This is the ideal way I'd like to go. What would be best approach ie training and nutrition any advice guys
You can build muscle in a deficit, but it's neither the most efficient way to lose weight, nor the most efficient way to build muscle (a small calorie surplus).
If you're a brand new lifter, not yet had your first year noobie gains, you'll have an easier time.
If you're an intermediate lifter, and you keep your deficit to <500 calories per day, and you train with good volume and progressive overload and high protein, and you have a reasonably high body fat to start with, you can gain some muscle.
In general though, your baseline assumption should be focus on weight loss and lift to preserve as much of your existing muscle as possible.
Aside from the usual recs of lifting several times per week, progressive overload, high protein (close to 1g per pound of your goal weight), the only change while in a deficit might be don't do low reps (to high intensity obviously) in your sets, as that apparently may increase injury risk.
Do you know what your maintenance calories are? If you don’t find your true maintenance calories. Once you have your true maintenance calories start by dropping 100 calories per day
We are assuming several things here so I’ll briefly touch on these. Set your protein intake per day at 1g per lbs of desired body weight. Some studies show good benefit of taking your protein as high as 1.6 grams per pound of body weight. Weigh yourself every morning upon waking, track the trend. Once you’ve found your maintenance calories and you’ve decided to start your deficit cut those calories by 100 per day. These will typically be pulled from your carbs. The constant on your macros will always be your protein. I wouldn’t lower daily fat grams lower than 25% of your daily calories. Now that you’ve began your deficit and you’re tracking your daily weight, make sure you’re getting between 10 and 12k steps per day. Try to consume 2/3 to a gallon of water per day. I carry and refill 17 oz water bottle per day and shoot for 8 to 12 of those per day. 9 to 10 is the sweet spot for me. 12 consistently and I’ll start to get quad cramps. Which is telling you you’re flushing your electrolytes out. Once you have all these things in place and your weight stalls for 4 to 5 days in a row, drop your calories by another 100. This should work good for a slow but steady recomp of your body. If you notice you’re losing too quick as you get stronger then you need to add calories back in. Just means you’re adding muscle and your maintenance calories have increased.
Should be well down the road but once you’ve hit 8-10% bf you may need to start adding in a cheat meal one day per week or a refeed day where you run higher carbs for that one day. This will spark your metabolism and should allow you to continue to lose for 3-5 days before needing to do it again.
A competitor friend of mine swears by a burger on Sundays during his prep towards the end. His floor for his calories is 1800 and refuses to go lower. So any lose after reaching that floor either comes from a cheat meal on Sundays or activity. I use re feed days vs the cheat meal. Accomplishes the same goal.
Hope there’s not too many typos in here for you. Best of luck.
Largely agreed with the above posters. Gaining any signficant muscle while dropping fat isn’t impossible, but it’s a hat trick. Personally, if I can maintain the muscle I have while dropping weight, I consider that a success. If I can actually gain a little muscle, it feels like I’ve won the lottery.
Simple tips, as other posters have said:
Again, don’t stress out too hard about gaining a ton of muscle right now. Hang on to what you’ve got, keep lifting, and eat healthy. There’s always time later to build significant muscle.
My suggestion would be say something more about what "ideal" means to you. Is the goal to target a day when you will appear an unclothed god on public stage or wedding night at ideal best ever and forget it after that, or to just get to everyday fairly lean and fairly jacked for the rest of your life without too much crazy dieting and exercise intensity? On experience, you can achieve either but the road will be short and painful with extreme measures or take some time on a fairly stable diet and somewhat intensified training. A lot depends on your "ideal" compared with what you are right now and the gap between.
