Lost most of my weight I need a solid game plan

im interested in what others say here too but in your case i would say:

yes to increase cals for 1/2 lb weight loss
lift HEAVY 4-5 days a week
the only cardio you should do is HIIT 2-3 x week for 20-30 min... this will shed fast and KEEP muscle

good luck

im interested in what others say here too but in your case i would say:

yes to increase cals for 1/2 lb weight loss
lift HEAVY 4-5 days a week
the only cardio you should do is HIIT 2-3 x week for 20-30 min... this will shed fast and KEEP muscle

good luck

Thiisssss ^^^^

im interested in what others say here too but in your case i would say:

yes to increase cals for 1/2 lb weight loss
lift HEAVY 4-5 days a week
the only cardio you should do is HIIT 2-3 x week for 20-30 min... this will shed fast and KEEP muscle

good luck

Agreed, although I would have cardio as optional if you do not have a particular need to be super fit.

Something like Stronglifts or Starting Strength would be great. If you keep adding weight as per the schedule, and it gets brutal as I'm finding out, and you eat plenty (around maintenance) you should find you pack on muscle with your BF dropping.

Stay away from the curl bros who do nothing but curls and flies, usually with poor form.

Here is my problem:

I am getting pretty skinny everywhere with the exception of around my waist. Which really it isn't terrible anymore but it annoys me. I feel like I am at risk for burning too much muscle (or perhaps fat that I didn't know exists). I know you can't spot reduce but I feel I should be at the point of burning it soon enough.

I definitely need to tone, which I think will fix a lot of my flabby feelings and ideally build some more muscle.

I keep switching between running and weights and have a hard time sticking to one thing consistently because I feel scattered. Improving my fitness is VERY important too me at this stage and I am really leaning towards focusing on that by continuing to run and hoping the rest takes care of itself and then move onto strength. I just worry I am going to end up being too scrawny pretty soon. I feel like I am at a crossroad which is really not a bad problem to have in ways.

I have upped my calories a tad to allow for a 1/2 lbs drop a week which is the highest I have had them in months with the intent of being more active.

Any guidance, insight would be appreciated

Great work.

And great realization of what happens sometimes.

So you are in unique position to be able to nail your TDEE based on your current level of exercise, whatever your current routine is, if the loss has been about the same the last many weeks.

Pick some of the last few weeks and avg it out to daily.
What you ate daily avg.
What you lost weekly x 3500 (we'll assume fat) / 7 for daily deficit avg.
Add together, there is your TDEE for the type of routine you were doing.

Now, this is semi-useful, because I agree you may want to mix things up.
But it does show that if you had it set for 2 lbs and you were only losing 1 lb, then your metabolism has slowed down because of various factors. So moving to 1/2 lb is great idea. You may end up losing 1 anyway as metabolism speeds up.

Since you love the running, leave 2 days for it, long slow day if you enjoy that, and shorter fast day to feel that too.

Then 3 days of lifting, either total body if you can spread the days out, or upper and lower focused if they butt up against on 2 of the days.
Don't do the fast hard run day after lifting with the legs, though you can switch it around.
Muscles get stronger from lifting with rest and recovery, hard cardio is not rest and recovery.

The running by itself will eventually pull off the stomach fat, but the lifting will do it faster. The running also has excellent chance of burning up more upper body muscle if deficit is kept high.
So it depends, if you love the running and want to focus on that, then you don't need muscles upstairs to help that effort. But with less overall muscle (you don't need big leg muscles for long running, in fact they'll get real efficient and burn less energy as things go along), you may find your maintenance level pretty low.
Running can burn a lot of calories while you do it.
It also makes your system overall very efficient and burn less all day, especially if the runs take enough out of you that you tend to now move less on other daily activities.

I think constantly switching between running and weights is a great plan. Both aerobic and strength exercises are ideal for losing fat and keeping muscle. But at a calorie deficit you'll only build so much muscle. If you want to lose weight and build muscle at the same time you might need to look into calorie cycling or something like that.