I’m been dieting and working out (mainly weight lifting and walking) for the better part of the last year and have gotten to the point that I’m kind of stuck. My body has toned up nicely and because I have broad shoulders, muscular thighs, and relatively narrow waist I don’t “look” fat , but I still want to lose approx 25 lbs to get to my target weight of 225. I’m 6’3" and 250 lbs at this point and I am eating approx 9-10 calories per lb of body weight (I count calories) or around 2300-2500 calories per day. I have a very slow metabolism and even with this moderate intake level I’ve been pretty much stuck at around 255-250 lbs for the past 2 months.
I want to drop another 25 lbs but I’m concerned that that muscle will vanish along with the fat if I crunch down to 1500 calories or so per day to drop the lard.
How do you restrict calories to lose just the fat and still protect your muscle gains?
Can you tell us a little more about your workout routine? How hard are you hitting cardio? For diet, not only are calories important, but also the distribution of protein/fat/carbs.
For some people, depending on bodytype, losing those last 10-20 lbs can be next to impossible without horribly restrictive diets and enormous amounts of weightlifting and cardio. That may or may not be the case for you; I may be able to help out with some tweaks in your diet and/or workout routine.
I think the key would be to continue to work out and make sure you lean a little more toward a protein rich diet. You might try attending Weight Watchers meetings. This is something the team leader could probably help you with. WW has helped me with my weight problems.
I have a fairly balanced diet balanced diet with a good carb-protein mix. I have been trying to go extra heavy on protein (ie one or two 8 oz packages of water packed tuna daily in salads or with crackers + a whey protein drink with skim milk in) addition to the usual stuff. try to keep fats to a minimum, but I’m not nuts about it. I am 47 years old.
Home work out routine is fairly basic and short. I have both a 120 lb curls bar a 75 lb curls bar and a basic home gym machine with a leg press on one end and barbell type bench weight at the other.
2-3 times a week I do the following weight routine. On the off days I walk a 2-3 mile course but my walking over the last 2 months has been constrained due to cold weather to approx 1 -2 days a week. The warmer weather coming will allow me to get back on the road 3-4 times a week.
I started going to the YMCA in the last week or so to use the 400 lb leg press machine and I do 30 reps x 3 on that machine and noodle around on the other stuff. It helps my rear end to tighten up (gluteus and the hamstrings) which none of my home exercises would do.
Basic set
15-20 barbell curls with 120 lb barbell depending how strong I feel. I try to maintain good form but there’s a little back arching action at the end.
Seated dumbell curls off knee 60 reps, 40 reps then 30 reps each arm with 55 lb dumbbell
10 reps bench press with 230 lb machine weight (I had it at 250 but could only crank out 4-5 or so)
70 reps - 50 reps - 40 reps seated leg lifts (ankle goes under weight to be lifted
up) with 150 lbs (max I can load on machine)
30 triceps pullovers (20 then 10) with 75 lb barbell lying on bench with head on bench at leg lift end
30 quick barbell press with same 75 lb barbell lying on bench as above
Generally speaking, you want to make sure your protein intake stays high. Workouts should be fairly brief, a couple of sets of 3-5 reps each per body part, with the key focus of keeping as much weight on the bar as possible.
So, if I were cutting hard right now, my routine might look something like this:
Upper Body:
Bench, 2x5*
Chins, 2x5+weight if necessary
Military Press, 2x5
Rows, 2x5
Lower Body:
Squats or Deadlifts, 2x5
Hamstring Work, 2x5
Calf Work, 2x5
Maybe another set or two of quad-centric exercise, such as front squats, leg press or leg extensions–usually not, though, since I usually do a lot of running when I’m dieting.
2x5’s not counting warmup sets.
If those workouts are too short and you still have energy left you can always add another set to those lifts or maybe add a set or two at 10 reps of tinkering (curls, lat pulldowns, whatever you’re in the mood for, really) to the end for metabolic benefit.
It’s worked for me in the past. The times I’ve lost muscle dieting is when I’ve tried something different than the above.
Again, you generally won’t build much strength (if any) on a hard diet, so the goal is just to maintain what you have.
This sounds like the weak component. If you are focusing on weights, your body can be extremely stubborn at reducing weight and bulk even though your strength is increasing. While walking is a good start, it won’t really get you the cardio stress you need to really get in shape and get fitter.
Are you walking because of some physical restriction that prevents anything more physical?
Some good hi-aerobic but low-impact or stress activities are cycling, swimming, cross-country skiing, and roller blading.
I agree with Gargoyle - I think you’ll have to beef up the cardio a bit to really get rid of the last few pounds. There’s always a trade-off between muscle bulk and cardio tho - it’s hard to maintain large muscle mass while doing intense cardio. Creatine MAY help somewhat.
However, assuming you just want to be fit, and look good, and you’re not only looking for size, perhaps adding something like swimming a couple of times a week will help drop the pounds. I’m reasonably fit, and swimming kicks my ass up down and sideways.
It’s not just a matter of calories. You can play with your macronutrient combos and food timing for some neat effects. Take a look at the nutrition articles on JohnBerardi.com for some info.
60-40-30 curls with a 55 lb dumbell, I’d say that’s a rather impressive. Anyway, one thing that did stick out to me was you’re not doing any exercises for your back (pullups, pulldowns, rows, etc.); not sure if that is something you’re concerned about.
You sound like you’re a pretty big, fairly strong guy, so you may find that 25lbs may be a bit ambitious. From my experience, using weight and/or BMI is not the best way to gauge how your workouts are going; I think a bodyfat % is better, though I still subscribe to the “Am I comfortable with how I look and feel?” and targetting those parts that you aren’t satisfied with.
Now, IANAN, but you’re diet looks fairly reasonable, and probably doesn’t need much tweaking. The only thing I’d recommend, if you’re not doing it already, is trying to get more of the carbs toward the morning so you can burn them for energy, and more of the protein in the evening so you can rebuild while you sleep. So, with that, it leads essentially to # calories eaten - # calories burned formula; if its negative you lose weight, and if its positive you gain weight (of course its quite that simple, but its good enough).
I’m generally against reducing calories unless they’re unreasonably high, which you don’t seem to be, plus, if they get too low, it lowers your metabolism which in turn reducing the calories you burn. What you can do easily is change how many you burn. By continuing to build muscle and get strong, your resting metabolism will increase. By doing more cardio, you can burn more.
How long does it take to do your workout? I’m guessing about 60 minutes. Can you do it any faster to keep your heart rate up? Try a circuit approach, by alternating bodyparts that force your heart to pump the blood to opposite sides of the body (ie, benchpress then legs then bicepts then crunches then pullups, etc.). When do you work out? The earlier in the day, the better, as it keeps your heartrate up longer and thus you burn more calories, if you can work out in the morning without having to take a nap later, you’d get the most benefit from that.
How hard are you hitting the walk? Its important that you’re walking fast enough to make sure you’re in the fat-burn zone, but not so fast that you’re in the cardiovascular zone (though you still should do some of as well, which will also raise your resting HR). You can find hundreds of articles online on what your target zones are, but for me I prefer knowing what it should feel like. In the fat burn zone, after about 5-10 minutes you should still be able to hold a conversation easily without having to keep pausing to take breaks, you should be lightly sweating, and be able to maintain a normal breathing rate as resting, just breathing much deeper. In the cardiovascular zone, you’ll be breathing faster, even if you are breathing deeper, be sweating moderately, and but you should still be able to hold a conversation with minimal interuption. If you’re gasping, and sweating like crazy, and can’t hold a conversation without taking a breath every couple of words, you’re probably hitting it too hard for your goals.
Oops… I thought I posted this yesterday afternoon…
[QUOTE=alice_in_wonderland]
There’s always a trade-off between muscle bulk and cardio tho - it’s hard to maintain large muscle mass while doing intense cardio. Creatine MAY help somewhat.
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I just wanted to note that this isn’t necessarily true. Its an old wive’s tale that I constantly hear at the gym “If you hit cardio too hard, you’ll start burning muscle”. This is only true in that you can over-train (which I have done before), or if you just plain do cardio instead of weight training. For maximum fat loss, you have to do both weight training AND cardio. In fact, for maximum strength, you really have to do both as well… endurance and recovery are key in strength and power training as well.
I absolutely agree with ultrafilter here. Consultation is useful if you really have no idea what you’re doing, or you’re seeing nil for results. What it really comes down to is how your body reacts to certain foods and exercises, which you can just as easily experiment with as they can. I think a nutritionist MAY be worth seeing once or twice just to get an idea of what kinds of foods you should be eating for your body type and goals, but you sure as heck don’t need to be buying expensive supplements and meals in a box when you can just as easily cook the meals yourself. I feel similarly about a personal trainer; maybe see one once or twice to learn different exercises (mostly form, which is FAR more important than weight and/or repititions) and various other principles. After you’ve figured out the basics, you’re just paying him to encourage you and count.
Here, the OP WAS seeing results until he hit a plateau. This is completely normal, and should only require minor adjustments to keep your muscles shocked.
Another thing to consider is to not be too hung up on your weight or your lack of “loss”. I am built similarly to you and workout about as much. I too was stuck for much longer than 2 months at 245. The harder I worked out and the more I dieted, the more stuck I appeared to be.
I started taking bi-weekly measurements (i.e. neck, chest, biceps, quads, waist, etc…) and learned that even though I was not losing any pounds, I had lost almost 3 inches in my waist alone! I guess I got used to wearing baggier clothes when I was heavier and never noticed the fact that they were hanging on me after the months that I thought I had “plateaued”.
My point is perhaps to not fixate on the scale. You are in better shape than 99% of society. Set new lifting goals or try out new forms of exercise. Make new goals other than “25 more pounds”.
My experience is that diet is the number one factor. As long as you keep lifting, and stay out of starvation response, your body will favor fat burning to muscle burning. I recommend you cut back another 200 to 300 cals a day for a week and see how it goes. I also would recommend that you eat six times a day (every two to three hours depending on the length of your day) to stay out of starvation response. I second the advice to read up at John Berardi’s site. If you don’t have a scale that measures body fat percentage, get one.
I’ve never read a bodybuilding book in my life… I’ve always just studied the form of other guys, did what I felt was right, and winged it. I’m doing pretty good, keeping big and staying reletivly lean. So, my advice wont sound as scientific as the rest of these guys. To keep off the fat, I hit the cardio machines, but set the machine to Isokinetic instead of manual. this way, you stay strong (And therefore muscular) while burning calories like a man possesed.
Also, I cheat… Inferno fat-burning capsule, a mix of caffeine and Ma huang… Best placebo I’ve ever had. just kidding, they really will blast fat deposits off the body.
Swimming on the spent muscles for as much as I could without actual exhaustion worked for me, long ago, when I did this sort of thing. Leave the gym, shower, hit the pool, and do laps until you need to stop. (After a while, it will mean swimming until it is time to go, but at first, you will find even a very few laps hard to do after your lifting.) A warm pool is a big plus. Doing this in the morning seemed more effective, as well, although I don’t really know why.
It’s zero impact, very good for flexibility, and time wise as quick as aerobics gets. It cannot undo your strength training, although it will slightly modify your body lines, leaving you slimmer, but not slighter. If you add more than a half hour to your routine, you are way more dedicated than I was. (It’s a long time in the water, if you start out spent.)
I think it depends on the sort of size you’re hoping to maintain. I know there are a few studies going on here to help athletes that require bulk (eg, football players) to help increase cardiovascular fitness without losing muscle mass.
I don’t think it’s an issue for a person who just wants to be fit, but if you’re looking to increase size dramatically, cardio can hamper that, apparently.
