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Losing Fat and Gaining Muscle (Body Recomposition) Tips?

alexreyn13
alexreyn13 Posts: 52 Member
edited February 2022 in Fitness and Exercise
So I'm a 26 year old male, weigh 70kg (154lbs) with what i'd say is definitely a skinny fat body (skinny arms, legs and frame, but with undesired fat on my stomach and hips) i originally weighed around 100kg (220lbs) a few years back but lost it over time by using a basic caloric deficit.

Now I've reached the point where i wanna do two things 1. lose the remaining body fat i have and 2. gain a bit of muscle/strength. My goal isn't to get ripped or completely transform my body, more-so just get more lean and hopefully gain some muscle, even if it's small. My maintanance calories using multiple TDEE calculators equals around 1850 calories give or take sedentary, some higher some lower, and so a 20% decrease would be around 1400-1500 calories.

I guess my main question is, is it possible for me to lose body fat and gain muscle (even if it's small) eating at such a caloric deficit combined with a basic 20-30 minute, 3 day a week strength training exercise routine? I'd mostly be using home workout equipment like dumbells and kettlebells, and would somewhere around 100-125g of protein a day be sufficient? too much or not enough? i also have to take into account costs, so I'm usually more focused on cost efficient protein sources if at all possible.

Would love to hear your opinions! thanks

Replies

  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 33,636 Member
    How tall are you? What TDEE calculator(s) gave you that estimate? Sailrabbit **, one I like if a person wants to use TDEE, suggests that at your age and weight, 1850 would make you around 139 cm (about 4'7") at sedentary. That's not impossible, of course, but it's quite statistically unusual.

    It occurred to me to check because I'd lose around a pound a week (without exercise) at 1400-1500 as a 5'5" (165 cm), 125 pound (57kg), 66 y/o woman. (Admittedly, I'm a surprisingly good calorie-burner for my demographic . . . but still.)

    Even if 1850 is right as TDEE, whether a 20% deficit is sensible in context of your goals is going to vary based on how tall you are, i.e., how much fat you still have available to lose. Protein needs, too, can depend on that. This is one research based source for estimating protein:

    https://examine.com/nutrition/protein-intake-calculator/

    . . . with explanation and research sources in this article:

    https://examine.com/guides/protein-intake/

    Overall good nutrition (fats; varied, colorful veggies/fruits for micros and fiber) would be a plus, too, in addition to adequate protein. Your sex and relatively young age are pluses for gaining strength and mass, with the right stimulus and nutrition.

    I'm not the person to advise on strength routines, but IMU if you're new to strength training, there's relatively more flexibility in which routines can lead to progress. There's a thread about programs here:

    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10332083/which-lifting-program-is-the-best-for-you/p1

    That thread can be a good place to ask questions about programs that aren't already answered there, too.

    Best wishes!

    ** https://www.sailrabbit.com/bmr/
  • alexreyn13
    alexreyn13 Posts: 52 Member
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    How tall are you? What TDEE calculator(s) gave you that estimate? Sailrabbit **, one I like if a person wants to use TDEE, suggests that at your age and weight, 1850 would make you around 139 cm (about 4'7") at sedentary. That's not impossible, of course, but it's quite statistically unusual.

    It occurred to me to check because I'd lose around a pound a week (without exercise) at 1400-1500 as a 5'5" (165 cm), 125 pound (57kg), 66 y/o woman. (Admittedly, I'm a surprisingly good calorie-burner for my demographic . . . but still.)

    Even if 1850 is right as TDEE, whether a 20% deficit is sensible in context of your goals is going to vary based on how tall you are, i.e., how much fat you still have available to lose. Protein needs, too, can depend on that. This is one research based source for estimating protein:

    https://examine.com/nutrition/protein-intake-calculator/

    . . . with explanation and research sources in this article:

    https://examine.com/guides/protein-intake/

    Overall good nutrition (fats; varied, colorful veggies/fruits for micros and fiber) would be a plus, too, in addition to adequate protein. Your sex and relatively young age are pluses for gaining strength and mass, with the right stimulus and nutrition.

    I'm not the person to advise on strength routines, but IMU if you're new to strength training, there's relatively more flexibility in which routines can lead to progress. There's a thread about programs here:

    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10332083/which-lifting-program-is-the-best-for-you/p1

    That thread can be a good place to ask questions about programs that aren't already answered there, too.

    Best wishes!

    ** https://www.sailrabbit.com/bmr/

    Hey thank you for the reply! i actually miscalcuated, using tdeecalculator.net I actually burn 1980 calories at sedentary (26, male, 70kg, 172cm) my body is what I'd say is skinny fat (decent fat % mostly on my torso) so my tdee goes as low as 1900 at a 20% body fat calculation, but granted i have no idea what my real % is. so if i'm just going off 1980 as my baseline, a 20% decrease in calories would be closer to 1600 daily or 1500 daily at 1900.
  • ciaoder
    ciaoder Posts: 119 Member
    edited February 2022
    Great job Alex dropping most of 70lbs!

    At 5'7" sticking around 150lb isn't a bad place to settle. If you're comfortable with your diet as it is maybe just tighten up the quality of food without reducing the quantity...there's nothing about your goals that would indicate the need for a 20% deficit. Then just add in the resistance training and see how your body responds. I'd also recommend some sort of cardio for your heart health and overall well being more than for any specific body shaping goals.

    125g of protein is a good starting place...dead center of what most recommendations would be. Boneless skinless chicken breast and skim milk are usually the most economical high protein foods.

  • alexreyn13
    alexreyn13 Posts: 52 Member
    edited February 2022
    kenlchrzanowski wrote: »
    Great job Alex dropping most of 70lbs!

    At 5'7" sticking around 150lb isn't a bad place to settle. If you're comfortable with your diet as it is maybe just tighten up the quality of food without reducing the quantity...there's nothing about your goals that would indicate the need for a 20% deficit. Then just add in the resistance training and see how your body responds. I'd also recommend some sort of cardio for your heart health and overall well being more than for any specific body shaping goals.

    125g of protein is a good starting place...dead center of what most recommendations would be. Boneless skinless chicken breast and skim milk are usually the most economical high protein foods.

    Thank you! and yeah around 150lb isn't too bad, it's just that i have a higher fat% than muscle so there's still a lot about my body i wanna change. I'll try not to go too harsh into a deficit, just a few hundred calories under with some strength training and cardio thrown in throughout the week (giving myself at least a day of rest between)

    Knowing how much protein i need was a nightmare haha, some people say 1g per lb of body weight while others, including multiple studies, indicate that it isn't necesarry and sometimes as low as .73g per pound is more than enough for muscle growth/maintenance, so i just kind of settled somewhere inbetween around 120 give or take.

    and yeah I'm getting most of my protein from chicken, fish (especially canned tuna, very cheap and high protein) 2 eggs a day, milk, greek yoghurts w/ protein and cheese if i need to fill out any extra protein I'm missing.
  • ciaoder
    ciaoder Posts: 119 Member
    It’s absolutely normal when you lose that much weight to have trouble maintaining lean mass. As you even out , adding muscle back won’t require anything extreme, especially as a young man. It just takes some time.

    Recommend intake for your macro nutrition will depend on what angle you look from. A bulking body builder will want more protein . A bodybuilder on a cut might go even more than that to preserve lean mass. Endurance athletes need a different approach. The right answer depends very much on the individual’s genetics, metabolism, exercise programs, and personal goals. There are some general guidelines and then trials and adjustments from there.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 33,636 Member
    alexreyn13 wrote: »
    kenlchrzanowski wrote: »
    Great job Alex dropping most of 70lbs!

    At 5'7" sticking around 150lb isn't a bad place to settle. If you're comfortable with your diet as it is maybe just tighten up the quality of food without reducing the quantity...there's nothing about your goals that would indicate the need for a 20% deficit. Then just add in the resistance training and see how your body responds. I'd also recommend some sort of cardio for your heart health and overall well being more than for any specific body shaping goals.

    125g of protein is a good starting place...dead center of what most recommendations would be. Boneless skinless chicken breast and skim milk are usually the most economical high protein foods.

    Thank you! and yeah around 150lb isn't too bad, it's just that i have a higher fat% than muscle so there's still a lot about my body i wanna change. I'll try not to go too harsh into a deficit, just a few hundred calories under with some strength training and cardio thrown in throughout the week (giving myself at least a day of rest between)

    Knowing how much protein i need was a nightmare haha, some people say 1g per lb of body weight while others, including multiple studies, indicate that it isn't necesarry and sometimes as low as .73g per pound is more than enough for muscle growth/maintenance, so i just kind of settled somewhere inbetween around 120 give or take.

    and yeah I'm getting most of my protein from chicken, fish (especially canned tuna, very cheap and high protein) 2 eggs a day, milk, greek yoghurts w/ protein and cheese if i need to fill out any extra protein I'm missing.

    At 154, you're at BMI 24.1, which is inside the normal BMI range, though it's the top half of that range. There's a statistical tendency for men to find a good weight a little higher in the normal range, women a little lower in that range, though that's not universally true for every single man and woman.

    The implication is that you have relatively little weight to lose (even though you may have relatively more fat and relatively less muscle than you'd like).

    It's also pretty common for us to be quite self-critical of our own appearance, so implicit in what I'm saying is a consideration (not a certainty) that you're not quite as "skinny fat" as you perceive. (If you felt comfortable posting a photo in a bathing suit or gym-type shorts (not underwear - not allowed here), we could give you a more independent view. (If you don't feel comfortable doing that, that's fine!)

    In any case, even if you're truly still carrying quite a bit of unneeded body fat, I'd encourage you, at your weight, with your goals, to keep your deficit smaller than what many would mean when they said "a few hundred calories". I'd encourage you to be thinking of maybe 250 calories' daily deficit on average (half a pound a week loss rate). Fuel your strength and fitness improvement objectives.

    If using MFP's calorie estimate based (per MFP instructions) on an activity level setting that doesn't include your exercise, I'd suggest you eat a reasonable estimate of your exercise calories, too. (It would be OK to use a good TDEE calculator, like that Sailrabbit one, to get a calorie goal that averages in exercise up front, if you prefer, and just take 250 calories off its TDEE estimate to give you around half a pound a week estimated weight loss.)

    Especially in a context of increasing exercise, that does mean it could take several weeks for you to see a weight loss on the bodyweight scale (because of the water retention fluctuations healthy bodies experience with muscle repair). Using a (free) weight trending app could help you see trends. (Examples are Happy Scale for Apple iOS, Libra for Android, Trendweight with a Fitbit account (free, don't need a device), Weightgrapher or others.) Even those can mislead temporarily (it's happened to me), and they're a statistical estimator, not a crystal ball. Still, it can help reduce the confusion of daily weight ups and downs that are pretty much meaningless noise.

    I'm suggesting this because you have little weight to lose, and losing weight slowly will help your muscle gain goal. At the same time, if you have body fat to lose, your body will be willing to use that fat as energy to fuel muscle gain, if it needs a bit more energy than you get from calorie intake. (That's how recomposition works.)

    While completely understanding that you do want to run a calorie deficit, I'd encourage you to read this thread, and think about the reasons to make that a small deficit:

    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10177803/recomposition-maintaining-weight-while-losing-fat

    That thread has good discussion about the lose fat/gain muscle tradeoffs. IMO, the replies and discussion on the thread are more relevant for you than the OP. There's some good stuff in there, food for thought, though it may take some patient reading to glean it.

    Best wishes!

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