WilsonFilson Member

So, there is a lot of info to be absorbed when looking to transform your physique. The best thing I can do is recommend a great book: "Thinner Leaner Stronger" by Mike Matthews. Its specifically for women. You'll learn how to bulk, how to cut, how to eat, and how to exercise/lift weights.

Weight, alone, is all sort of relative, right? For me, I think of cutting and bulking cycles in terms of body fat %. I cut to 10% and then bulk to 15% or 16%. Going much above that starts to cause insulin sensitivity issues. Just make sure on your cut you're only doing a 20-25% deficit so as to retain your muscle mass as…

Calorie deficits should be reasonable (20-25% of tdee). Otherwise you risk dipping into muscle mass to fuel your burn. When weight loss slows, drop calories by 50 cals/day to see if that gets things going again. Don't go below your bmr.

With the HR function turned on, the fitbit calorie burn is notoriously too high. Use it as a guide, but I suggest calculating your TDEE using one of the many calculators out there. I prefer this one: https://www.muscleforlife.com/macronutrient-calculator/

Get yourself on a good 4-5 day per week program and stick to it. Check out Michael Matthews "Thinner Leaner Stronger." Otherwise, the weight lifting can become a waste of time.

cmriverside - many of those meds also reduce metabolism, so its more than just eating at standard calorie goals. darlingnoire - I have no personal experience with this, but I would make sure you are doing everything you can to increase your bmr. This means adding lean muscle mass. Hit the weights! Also, avoid long periods…

Have you considered expanding your exercise routine? You COULD be eating more and still losing in a year from now by increasing your lean mass (i.e., muscle). I'm a big fan of dropping the low intensity steady state exercise (walking) and replacing it with a solid weight lifting program and interval cardio 3-4 times a week.

Sorry for the multiple responses, but its not even a highly effective means to get to a state of fitness. Its good at getting couch potatoes off the couch, but if you want to get fit, walking 10,000 steps a day is not going to do it.

Its a means to an end. Its not an end. There are lots of other means to get to that "end." (Fitness, being the "end" here, which interestingly enough, is not a state of being, but both a way of living and a non-static status.) Too much philosophy here. Sorry.

Sex, height, weight, and workout routine description, please.

Don't be! Look forward to the 20-30 min cardio sessions instead of 45-60.

Post-workout be sure you are eating your carbs and protein, together with creatine and l-carnitine. I was doing that but not taking the l-carnitine and getting terrible doms after leg day (which is not abnormal). But once I added l-carnitine to the mix the doms went away. Still some residual soreness, but nothing like it…

Its possible. I've done it. Once. But it is basically super high intensity HIIT for that whole hour. I wouldn't do that regularly unless you are getting a lot of rest/recovery.

I guess if you do cardio because you like doing cardio, then keep on keeping on. But if you do that much cardio because you are trying to improve your physique, there are much more effective ways of doing that. Strength training should be the focus, and any cardio should be short sessions (30 mins max) of HIIT cardio. I do…

I'm curious - for those ladies that do lift heavy in this thread, what rep range do you find the most effective? For me, and I know for a lot of guys, the focus is on the 4-6 or sometimes 6-8 rep range. I've heard a couple women comment that they find the 8-10 rep range the most effective and comfortable. Interested in…

Can you do it in a squat rack?

Truedat.

Ok, but if someone is in here thinking "why aren't my cardio workouts more effective for developing the body type I want," don't you think it would be helpful for them to see a post like this? If someone does cardio because they just love doing cardio, that's one thing. If they're doing it because they want to build muscle…

That's #broscience Lifting heavy has been shown time and time again to be the most effective way of developing muscle. Getting "toned" is the result of building muscle and losing fat. Light weight/high rep work (unless you are also mixing in heavy weight, low rep work) is only effective for those on juice.

I don't disagree. I do however think (I could totally be wrong) that there are a lot of people that want to achieve a certain body type and they think they are doing the right thing to get there but are actually going in the wrong direction, or at least could be a lot more efficient at getting there. It's hard enough as it…

But you also have to consider the after burn, and the metabolic effect. My understanding is that resistance training, combined with a HIIT program that doesn't lead to overtraining is the best combination for energy expenditure AND muscle development. All depends on one's goals I suppose.

Partially true. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25162652 HIIT takes home the gold. Then resistance training (heavy), then steady state cardio.

Love this.

That's true, but what's sad is when someone has in their mind the type of body that they want, and they are doing the wrong thing to get it. A lot of effort in the wrong direction sucks.

Water weight. Presuming you are eating at a deficit, you will burn fat. Building muscle will speed that process up a lot.

Some friends told me this is true. ;)

+1 for Mike Matthews's programs.

Great article here about bulking the right way: http://www.muscleforlife.com/bulking-up/

Goals -> Fitness -> Edit -> Adjust my daily calorie goal - Set to off.

For the ladies, check out Thinner Leaner Stronger. For the guys, check out Bigger Leaner Stronger. Highly recommended (I'm starting to feel like a broken record on here!). But I recommend it because its been great for me.