to be careful doing it, you have to find the balance to not overdo it. You will still lose some weight but most of it will be muscles instead of fat, and will likely result in injuries long term.
Oh come on. Please finally stop peddling this nonsense. Your body needs more energy to exercise, and as a reaction it starts using less energy? You're a stone age hunter in a group hunting a mammut over days. It's hard work. Suddenly all bodies start to preserve energy and the whole group can't go on anymore and as a result end up without food, pelts and bones? What's the evolutionary explanation behind that?
In some exceptional situations fat loss can slow down, but not with everyday exercise.
The body can use its energy resources in the form of muscles too. Muscles are energy. If I try doing a bench press exercise with say 300 lbs my muscles will try to do it to prevent me dying, to survive. Maybe I will succeed, that doesn't mean I did much good to my muscles in the process. It will hurt them. An extreme example but shows the body will do anything in order to survive, even if that means muscle loss. If forced that is exactly how the body will react.
Yeah, I’ve lost a lot of muscle surviving at the gym. Good thing I had a lot of fat to carry me through.
🙄3 -
Too much exercise will slow fat burning because the body will switch to 'distressed' mode will try to reserve its energies. Weight lifting is great but one has to be careful doing it, you have to find the balance to not overdo it. You will still lose some weight but most of it will be muscles instead of fat, and will likely result in injuries long term.
Oh come on. Please finally stop peddling this nonsense. Your body needs more energy to exercise, and as a reaction it starts using less energy? You're a stone age hunter in a group hunting a mammut over days. It's hard work. Suddenly all bodies start to preserve energy and the whole group can't go on anymore and as a result end up without food, pelts and bones? What's the evolutionary explanation behind that?
In some exceptional situations fat loss can slow down, but not with everyday exercise.
The body can use its energy resources in the form of muscles too. Muscles are energy. If I try doing a bench press exercise with say 300 lbs my muscles will try to do it to prevent me dying, to survive. Maybe I will succeed, that doesn't mean I did much good to my muscles in the process. It will hurt them. An extreme example but shows the body will do anything in order to survive, even if that means muscle loss. If forced that is exactly how the body will react.
The OP has had a change for only 3 weeks. There is no reason to go to extremes for explanations.
The body will SLIGHTLY downshift energy use while in a deficit. If the deficit is extreme over long enough time it will downshift some more which is why people start to experience hair loss (among other things). During higher than healthy deficits the body will use muscle for energy as well.
If you do not have enough ready energy to lift 300 pounds your body can't metabolize your muscle fast enough to help you. It doesn't work that way. Whether or not you start to burn muscle during recovery depends on what you do and eat next.
When things happen quickly on the scale (one way or the other) it is almost always water and sometimes waste changes in the body.4 -
springlering62 wrote: »I was six months in before I started weights. I’m happy with the end result, but wish I would have started weights earlier.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone here say “glad I waited”.
Yes, I've read tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of posts here and never one that said “glad I waited”.1 -
BlackJack96 wrote: »For most of the last 7 months I've been doing stronglifts and intermittent fasting. For the last 3 weeks I've been doing IF only and paused SL (It's Ramadan so I'm fasting for some of the days although not truly IF). I noted that with IF/SL I'm losing about 0.4-0.5 pounds per week. Without SL I'm losing closer to a pound a week. In 1.5 weeks I can start SL again. I suspect the answer may be 6 of 1 and 1/2 dozen of the other, but is it better to do IF only and lose a bunch of weight and then liberalize the diet and focus on weight training OR is it fine to do both together?
Sounds like you are taking a 4.5 week break from weight lifting? If so, you might experience water retention when you start back up. Don't let this discourage you and do keep lifting. (And of course you'll likely have to start at a lower weight than where you were when you paused.)
You may have averaged a higher weight loss these last 3 weeks because you're not retaining water from lifting. If you were to continue to not lift that trend should change.
When I started weight lifting I GAINED 7 pounds temporarily due to water retention but I was armed with wisdom from these forums and kept on.
Are you using a weight trending app like Happy Scale? This helps my brain so much with water weight fluctuations.3
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