Weightloss through weights

[seriassly]

Alright I'm starting a new weight training regimen and I'd like to ask for some advice in some areas. The goal is to maintain the same weight and gain muscle while loosing fat.

Diet
This theory of weight loss never made any sence to me, but I'm giving it a try. It dosen't make sence because to loose fat you have to create a calorie deficinecy and how am I going to grow muscles while in a calorie deficient scenario? Even if I make sure that my reduced calorie intake is more from protein (the extra needed for muscle growth) that leaves very little for energy in the form of carbohydrates. Anyways for those who have achieved weight loss through this method, please give me a run down of how should I be designing my meals? Also I imagine I should be taking some sort of protein suppliment, getting the amount of protein through food alone while trying to create a calorie difficency is almost imposible. So should I be drinking my protein shakes before, during, or after workouts?

Workout
I plan to do some cardio to suppliment my weight loss, instead of doing it through diet alone. If I wanted to do some cardio in conjunction with my weight training sessions, should I do it before or after my workouts or both?

Right now this is my workout
Monday - Chest
Tuesday - Bicep
Wednesday - Shoulders
Thursday - Legs
Friday - Triceps
Saturday - Back
Sunday - rest

Every day has minimum four excersises and all excersises are done with the 10,8,6,6 method with increasing weight.

[DEALER]

IMO, the best you can hope for is to keep "most" of your muscle while loosing fat.

[n10city]

This 10. 8, 6, 6 sounds okay for a bit till you get the feel for how much weight you should be putting up. but keep your shorter rep ranges at the start so u can guarantee your lifting the most at the beginning (after warming up of course) then taper off, and ultimately your not gonna need as many sets and has less risk of injury than when you're increasing weight during your workout. I usually won't manage more than 9 sets a body part. Look at my blog if you wanna see what I do. Good luck, seriassly.

[pliny_2001]

Just for your diet theory:

Running an overall calorie deficit means that you're burning fat for energy. So if you need 3000 cal/day, eat 2900 cal/day, you're burning 100 cal/day of bodyfat. So you're in a dietary deficit, but you still have plenty of energy. Fat = stored energy. (this is, of course, grossly simplified. It's more about nutrition than calories, IMO).

Carbs aren't your only source of energy. Gluconeogenesis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


What is the weight you're trying to maintain? Height? Training experience? I recognize your username but don't remember the details (and am too lazy to look them up). It's real easy to set up a good diet with plenty of calories where you lose fat, and maybe gain a bit of muscle (but legitimately, probably not too much), particularly as a novice.

FWIW, I think 1 body part/day training is nearly worthless, but others disagree.

[seriassly]

I want to maintain my weight of 250. Supposedly my ideal weight is 170, I am 5'10.5" tall.

[justaguy87337]

I read an article awhile back, but i remember it talking about weight lifting compared to cardio to lose weight. It stated that when doing cardio your body burns calories while you workout and about 15 minutes after. Weightlifting burns calories while you workout plus your muscles keepburning calories for over an hours. the more muscle you have the more calories you burn. Made sense to me. I wish I could find that article, it stated that Johnny Johnson burns more calories at rest (when not working out) than someone who is doing cardio for an hour. Some crazy number like 800 calories and hour because of his muscle mass. This artilcle made alot of sense to me. In short what i got out of it, the harder you lift, the more muscle you have and the more calories you will burn.

[seriassly]

I understand how someone who does weights will burn more, only because as they increase their muscle mass percentage they will burn more calories per activity as compared to a person of the same weight with a lower muscle mass percentage. In other words a 200 pound man with 33 percent of his weight as muscle mass, will need more energy (burn more calories) to picking up a piece of paper than a 200 pound man with 20 percent muscle mass percentage.

But my problem is as I maintain my weight of 250 and I increase my muscle mass and I started off lets say burning 3000 calories a day and I maintain my weight by eating 3000 caloires a day and I increase my muscle mass to where I need 3500 calories a day as 250 pound man but I eat 3000 calories will I be able to maintain that muscle mass let alone increase it?

[A1food4U]

As I understand it you will reach a point of diminishing returns. The process of muscle growth demands a certain calorie intake set above the capacity for the muscle to burn, this is in oposition to the idea of leaning based on a calories in vs. out set up. At first you will lean and maintain because the muscle tissue gained is heavier (denser) than the fat lost. But for your fat loss to continue you must take in less calories thus the building material is no longer there to grow; so you can maintain only as long as this relationship is in balance. There lies the trick, it is much easier to "Cycle" as most builders do. With each cycle hoping to maintain some portion of the growth.

I could be wrong but I think this is the lure os AAS. It sets this curve off a bit. I think that builders using the AAS "grow" faster during the cycle, but from what I have read they loose a significant amount of the gain once their cycle is over....

[seriassly]

So how do I maintain the balance? If I eat just what my body requires, meaning if I'm 250 eating 3000 calories of a protein rich, muscle building diet and I increase my muscle mass such that I now burn/require 3200 as a 250 pound man and I eat 3200 caloires, and I continually adjust what I need to eat as I increase my muscle mass will doing that not also increase my fat percentage?

[DEALER]

So how do I maintain the balance? If I eat just what my body requires, meaning if I'm 250 eating 3000 calories of a protein rich, muscle building diet and I increase my muscle mass such that I now burn/require 3200 as a 250 pound man and I eat 3200 caloires, and I continually adjust what I need to eat as I increase my muscle mass will doing that not also increase my fat percentage?

I don't think this needs to be this complicated. Seriassly, you are 5'10 and 250! Just lose some weight. Eat right, get lots of cardio and hit the weights hard. IMO, If you spend 1:30 in the gym, 30 mins hitting the weights, and 1 hour of cardio. At least until you get down to a healthier weight.

At 5'10 & 250, it must be safe to assume you are not very muscular. I say this because 5'10 @ 250 and muscular is an absolute monster. I don't know anyone that big who isn't on the gear. Hell, I don't know many that big who are on the gear.

[DEALER]

I want to maintain my weight of 250. Supposedly my ideal weight is 170, I am 5'10.5" tall.

Seriassly, I don't mean to sound cynical. It's just your goal of maintaining a weight of 250 sounds crazy to me. Don't get me wrong, I am 6'1"ish and would love to be 250! But that is not a realistic goal. Not natural anyway.

[pliny_2001]

I'm never one to tell people to not follow their dreams, but this probably isn't a good plan -- 250 at 5'10'' is really big, whether it's muscle or fat. If you're a beginner trainee (I'm guessing you are, or at least closer to "beginner" than "oiling up and putting on my speedo for a show"), then you probably need to lose a significant amount of fat mass for health. Also, how's your blood sugar? Most overweight weight lifters that I've seen complain that their rate of muscle growth is slower than a slimmer person's - whether this is b/c more mass is more obvious on a slimmer person is up for debate, but my belief is that they more likely have elevated ("pre-diabetic"? there's some actual medical value for this) blood sugar and insulin all the time, so calories are going to fat, and not to muscle. So they aren't growing.

The take away point from that poorly formatted paragraph is that you probably need to work on better habits: diet, exercise, cardiovascular efficiency, etc. before you're worrying about being huge. 250 on 5'10'' is approaching competition size, isn't it?

[seriassly]

Yeah, I'm doing this to loose weight. I have one of those electronic scales that measures your weight, fat%, water%, muscle mass, and BMR. I know there not accurate, but just to give you an idea resently I measured myself and I got 256.2lb, 33.2%, 50.6%, 162.8lb, and 2368 respectively. I'm pretty athletic I could out last most people lighter than me running, biking and pretty much any cardio activity. To tell you the truth I'm sort of an extremest and if I put myself to loose weight through cardio alone I could (done it before) loose thirty plus pounds in a month easy and at the weight I've allowed myself to get too I'm worried about sagging skin. So I thought since I've been dieing to get back in the gym, I could try this weight loss method. I could maintain my size to an extent through muscle growth, satisfy my extreme ways by hitting the gym hard instead of the pavement, and keep my weight loss graduale. The goal is not to stay forever at 250. I have to see where it takes me. I would say I could keep it there for about a month and probably without wanting I would actually loose weight, if not I bring down my weight in week break of just cardio and the back to weight maintain mode.

[pliny_2001]

I hate to be the internet a-hole, but you've lost 30+ pounds in a month? I'm surprised you can do that much cardio after having a leg amputated.

Seriously, seriassly -- there are a lot of people here with a wealth a hard-earned information that we're completely fine with giving away, just because we like the fitness lifestyle, and we like to help people. But you're going to have to be honest with yourself before we can begin to help you.

[seriassly]

Pliny, I am being honest. I told you about what I can loose in a month only to explain why I want to do this new training regimen. When I lost that amount before I noticed a little skin sagging, which shouldn’t be a surprise? I am heavier now so its more of a concern. Besides you don’t think someone can ride bike for example for four hours? That alone at my weight is enough to burn the 3500 calories they say you need to burn to lose a pound, and that’s without a calorie reduced diet, which I did. Multiply that by the days in a month and you got a 30 plus pound change in weight. Trust me I did it. I’m the type of person who rather go through a month or two of hell than a year or two of torture. Counting calories that’s torture, or eating just under what you should not ever really know if its enough that’s torture, while exercising a little each day not know if you did enough that’s torture, to be able to lose a pound after three of four days, that’s torture. To do that for a year or more that’s torture. I much rather exercise my ass off and eat a bare minimum diet and be done with it. But I can’t, there is that sagging skin issue. But heres the thing you don’t have to believe me, if you rather hear I’m too lazy to do cardio and I rather lose weight through weights or anaerobic activity. That’s fine, just help me. Is the journey I’m about to embark on a lost cause, or will I reap some benefits. I’ve also had some shoulder injuries (nothing crazy, on both shoulders, on separate occasion I had my shoulder give out on me in the middle of a set and now it feels different) so I don’t want to do a high protein, calorie deficient diet when that will not cause my muscles to grow and therefore further my injury?

The idea is through weight lifting I’ll grow my muscles. Bigger muscles will cause me to burn more calories. Burning more calories will cause me to burn more fat. Is that a rational train of thought or is there flaw in reasoning. If not what is the best execution of the plan?

[tooncesthecat]

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