Leaned out and ready to build! Time to gain some weight!

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  • mustgetmuscles1
    mustgetmuscles1 Posts: 3,346 Member
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    It is not possible to loose fat and gain muscle at the same time (there are very few exceptions). You may know this already if so I must have misunderstood some of your comments. With a very high amount of cardio and too few calories you could be burning up your lean muscle and leaving fat. This will look great on the scale but will leave you skinny fat. There are many MANY discussion on this happening to people on here.

    If you want to gain muscle you are going to have to eat in a caloric surplus and use progressive resistance training (lifting heavier and heavier. I dont know if a program like Insanity or P90x are gonna give you that. Those programs are designed to burn fat and build strength. Building strength and building muscle are two different things.
  • DMarkSwan
    DMarkSwan Posts: 56 Member
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    How are you measuring your body fat %? If I'm reading the thread right, it looks like you ar just over 6' tall, 157lbs, and ...23% body fat? Something seems off. My scale at home claims my bf% is 26%, but a recent caliper test shows 17.6%. So it could be dangerous if you are working from an inccorrect bf% measurement.

    I used the one where you just measure your neck and waist, I know it is no where close to what the calipers can do but at least it gives me an idea.

    That's what I said... something is off haha. physically on my stomach and chest I can grab good amounts of fat, enough that I feel like there's probably a solid 10-20 pounds extra, but 135-145 seems below the healthy mark. I would assume the reason I weigh so little is the absense of muscle on my upper body. My biceps aren't much bigger than my upper forearm. And for the last year and a half I have been burning an extra 300 to maybe 1000 calories a day in cardio and eating right on my BMR. Been rocking a deficit of 300-1000 of pure cardio! I definitely don't have less than when I started that's for sure, but it can't have gained very much at all. The muscles are more lean that's for sure! Like my biceps, starting to take shape!!

    You're probably right about the lack of muscle being the difference. I suspect I will have similar difficulty getting rid of my gut. This plan may work for you, but I think I'm going to rethink my plan based on how low you have had to go and how much muscle you had to lose. I had thought I could drop to 160 and see a fairly flat stomach and then add some muscle, but I suspect now that the gut would still be there. My end goal is to have a fairly flat stomach with a bigger chest. I pretty much want to look like mustgetmuscle so I think I'll switch to heavy weights as soon as my gym opens. I don't want to call your way a mistake because it still may work, but I appreciate your post giving me the opportunity to learn from your example. You must have an iron will to be able to lose that much weight and I wish you the best in acheiving your goals.
  • DarthH8
    DarthH8 Posts: 298 Member
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    To be honest, it definitely was not even close to the wrong way. It is just how I did it lol, I would say do it any way you can. I wanted to run 2 times a day, it made me happy and kept my mind nice n clear. There is so much more to becoming fit than just losing some fat and gaining some muscle. Nutrition and exercise have definitely become a primary portion of my lifestyle. Keep in mind that it took me over a year to get to where I am, I made it something that I do, not something that I should do. Even if you are in the process of making stuff happen, I feel like it would never have gotten done if my workouts were something that I viewed as something I needed to get out of the way. There was most definitely a different process that could have given me quicker and better results. But this to me was easy as ****, no iron will at all. I enjoyed the hell out of this experience. No doing something that I didn't want to do, ever.

    Now, like I said, I just switched phases in my workout. I'm eating over 2500 calories a day (as of yesterday and today). Maybe that's true, you can't burn and gain at the same time. But think about it, I'm sure there will be days where I work really hard and my body has to tap into some of that remaining fat content. I doubt it will be able to draw the extra energy from my muscle as that is what it's been working so hard to feed the last several weeks. I don't think there could be a better way to go.

    I love the feedback you guys have been giving me by the way. I have learned quite a bit from you guys and even changed a bit of my fitness planning based on your info. Everyone has been great :-D
  • EuroDriver12
    EuroDriver12 Posts: 805 Member
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    you seem to know what ur talking bout buddie so thats good.. and when ur high BF% like u say u r.. you can build muscle and burn fat at the same time... that term more refers to when ur low BF%.. as ur body is going to need energy from somewhere and it doesnt have enough fat stores so it tapps into ur muscle...

    get ur nutirtion to 100%... get ur training to 100%... and u will be stunned!
  • Dan112358
    Dan112358 Posts: 525 Member
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    Sounds eerily similar to my story as well.

    Oddly enough, I posted this today:
    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/584983-gym-results-why-do-i-strength-train

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