Forget all this weight loss, anyone lifting weights?

[burritos]

Recomp is super hard to do. Also, anabolism isn't very compatible with IF, it's kind of the opposite in fact...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC329619/

Evidence exists that fasting can spike human growth hormone. Not to grow but as a means to preserve lean tissue. The name is probably a misnomer. In the presence of caloric abundance hgh=grow. In nature it probably means scarcity is present=protect muscle.

So if your are doing IF if you want to be anabolic, in your eating window, you’d have to gorge on protein like predators do with whole prey in the wild. Eating 3 steaks followed by fasting would be viewed as an eating disorder. “But I’m trying to grow muscle” probably won’t fly.

[Jaqen Haghar MD]

That sounds like me.

I probably just need to be more dedicated with the weights. I am 6’3” about 195-200 lbs usually. I would like to keep the same weight, but replace 10 lbs of fat with muscle. I never know if I should try to lose the fat or gain the muscle first so I just stay the same.

Gaining the muscle first will help you lose the fat. Hit the weights with a high protein diet and small caloric surplus first, then do a cut. Use a tracker, like MyFittnessPal. Very doable. “Hardgainers” normally have one thing in common, they are not eating enough calories and protein.

[CordMcNally]

I’ll be moving next week and will finally have a garage. I’m thinking of setting up a small gym in there. Any recommendations on a set of adjustable dumbbells?

I have the PowerBlock Pro Series. They're one of the more expensive adjustable dumbbells that you can get but they're very nice. The base set is adjustable from 5-50 lbs and you can get expansion sets for 50-70 lbs and 70-90 lbs.

[FIREshrink]

Gaining the muscle first will help you lose the fat. Hit the weights with a high protein diet and small caloric surplus first, then do a cut. Use a tracker, like MyFittnessPal. Very doable. “Hardgainers” normally have one thing in common, they are not eating enough calories and protein.

Based on n=1 I would definitely agree. All my life until the last three years I tried to keep a runner's leanness while gaining muscle. Apparently few people can do that. The last few years I added tons of protein, and calories in general, to add 2-3 pounds of mostly muscle per year. Like about 0.75-1 gr of protein per pound of body weight per day. With this i was also finally able to break through many plateaus on my lifts. Needed to have more muscle to push more weight, and needed to eat more to have more muscle.

[Jaqen Haghar MD]

Based on n=1 I would definitely agree. All my life until the last three years I tried to keep a runner's leanness while gaining muscle. Apparently few people can do that. The last few years I added tons of protein, and calories in general, to add 2-3 pounds of mostly muscle per year. Like about 0.75-1 gr of protein per pound of body weight per day. With this i was also finally able to break through many plateaus on my lifts. Needed to have more muscle to push more weight, and needed to eat more to have more muscle.

I had the same problem for years. Finally when I started looking seriously at the diet portion, I realized I was way under on protein, carbs and overall calories. It was actually hard to eat enough, especially shooting for 1g/Lb of desired weight for the protein part, and working out hard 5-6 days a week. Using a macro calculator and counting macros, cramming in protein all day and having a whey shake in the AM and before bed all made a big difference.

Here's a non-physician recommended trick for the super skinny hardgainer that is sometimes used..... some soda (commence doctor hatespeak). It's hard eating 200+g of protein every day and having the room to get enough calories sometimes. Drastic measures for sure.

The IFBB pros that I know from my gym will say that you only need a small caloric surplus to make gains, but the protein is essential as is the small surplus (300-500 calories depending).

Also, for a non-steroid user, stimulating a muscle group every 48 hours or so and spacing out your weekly volume, is probably necessary and better than blasting the heck out of a body part with total volume once every 5-7 days. Frequency becomes important for growth. For anabolic users, it isn't as important because their muscle is always in "stimulation mode". Their facial muscles become jacked just from chewing their food.

I tend to approach things with more of a bodybuilding slant, than a powerlifting one though.

[xraygoggles]

I would not recommend a skinny fat person try to recomp (lose fat, gain muscle at the same time) or bulk (gain muscle/some fat) starting off. I think it's better and much easier to just lean out completely (ie: remove the fat portion of skinny fat, and get skinny).

This is done by: eating 500 cals below maintenance daily for every 1 lb you want to lose weekly, while doing some light-moderate weight training (1000 cals less per day if you wanna lose 2 lbs/week, etc). But at this point, you don't really even need to do the weight lifting tbh, since your (short-term) goal is to lose fat, which is 99% nutrition (doing HIIT may help a smidge, but a rounding error, nonetheless). The important thing when cutting or losing fat is NOT to count the calories burned when doing exercise, since it's grossly overestimated and you end up eating way more calories than you actually burned.

Then, once the "skinny fat" aka "hardgainer" aka "sedentary" person becomes skinny (aka lean, 12-15% BF ideally), then you can do a slow bulk like mentioned above... Starting a skinny fat person (who is actually FAT to begin with: it's literally in the name!) on a bulk and INCREASING their body fat (along with some muscle mass) is not a good idea for the vast majority of skinny fat people IMO. It will make it that much harder to lean out in the future.

Doing it the other way around (cutting all the way down first) is the most efficient methodology, and the one I have done in the past when younger, and am now again doing after gaining the infamous covid 20 (or maybe 25).

PS: just realized we came full circle, and are now talking about exactly what this thread was supposed to avoid: weight loss... My bad - although to be fair, its in the context of future potential bro-gains.

[Jaqen Haghar MD]

I would not recommend a skinny fat person try to recomp (lose fat, gain muscle at the same time) or bulk (gain muscle/some fat) starting off. I think it's better and much easier to just lean out completely (ie: remove the fat portion of skinny fat, and get skinny).

This is done by: eating 500 cals below maintenance daily for every 1 lb you want to lose weekly, while doing some light-moderate weight training (1000 cals less per day if you wanna lose 2 lbs/week, etc). But at this point, you don't really even need to do the weight lifting tbh, since your (short-term) goal is to lose fat, which is 99% nutrition (doing HIIT may help a smidge, but a rounding error, nonetheless). The important thing when cutting or losing fat is NOT to count the calories burned when doing exercise, since it's grossly overestimated and you end up eating way more calories than you actually burned.

Then, once the "skinny fat" aka "hardgainer" aka "sedentary" person becomes skinny (aka lean, 12-15% BF ideally), then you can do a slow bulk like mentioned above... Starting a skinny fat person (who is actually FAT to begin with: it's literally in the name!) on a bulk and INCREASING their body fat (along with some muscle mass) is not a good idea for the vast majority of skinny fat people IMO. It will make it that much harder to lean out in the future.

Doing it the other way around (cutting all the way down first) is the most efficient methodology, and the one I have done in the past when younger, and am now again doing after gaining the infamous covid 20 (or maybe 25).

PS: just realized we came full circle, and are now talking about exactly what this thread was supposed to avoid: weight loss... My bad - although to be fair, its in the context of future potential bro-gains.

“Hardgainer” isn’t really a sedentary person, but really refers to someone who does a lot of training and is normally very active, but has a difficult time making progress with lean muscle gains. They often believe that their problem is something to do with the training, so they spend even more time and focus on that, when in actuality it’s usually just a math problem with their diet.

What you describe above is accurate, which is why weight loss can be fairly easy. It is all diet. The problem with cutting calories to the point that you are losing 2lbs per week though, is the you will lose all of your lean muscle mass at that speed. Especially if you don’t weight train and there is no stimulus to preserve it. That, in conjunction with the fact that your body will also take further measures to reduce your resting metabolic rate and conserve energy, makes losing weight at that speed counterproductive.

0.5lbs per week is a better pace. As you lose weight, it becomes harder to lose weight. If you follow macros, the 1st lb of the 25 pounds of loss will be easy, but you’ll feel pretty bad by the time you hit the last pound.

Losing lean muscle mass deceases your resting metabolic rate, which makes losing weight more difficult. That’s why I’d go the exact opposite route.

HIIT training is very marketable because it makes people feel like they did a lot, and it can be enjoyable with groups, but it’s not the most effective way to train in any specific area. It’s suboptimal for strength, muscle gain, and endurance, but definitely has its place as its something people actually like to do.

[AR]

I started doing push-ups every day in eighth grade, was doing 4 sets of 50 before freshman year of high school.

Lifted heavy at school weight room (affectionately known as "the shed") starting at 14. Was benching 225 for 4 sets of six by junior year at 144 pounds. By 24 (about 150-153 pounds) was doing 8 reps at 225, then 4 at 245, then 1 at 275. Never tried to go higher.

Repping out 2 plates at 144 lbs is pretty impressive. The only people I know who can do that are serious lifters. Did you squat or deadlift? Leg press is better than nothing but it's no substitute for the big barbell lifts.

[MSooner]

What you describe above is accurate, which is why weight loss can be fairly easy. It is all diet. The problem with cutting calories to the point that you are losing 2lbs per week though, is the you will lose all of your lean muscle mass at that speed. Especially if you don’t weight train and there is no stimulus to preserve it. That, in conjunction with the fact that your body will also take further measures to reduce your resting metabolic rate and conserve energy, makes losing weight at that speed counterproductive.

I wish it hadn't taken me so many years to figure this out. I've been tracking macros, upped my protein, and am finally (and consistently) losing slowly. And I'm not hungry all the time.

Any other ladies on here? Back in the day, I did powerlifting in HS. I loved it, and for some reason I never went back. I had too many (in hindsight) stupid excuses for why lifting heavy wasn't the right thing for me to do. I started GZCL and then another custom program 3 months ago and I'm kicking myself for not starting years ago. I am close to squatting my body weight now and I can definitely tell a difference in how I look. I wish I hadn't wasted so many years on Bodypump.

[CM]

Repping out 2 plates at 144 lbs is pretty impressive. The only people I know who can do that are serious lifters. Did you squat or deadlift? Leg press is better than nothing but it's no substitute for the big barbell lifts.

Well I was quite serious about it. It was more important to me than med school, by a wide margin. No squats or deadlifts.

In all my years in gyms up to 35 or so, I only ran across 1 or 2 guys who were as strong or stronger than me at my weight or smaller. One of them was a much shorter guy on anabolic steroids. I used to work out at Mendenhall's gym in Cincinnati. The shorter guy was from that gym.

Matt Mendenhall* placed second to Lee Haney in the Mr. America that year, and Donnie Gay won his class in the USA, both out of that gym. The back room there was an outside-the-law pharmacy. Several of the guys worked as bouncers. One of them reportedly beat guys up for pay. It was rowdy; there was a fight on one occasion. "Civilians" never lasted more than a week or two.

Everyone there was either a competitive bodybuilder or similarly serious about lifting, but without the drugs. The only 2 women lifting there were also jacked (and dating the bodybuilders). One of them asked me to choreograph her posing routine for the Ms. Cincinnati competition. I have fond memories of that place.

*Here is Mendenhall back in the day:

[AR]

Well I was quite serious about it. It was more important to me than med school, by a wide margin. No squats or deadlifts.

Being serious about it at that age should have paid huge dividends. I never touched a barbell until I was 35, and my results are pretty much what you would expect for someone who never touched a barbell until he was 35.

For example, I imagine the strength must have been a massive advantage with the dancing.

Also, no squats or DLs seems like almost a tragedy. Why not? In a gym like a one you describe that must have been a bit odd.

[CM]

Also, no squats or DLs seems like almost a tragedy. Why not? In a gym like a one you describe that must have been a bit odd.

I didn't realize it was tragic. I didn't squat because I didn't like all that weight on my shoulders. Never had the urge to deadlift.

Very few guys did any serious deadlifting, but most did squats on a regular basis. Donnie Gay was 5' 7 1/2" and 200 pounds between contests. He used to squat 495 for 3 sets of 10, and he really buried each rep. Very impressive, but that was never going to be me.

[AR]

I didn't realize it was tragic. I didn't squat because I didn't like all that weight on my shoulders. Never had the urge to deadlift.

Very few guys did any serious deadlifting, but most did squats on a regular basis. Donnie Gay was 5' 7 1/2" and 200 pounds between contests. He used to squat 495 for 3 sets of 10, and he really buried each rep. Very impressive, but that was never going to be me.

They're both fantastic exercises (if done with proper form), and while you did do leg press, I still think you left a lot of muscle mass on the table. Especially if you dedicated yourself to them the same way as you did your bench.

Having said that, I'd personally much rather have a huge bench than a huge squat (even though that may be the "wrong" preference in a lot of ways), so I still think you did great.

[Anne]

I wish it hadn't taken me so many years to figure this out. I've been tracking macros, upped my protein, and am finally (and consistently) losing slowly. And I'm not hungry all the time.

Any other ladies on here? Back in the day, I did powerlifting in HS. I loved it, and for some reason I never went back. I had too many (in hindsight) stupid excuses for why lifting heavy wasn't the right thing for me to do. I started GZCL and then another custom program 3 months ago and I'm kicking myself for not starting years ago. I am close to squatting my body weight now and I can definitely tell a difference in how I look. I wish I hadn't wasted so many years on Bodypump.

I first started lifting in med school. I had no idea what I was doing and just followed what my friend told me to do. When I have gotten on a regular program I can definitely tell the difference and feel better. My problem is 1. I don’t love to lift. I love to run. But I know that lifting will allow me to age better than if I just run all the time. And when I lift regularly I get to the point that I really like, if not love it…just takes a while to get to that point. 2. I don’t have the knowledge to just follow a program in my brain, and get overwhelmed by all the options out there and just end up doing whatever which obviously is not great. My husband on the other hand, loves to lift. We have a great home gym as a result that he uses pretty much daily. There is no excuse for me to not do the same. I go through periods where I use it a lot, and then periods where I don’t and it’s hard to get back into the routine. I tend to rely on my husband to tell me what to do but I think I would be more motivated if I had my own program to follow. I will look up GZCL.

[MSooner]

@Anne--you might consider this. https://www.bicepsafterbabies.com/strength-programs/

I started listening to her podcasts on the recommendation of another doc wife friend who has had the same struggles as me (lots of babies in a row, trouble losing weight after years of yo yo dieting). She can be a little instagramy, but I've actually been really happy with the Build Your Own Workout program. I knew how to do all the lifts and the GZCL method got me started on something, but I wasn't sure what to do beyond that, especially when it came to combining combo and isolation lifts. I felt like it did a really good job of explaining all the basics and helping me build out a program that fit my goals and what I actually have time for.

I actually really like to run too, but I've realized it alone isn't going to get me to my goals right now.