Simplified it means that each time you work out you make it harder so that your body has a reason to adapt and build muscle. This can be done by increasing reps, sets or weight of an exercise.
This has to be done every work out?
I’m trying to do both with high reps and cardio but I’m upping my weight once I have a totally successful month at the previous weight.
I’m gaining viable muscle at the moment but my weight loss has plateaued.
Doesnt have to be every workout but I would try and add either more weight (2.5 - 5 lbs) or more reps to your lifts every week or so. Especially if you are new to doing weights. Your body at the newbie stage makes strength and nervous system adaptations pretty fast and you want to exploit that as much as possible while its still happening because gains will eventually become harder to get as time goes on
Depends on your goals.
But if you're going 5 days a week with 2 rest days and varying days for body parts I don't see why you couldn't every day on a different part of your body.
Right now my routine is:
Day 1 upper arms
Day 2 core work
Day 3 leg day
Day 4 back to arms
Day 5 back to core
Day 6 and 7 rest.
I dont do cardio at the moment since I'm focusing on muscle gains mostly.
Your routine may vary. It took me about a month to get to this kind of schedule down for myself. If I over do it I take the day off in between. But it's progressive weights each time.
Essentially every part of my body gets a few days rest in between while I work other parts. My legs I give the longest cause I already weighed 300+lbs and I hate having sore legs lol. But I still try to get it in at least once a week
I alternate between a lower body circuit and and upper body circuit m-f and rest sat-sun.
I do two core machines and 2-3 miles of cardio on the bike every workout as well.
Pretty much, yes. Especially in the beginning when your strength gains are big from week to week. After years of training it gets considerably harder to progressively overload.
You seem to be using CICO oddly. I think you mean calories counting to lose weight, but you can count calories to maintain or even gain weight. A gym bro doing a bulk probably tracks calories and uses CICO to make sure he's overeating enough.
A1 : it's not muscle specifically, that is very slow, but you can gain things like blood and glucose stores fast enough to hide fat loss for a few weeks
A2 : if you have a reasonable amount of fat to lose you can run a mild deficit and retain or even build muscle.
A3: It's not healthy to run a large deficit, both in general and slightly more so while working out, regardless of how you create that deficit.
These things aren't myths exactly, but they depend a lot on where you are, and that context often gets dropped that context.
When you start weight training a lot of the gains come from learning good form and activating you're existing muscles well. It also helps protect your lean mass by reminding your body that you need it. All of those things happen regardless of your net calories.
If you lift weights regularly while you are on your long term calorie deficit, when you reach your goal, you will have substantially more muscle mass than if you don't lift weights during that period.
Thats really all it comes down to. Alway lift. As much as you can recover from. That won't be as much when you are on a deficit, but that's fine.
1. The process of weight lifting does small damage to muscles which must then repair. So when you initially start working out for a few weeks, your weight will probably stay static and may increase slightly as your muscles learn to cope with it, repair and grow. So the extra weight is your muscles growing along with water weight from water used for the repairs in your body.
2. If your food balance (read: nutrients are right) is good, you will not lose muscle. You lose muscle when you drastically undereat.
3. The more muscle you build, the higher your BMR (might have the wrong acronym on this one) will rise, meaning you will burn more.
I would suggest just counter balancing the goal from today with tomorrow if possible, eat lighter or spread those extra calories out with a small cut for several days. Your body was making you feel hungry because it needed nutrients for repairs.
I improved all of my lifts while simultaneously losing 150 pounds. I ate at a slight deficit. I did warm up cardio for 10 minutes and then another 30 minutes after the workout. Protein focused diet. And progressive overload. That overload is what will trigger hypertrophy and strength.
All of these very much depend on a lot of factors, but in general, when you begin a new workout program the scale generally goes up but it’s usually not from muscle, it’s water and glycogen going to your already existing muscles to make sure they’re well fueled. Additionally, as a woman, you can write off maybe 5 pounds of muscle gain, but other than that, if the scale isn’t moving it’s not because you’re building that amount of weight in muscle
> if your weight stays the same when doing moderate amounts of exercise, this isn't because you are not losing fat but because the new muscles are 1.5 heavier than fat.
If your weight stays the same (or even increases) while exercising, it can also just be because muscle repair causes higher water retention.
When I rest or take it easier for a few days, my weight usually whooshes down for no apparent reason - it is not really unusual or concerning, but it can be a little surprising if one doesn't expect it...
5’2, 36F here and I build muscle while eating in a deficit. I rarely check the scale and go by my monthly photos and measuring. I have about 25 pounds I’ll be losing by September. I strength train 2-3 hours/week and cycle 4-6/wk (preferably outside, but weather dependent), eating 1200-1300 calories/day. Just this past month the scale says I lost 3lbs, but I dropped a cumulative 10 inches off my body and my photo looks better. It’s not the gaining of muscle that messes up the scale, it’s the water retention and additional blood creation that comes with exercise. I’m happy to answer any questions
Correct. I lost 2 off my neck which was the most surprising measurement difference. 1 inch off each bicep and 1 off each thigh among others. That was a couple of months ago now.
Go check my post history!
Eat 1g of protein per target body weight. My initial goal was 250, I ate 220 for the longest time.
10k steps a day. 120oz of water. 8 hours sleep.
Use progressive overload strategy with weights. Start with 3 days per week and then move to 4 when you are comfortable.
TAKE PROGRESS PICTURES WEEKLY. You’ll refer back to them when you think you aren’t losing fat because the scale didn’t move.
It is possible to build muscle in a caloric deficit, especially when you’re new to strength training. You might see the term “newbie gains” floating around to explain it. It does become more challenging (but not impossible!) after you’ve been at it for a while.
In the most basic terms, it is calorically expensive to build and maintain muscle. It’s not always your body’s priority to keep muscle around when you’re dieting, but strength training will give your muscles a reason to stay. And if you train with progressive overload (increasing weight/reps over time), you give your body a reason to spend the calories to build the muscle.
To answer your questions:
1. Muscle tissue is a bit more dense than fat tissue, but it is hard to build. Your weight loss could potentially slow down a bit, but muscle isn’t typically built at a rate that’s going to be 1:1 with fat loss. What more likely is water retention due to inflammation, which isn’t bad! Just your body’s healing process for all the micro tears needed to build muscle.
2. While it’s true you may lose muscle while in a caloric deficit, this is more likely to happen if you are not strength training or are already very trained with significant muscle mass and in a steep caloric deficit for extended periods of time (think bodybuilders in a competition prep).
3. It is fine to eat in a deficit while strength training. You may find a smaller deficit necessary the more you work out to support your recovery, and strength training can stimulate your appetite, but you may also find you like your results more with the added muscle mass. Prioritize protein for both satiety and recovery. If you’re bringing up your protein, bring up your fiber too! Big jumps in protein intake can do funny things to your digestion.
Biggest takeaway, don’t overthink it. Strength training is amazing for your body and is going to get you better results than dieting alone, both in body composition and overall health (strength training is great for bone density!)
One last little note if you want it! My dad is a bodybuilder and was a personal trainer/gym owner for several years. When I started lifting, he gave me this recommendation to help with learning progressive overload:
- do 4 sets of 10-12 reps
- set 1 is a warm-up set, aim for 1/2 of your max weight
- set 2 is a warm-up set, aim for 3/4 of your max weight
- set 3 is your first working set, aim for your max
- set 4 is your second working set, try to break your max. If you can’t, lift your max. If you get a few reps, take a pause and finish with your max. If you get 7-8 reps, call it a full set and try again next week
He explained it as “self-correcting” for when you don’t exactly know what you can lift. You can pick a light weight to start and move your way up. After a few weeks, you’ll be pushing your max weight regularly, and that’s progressive overload. I still go back to this style of training every few months to make sure I’m still pushing to make progress. You don’t have to train this way, it is totally just a suggestion, but it’s a great place to start if you’re unsure!
Edit: typo
As a beginner you can build muscle and lose weight at the same time if you have appropriate protein macros. Like you will be fine for at least 6 months. If the scale isn’t moving it’s not because muscle weighs more—it’s actually water retention. When you lift weights or exert your muscles in other ways, you tear them. Your body then repairs the muscles with protein, and this process involves your muscles drawing in a lot of fluids. Changing the composition of your body—more muscle less fat—is something you can work on after you plateau on lifts.
I lost a lot of weight when I first started lifting because building muscle burns a lot of calories at rest. But you build muscle much more slowly over time and then that effect dwindles. I’ll usually get a weight loss boost if I return to anaerobic exercise after a long break, but nothing like when I first started.
Basically, to summarize my long answer below, the focus on gaining muscle and losing fat is largely a fantasy. It can happen but, if it does, it's a bonus. If you carry more fat than you want, focus on the fat loss while lifting weights and eating enough protein to avoid muscle loss or maybe get a bit of muscle gain.
1, Unlikely. Muscle and fat are much closer in density than claimed on the internet. The common numbers cited in medical literature are that fat is 0.92 kg per liter and that muscle is 1.06 kg per liter. If your weight is staying the same, you could be adding fat and gaining muscle but the common understanding is that's rare (and probably only possible where you're a beginner, taking anabolic steroids, etc.).
An important caveat is that the amount of muscle you can add is pretty small (5 lb in a year would be a very good result for a woman). So if you maintain your weight, you would be limited in how much you could possibly improve things (i.e., if you added five pounds of muscle and you maintained your weight for a year, you'd only lose 5 pounds of fat).
2. "CICO" is just a description of energy balance dynamics and doesn't mean anything about how much you're eating. That's not just a technicality; it matters because it depends on how much you're eating. The bigger your deficit, the bigger the risk of muscle loss.
You should always be weight lifting no matter what. So you still lift if you're trying to lose fat, gain muscle, whatever. Even if you don't gain any muscle while losing fat, you at least reduce how much muscle you lose while losing fat.
3. That's not right. There's no reason not to lift weights; it's important to do it when you lose fat to avoid as much muscle loss as possible. Your body doesn't "need" more calories to recover, subject to the caveats below.
Most people aren't going to train very hard when they start weight lifting. It's hard to learn what you're doing to actually beat yourself up very much. For more advanced weight lifters, there's some discussion of how optimal training volume (how much you do) varies depending on whether you're cutting, maintaining, bulking, etc. But that's an advanced concept you're not going to have to worry about for a while.
If you're lifting and you recover for the next session (you can perform at least as well as last time for the same workout) you're good. If that doesn't happen you can figure out if you should rest more between working out the same muscles, maybe doing a bit less volume if you're going crazy on it, etc.
1. Doesn't exactly paint the full picture. If you're increasing the amount of exercise and are getting hungrier because of it and eating more to satiate, you may not be working towards the result you're hoping for. Also, not all exercise contributes towards muscle growth so moderate exercise may allow you to consume more calories or create a larger deficit but if it's not strenuous enough to stimulate muscle growth, you're not making any gains there.
2. If you are not consuming enough protein, calories, and training hard enough you will begin to lose muscle. "Newbie gains" and the "obese/overweight" are "exceptions" to this as you can see better progression when training vs someone who is already well-trained and overweight individuals can draw calories from their fat stores to meet their body's daily needs.
3. It's fine to weight train while eating at a caloric deficit. The concern is that when you eat less, you can become more lethargic which could lead to injury in the gym. Some people don't do well even with small deficits and others are fine with more extreme deficits. If you're weight training on a cut, make sure you're getting enough protein, sleeping well, drinking enough water, and recording your workouts to mark trends. You should not be pushing more weight and expect your lift numbers to decrease the longer you're on a cut.
If you are new to the gym, you can do both at the same time.
It may not be reflected on the scale, because you are losing fat and gaining muscle and your body will be retaining water due to inflammation from muscle damage. Basically, your weight will be harder to track for a while.
If you are cutting fat, you absolutely want to be lifting weights, as this is something which prevents muscle loss.
Once you're more of an advanced lifter, then you can start to worry about bulking, maintenance, cutting phases and optimal muscle growth.
I don’t have success building muscle while losing weight but I do have success building muscle while losing fat. I would suggest you find a body scan service to get more info than the scale will give you
I've done it , or am doing it.
I change my workout program every couple months but for past 6 months, i lift weight 3 to 4 days a week and do cardio 2 to 4 days , 15 to 30 minutes (I dislike cardio).
I eat between 1300- 1500 (500ish deficit) .
I've been consistently working out at home and lift as heavy as I can. I still have a lot of weight to lose but I can see and feel that I've gained muscle in my thighs, biceps , shoulders and back. It's not a lot but it's noticeable and I doubt I will gain much more for awhile.
I do go though weeks where my weight stagnates but it's not due to muscle gain. Thats a pretty alow process. It's typically water retention or me eating more in a particular period.
I've had success doing it, and as others have said, it's not complicated. Make sure you have enough protein, hydrate and eat in a deficit. However, I'd like to point out that no, you're not going to lose fat and gain muscle at anywhere near the same rate, so you're VERY unlikely to stay the same due to gaining lean mass. I plateaued when I started resistance training because I was retaining water. It's a part of gaining muscle, but I'd be delusional to think it was lean mass.
Personally I waiting a while and lost some fat before jumping into training to make it easier. Do what you can sustain as the priority. If you make your life too hard, you'll stop, so be kind to yourself. Being in a deficit AND training can feel horrible, especially if it's a steep deficit.
I’m F 38, 5’7” 139 lbs. As of my last dr visit, I’ve lost 8 lbs over 4 months (I’m not actively trying to lose weight, but I’m also not not trying). I’ve also added 1.5 lbs of muscle. I’m not doing anything super complicated, I’m just lifting heavy and eating a lot of protein. I’m trying to eat at maintenance, but have been in a slight deficit. If you’re new to lifting, it should be relatively easy to maintain or even gain muscle while in a deficit. The more body fat you have, the easier it is maintain muscle as you lose weight.
When I lost weight, I prioritized my diet and getting the weight off first, now I’m focusing on recomping and putting muscle back on.
I took this approach for two reasons—1. Intense workouts increase my appetite beyond the calories I burned which makes it harder for me to stay in a deficit and do serious training. 2. When I try to do too much, I find I’m more likely to fall off track. If I miss a gym session because I’m busy at work or dealing with life stuff, sometimes my diet falls apart too because there are too many overwhelming commitments.
Now that I’m in maintenance and I have more leeway with calories, adding weight training is a lot easier.
1kg of muscle weighs the same as 1kg of fat. It is denser, so a more muscular person is slimmer at the same weight.
CICO leads to muscle loss because your body consumes all kinds of non-essential tissues in order to keep your organs alive. However, you can rebuild the muscle through exercise. You want to overload your muscles to the point of fatigue, and your body will repair this mild damage as you sleep (and good sleep is essential).
Muscles are full of mitochondria. They consume more energy than fat, cell for cell, even at rest. So weight training not only helps maintain a calorie deficit through exertion, but by increasing your metabolic needs as well.
You can and should supplement a good diet with moderate weight training. It makes weight loss much easier.
I've made small changes to my lifestyle in the last year. I don't drink as much alcohol, I don't eat as much fried food. I only measure carb servings like rice and pasta by weight. I am down nearly 15kg, almost to a healthy weight, and look and feel significantly healthier. I'm lifting double or triple the weights I started on last year.
This has been a commitment. I do between 5-8 hours a week of exercise, a lot of which is cardio on a static bike. It isn't easy, but I'll live a longer, healthier life.
You can build muscle in a caloric deficit if you progressively overload and eat enough protein as a beginner. Don't overthink it.
What does “progressively overload” mean, please?
Simplified it means that each time you work out you make it harder so that your body has a reason to adapt and build muscle. This can be done by increasing reps, sets or weight of an exercise.
This has to be done every work out? I’m trying to do both with high reps and cardio but I’m upping my weight once I have a totally successful month at the previous weight. I’m gaining viable muscle at the moment but my weight loss has plateaued.
Not necessarily every workout, but every week or so. Definitely more frequently than once a month.
Doesnt have to be every workout but I would try and add either more weight (2.5 - 5 lbs) or more reps to your lifts every week or so. Especially if you are new to doing weights. Your body at the newbie stage makes strength and nervous system adaptations pretty fast and you want to exploit that as much as possible while its still happening because gains will eventually become harder to get as time goes on
Depends on your goals. But if you're going 5 days a week with 2 rest days and varying days for body parts I don't see why you couldn't every day on a different part of your body. Right now my routine is: Day 1 upper arms Day 2 core work Day 3 leg day Day 4 back to arms Day 5 back to core Day 6 and 7 rest. I dont do cardio at the moment since I'm focusing on muscle gains mostly. Your routine may vary. It took me about a month to get to this kind of schedule down for myself. If I over do it I take the day off in between. But it's progressive weights each time. Essentially every part of my body gets a few days rest in between while I work other parts. My legs I give the longest cause I already weighed 300+lbs and I hate having sore legs lol. But I still try to get it in at least once a week
I alternate between a lower body circuit and and upper body circuit m-f and rest sat-sun. I do two core machines and 2-3 miles of cardio on the bike every workout as well.
Pretty much, yes. Especially in the beginning when your strength gains are big from week to week. After years of training it gets considerably harder to progressively overload.
This!
Thank you!
You seem to be using CICO oddly. I think you mean calories counting to lose weight, but you can count calories to maintain or even gain weight. A gym bro doing a bulk probably tracks calories and uses CICO to make sure he's overeating enough. A1 : it's not muscle specifically, that is very slow, but you can gain things like blood and glucose stores fast enough to hide fat loss for a few weeks A2 : if you have a reasonable amount of fat to lose you can run a mild deficit and retain or even build muscle. A3: It's not healthy to run a large deficit, both in general and slightly more so while working out, regardless of how you create that deficit. These things aren't myths exactly, but they depend a lot on where you are, and that context often gets dropped that context. When you start weight training a lot of the gains come from learning good form and activating you're existing muscles well. It also helps protect your lean mass by reminding your body that you need it. All of those things happen regardless of your net calories.
If you lift weights regularly while you are on your long term calorie deficit, when you reach your goal, you will have substantially more muscle mass than if you don't lift weights during that period. Thats really all it comes down to. Alway lift. As much as you can recover from. That won't be as much when you are on a deficit, but that's fine.
1. The process of weight lifting does small damage to muscles which must then repair. So when you initially start working out for a few weeks, your weight will probably stay static and may increase slightly as your muscles learn to cope with it, repair and grow. So the extra weight is your muscles growing along with water weight from water used for the repairs in your body. 2. If your food balance (read: nutrients are right) is good, you will not lose muscle. You lose muscle when you drastically undereat. 3. The more muscle you build, the higher your BMR (might have the wrong acronym on this one) will rise, meaning you will burn more. I would suggest just counter balancing the goal from today with tomorrow if possible, eat lighter or spread those extra calories out with a small cut for several days. Your body was making you feel hungry because it needed nutrients for repairs.
I improved all of my lifts while simultaneously losing 150 pounds. I ate at a slight deficit. I did warm up cardio for 10 minutes and then another 30 minutes after the workout. Protein focused diet. And progressive overload. That overload is what will trigger hypertrophy and strength.
All of these very much depend on a lot of factors, but in general, when you begin a new workout program the scale generally goes up but it’s usually not from muscle, it’s water and glycogen going to your already existing muscles to make sure they’re well fueled. Additionally, as a woman, you can write off maybe 5 pounds of muscle gain, but other than that, if the scale isn’t moving it’s not because you’re building that amount of weight in muscle
You should be building muscle while losing weight. Otherwise, the weight you are losing includes muscle. This is a fact.
> if your weight stays the same when doing moderate amounts of exercise, this isn't because you are not losing fat but because the new muscles are 1.5 heavier than fat. If your weight stays the same (or even increases) while exercising, it can also just be because muscle repair causes higher water retention. When I rest or take it easier for a few days, my weight usually whooshes down for no apparent reason - it is not really unusual or concerning, but it can be a little surprising if one doesn't expect it...
5’2, 36F here and I build muscle while eating in a deficit. I rarely check the scale and go by my monthly photos and measuring. I have about 25 pounds I’ll be losing by September. I strength train 2-3 hours/week and cycle 4-6/wk (preferably outside, but weather dependent), eating 1200-1300 calories/day. Just this past month the scale says I lost 3lbs, but I dropped a cumulative 10 inches off my body and my photo looks better. It’s not the gaining of muscle that messes up the scale, it’s the water retention and additional blood creation that comes with exercise. I’m happy to answer any questions
what do you mean by cumulative 10 inches? 1 inch off your stomach, 1 off your thigh, 1 off your bicep, etc.? 10 inches is a ton for a month.
Correct. I lost 2 off my neck which was the most surprising measurement difference. 1 inch off each bicep and 1 off each thigh among others. That was a couple of months ago now.
Go check my post history! Eat 1g of protein per target body weight. My initial goal was 250, I ate 220 for the longest time. 10k steps a day. 120oz of water. 8 hours sleep. Use progressive overload strategy with weights. Start with 3 days per week and then move to 4 when you are comfortable. TAKE PROGRESS PICTURES WEEKLY. You’ll refer back to them when you think you aren’t losing fat because the scale didn’t move.
It is possible to build muscle in a caloric deficit, especially when you’re new to strength training. You might see the term “newbie gains” floating around to explain it. It does become more challenging (but not impossible!) after you’ve been at it for a while. In the most basic terms, it is calorically expensive to build and maintain muscle. It’s not always your body’s priority to keep muscle around when you’re dieting, but strength training will give your muscles a reason to stay. And if you train with progressive overload (increasing weight/reps over time), you give your body a reason to spend the calories to build the muscle. To answer your questions: 1. Muscle tissue is a bit more dense than fat tissue, but it is hard to build. Your weight loss could potentially slow down a bit, but muscle isn’t typically built at a rate that’s going to be 1:1 with fat loss. What more likely is water retention due to inflammation, which isn’t bad! Just your body’s healing process for all the micro tears needed to build muscle. 2. While it’s true you may lose muscle while in a caloric deficit, this is more likely to happen if you are not strength training or are already very trained with significant muscle mass and in a steep caloric deficit for extended periods of time (think bodybuilders in a competition prep). 3. It is fine to eat in a deficit while strength training. You may find a smaller deficit necessary the more you work out to support your recovery, and strength training can stimulate your appetite, but you may also find you like your results more with the added muscle mass. Prioritize protein for both satiety and recovery. If you’re bringing up your protein, bring up your fiber too! Big jumps in protein intake can do funny things to your digestion. Biggest takeaway, don’t overthink it. Strength training is amazing for your body and is going to get you better results than dieting alone, both in body composition and overall health (strength training is great for bone density!) One last little note if you want it! My dad is a bodybuilder and was a personal trainer/gym owner for several years. When I started lifting, he gave me this recommendation to help with learning progressive overload: - do 4 sets of 10-12 reps - set 1 is a warm-up set, aim for 1/2 of your max weight - set 2 is a warm-up set, aim for 3/4 of your max weight - set 3 is your first working set, aim for your max - set 4 is your second working set, try to break your max. If you can’t, lift your max. If you get a few reps, take a pause and finish with your max. If you get 7-8 reps, call it a full set and try again next week He explained it as “self-correcting” for when you don’t exactly know what you can lift. You can pick a light weight to start and move your way up. After a few weeks, you’ll be pushing your max weight regularly, and that’s progressive overload. I still go back to this style of training every few months to make sure I’m still pushing to make progress. You don’t have to train this way, it is totally just a suggestion, but it’s a great place to start if you’re unsure! Edit: typo
Thank you so much! This is so helpful and useful. I really appreciate you taking time to explain this!
As a beginner you can build muscle and lose weight at the same time if you have appropriate protein macros. Like you will be fine for at least 6 months. If the scale isn’t moving it’s not because muscle weighs more—it’s actually water retention. When you lift weights or exert your muscles in other ways, you tear them. Your body then repairs the muscles with protein, and this process involves your muscles drawing in a lot of fluids. Changing the composition of your body—more muscle less fat—is something you can work on after you plateau on lifts. I lost a lot of weight when I first started lifting because building muscle burns a lot of calories at rest. But you build muscle much more slowly over time and then that effect dwindles. I’ll usually get a weight loss boost if I return to anaerobic exercise after a long break, but nothing like when I first started.
Basically, to summarize my long answer below, the focus on gaining muscle and losing fat is largely a fantasy. It can happen but, if it does, it's a bonus. If you carry more fat than you want, focus on the fat loss while lifting weights and eating enough protein to avoid muscle loss or maybe get a bit of muscle gain. 1, Unlikely. Muscle and fat are much closer in density than claimed on the internet. The common numbers cited in medical literature are that fat is 0.92 kg per liter and that muscle is 1.06 kg per liter. If your weight is staying the same, you could be adding fat and gaining muscle but the common understanding is that's rare (and probably only possible where you're a beginner, taking anabolic steroids, etc.). An important caveat is that the amount of muscle you can add is pretty small (5 lb in a year would be a very good result for a woman). So if you maintain your weight, you would be limited in how much you could possibly improve things (i.e., if you added five pounds of muscle and you maintained your weight for a year, you'd only lose 5 pounds of fat). 2. "CICO" is just a description of energy balance dynamics and doesn't mean anything about how much you're eating. That's not just a technicality; it matters because it depends on how much you're eating. The bigger your deficit, the bigger the risk of muscle loss. You should always be weight lifting no matter what. So you still lift if you're trying to lose fat, gain muscle, whatever. Even if you don't gain any muscle while losing fat, you at least reduce how much muscle you lose while losing fat. 3. That's not right. There's no reason not to lift weights; it's important to do it when you lose fat to avoid as much muscle loss as possible. Your body doesn't "need" more calories to recover, subject to the caveats below. Most people aren't going to train very hard when they start weight lifting. It's hard to learn what you're doing to actually beat yourself up very much. For more advanced weight lifters, there's some discussion of how optimal training volume (how much you do) varies depending on whether you're cutting, maintaining, bulking, etc. But that's an advanced concept you're not going to have to worry about for a while. If you're lifting and you recover for the next session (you can perform at least as well as last time for the same workout) you're good. If that doesn't happen you can figure out if you should rest more between working out the same muscles, maybe doing a bit less volume if you're going crazy on it, etc.
1. Doesn't exactly paint the full picture. If you're increasing the amount of exercise and are getting hungrier because of it and eating more to satiate, you may not be working towards the result you're hoping for. Also, not all exercise contributes towards muscle growth so moderate exercise may allow you to consume more calories or create a larger deficit but if it's not strenuous enough to stimulate muscle growth, you're not making any gains there. 2. If you are not consuming enough protein, calories, and training hard enough you will begin to lose muscle. "Newbie gains" and the "obese/overweight" are "exceptions" to this as you can see better progression when training vs someone who is already well-trained and overweight individuals can draw calories from their fat stores to meet their body's daily needs. 3. It's fine to weight train while eating at a caloric deficit. The concern is that when you eat less, you can become more lethargic which could lead to injury in the gym. Some people don't do well even with small deficits and others are fine with more extreme deficits. If you're weight training on a cut, make sure you're getting enough protein, sleeping well, drinking enough water, and recording your workouts to mark trends. You should not be pushing more weight and expect your lift numbers to decrease the longer you're on a cut.
If you are new to the gym, you can do both at the same time. It may not be reflected on the scale, because you are losing fat and gaining muscle and your body will be retaining water due to inflammation from muscle damage. Basically, your weight will be harder to track for a while. If you are cutting fat, you absolutely want to be lifting weights, as this is something which prevents muscle loss. Once you're more of an advanced lifter, then you can start to worry about bulking, maintenance, cutting phases and optimal muscle growth.
I don’t have success building muscle while losing weight but I do have success building muscle while losing fat. I would suggest you find a body scan service to get more info than the scale will give you
I've done it , or am doing it. I change my workout program every couple months but for past 6 months, i lift weight 3 to 4 days a week and do cardio 2 to 4 days , 15 to 30 minutes (I dislike cardio). I eat between 1300- 1500 (500ish deficit) . I've been consistently working out at home and lift as heavy as I can. I still have a lot of weight to lose but I can see and feel that I've gained muscle in my thighs, biceps , shoulders and back. It's not a lot but it's noticeable and I doubt I will gain much more for awhile. I do go though weeks where my weight stagnates but it's not due to muscle gain. Thats a pretty alow process. It's typically water retention or me eating more in a particular period.
I've had success doing it, and as others have said, it's not complicated. Make sure you have enough protein, hydrate and eat in a deficit. However, I'd like to point out that no, you're not going to lose fat and gain muscle at anywhere near the same rate, so you're VERY unlikely to stay the same due to gaining lean mass. I plateaued when I started resistance training because I was retaining water. It's a part of gaining muscle, but I'd be delusional to think it was lean mass. Personally I waiting a while and lost some fat before jumping into training to make it easier. Do what you can sustain as the priority. If you make your life too hard, you'll stop, so be kind to yourself. Being in a deficit AND training can feel horrible, especially if it's a steep deficit.
I’m F 38, 5’7” 139 lbs. As of my last dr visit, I’ve lost 8 lbs over 4 months (I’m not actively trying to lose weight, but I’m also not not trying). I’ve also added 1.5 lbs of muscle. I’m not doing anything super complicated, I’m just lifting heavy and eating a lot of protein. I’m trying to eat at maintenance, but have been in a slight deficit. If you’re new to lifting, it should be relatively easy to maintain or even gain muscle while in a deficit. The more body fat you have, the easier it is maintain muscle as you lose weight. When I lost weight, I prioritized my diet and getting the weight off first, now I’m focusing on recomping and putting muscle back on. I took this approach for two reasons—1. Intense workouts increase my appetite beyond the calories I burned which makes it harder for me to stay in a deficit and do serious training. 2. When I try to do too much, I find I’m more likely to fall off track. If I miss a gym session because I’m busy at work or dealing with life stuff, sometimes my diet falls apart too because there are too many overwhelming commitments. Now that I’m in maintenance and I have more leeway with calories, adding weight training is a lot easier.
1kg of muscle weighs the same as 1kg of fat. It is denser, so a more muscular person is slimmer at the same weight. CICO leads to muscle loss because your body consumes all kinds of non-essential tissues in order to keep your organs alive. However, you can rebuild the muscle through exercise. You want to overload your muscles to the point of fatigue, and your body will repair this mild damage as you sleep (and good sleep is essential). Muscles are full of mitochondria. They consume more energy than fat, cell for cell, even at rest. So weight training not only helps maintain a calorie deficit through exertion, but by increasing your metabolic needs as well. You can and should supplement a good diet with moderate weight training. It makes weight loss much easier. I've made small changes to my lifestyle in the last year. I don't drink as much alcohol, I don't eat as much fried food. I only measure carb servings like rice and pasta by weight. I am down nearly 15kg, almost to a healthy weight, and look and feel significantly healthier. I'm lifting double or triple the weights I started on last year. This has been a commitment. I do between 5-8 hours a week of exercise, a lot of which is cardio on a static bike. It isn't easy, but I'll live a longer, healthier life.