Expectations

Great input! thanks a bunch!

Thanks, this is incredibly helpful!

great post! :happy:

Thank you for this, I need all the help I can get!

Thank you for this very informative post...I just joined MFP and just started working with a personal trainer. I am still a little naive when it comes to caloric intake and exercise calories and all that. Looking forward to seeing some results with a realistic goal in mind! Thanks again!!!

Thanks Banks

Gotta disagree about Phase 3 and building muscle. If you're in calorie deficit, it's practically impossible to build muscle. The strength training you're doing at this point is to retain as much learn muscle as possible.

Please note the difference between what I said and what you are implying. I said building muscle, and by that I meant, activating dormant fibers and adding weight to the area around a muscle in the form of glycogen, intra-cellular water weight, and other parts of becoming more healthy and stronger. I did not say specifically to add muscle mass, which is something else, I agree, you cannot gain significant muscle mass while in a caloric deficit. But that doesn't mean you can't bring your overall muscle up to the high 90's percentage wise in active vs. dormant, which can significantly raise weight without adding fat mass.
And I would disagree with your last statement by way of it being an incomplete statement. The strength training you are doing is not only to retain lean MASS (not just muscle, but bone, and connective tissue as well), but also to train your muscles to be able to utilize more oxygen from the blood (which lends to lower blood pressure and lower risk of cardiovascular issues), and to decrease your dormant muscle fiber, and while I realize that active muscle fiber is not canabalized as easily, it also allows you to be stronger, and raise the metabolic rate (dormant muscle fibers consume about 2 to 4 calories per pound per day at rest, active muscle fibers consume about 6 to 10 calories per pound per day at rest).

Please note the difference between what I said and what you are implying. I said building muscle, and by that I meant, activating dormant fibers and adding weight to the area around a muscle in the form of glycogen, intra-cellular water weight, and other parts of becoming more healthy and stronger. I did not say specifically to add muscle mass, which is something else, I agree, you cannot gain significant muscle mass while in a caloric deficit. But that doesn't mean you can't bring your overall muscle up to the high 90's percentage wise in active vs. dormant, which can significantly raise weight without adding fat mass.
And I would disagree with your last statement by way of it being an incomplete statement. The strength training you are doing is not only to retain lean MASS (not just muscle, but bone, and connective tissue as well), but also to train your muscles to be able to utilize more oxygen from the blood (which lends to lower blood pressure and lower risk of cardiovascular issues), and to decrease your dormant muscle fiber, and while I realize that active muscle fiber is not canabalized as easily, it also allows you to be stronger, and raise the metabolic rate (dormant muscle fibers consume about 2 to 4 calories per pound per day at rest, active muscle fibers consume about 6 to 10 calories per pound per day at rest).

So wouldn't "conditioning" be a better term? It may seem like semantics, but many people on this site have been assuming that if they don't lose weight when they start a strength training program that they are "building" muscle, which also has the affect of frightening some away from strength training because of the visual of a "muscled" woman.

I have no issue with the terminology being changed. And to be honest, this post is years old, At this point, with a few more years of training under my belt, and the equivalent of a masters in Human Nutrition and metabolism, I wouldn't call it building muscle either. So yeah, we can call it what ever, as long as you promise to continue to fight against that silly women building muscle mass myth. I've never once watched a woman at the gym go "Whoops, I guess I lifted to hard this month, I gained 10 lbs but dropped 2% body fat".

To be clear (for others that are wondering what I'm talking about), woman can't "accidentally" gain significant muscle mass while lifting weights, you don't have the hormones for it, heck, even for us guys, who have about 10X the levels of testosterone as women, we STILL can only do between 1 and 3 (if you're REALLY pushing it) lbs of muscle mass per month, and that's at a caloric surplus, and with very strict nutrition.

Will always fight that argument. With 28+ years of gym life, the ONLY women I saw with more mass than me were the females on "enhancement" protocols. Man they had deep voices and more facial hair than me.

Thank you , I think I am at stage 2 and I need to trick my body now. It can be discouraging but I will only move forward :flowerforyou:

:happy:

bump

Big bump!!

bump

You're welcome.