How to stop muscle loss during weight loss?
Sorry for asking another stupid question twice in the same week.
I noticed this morning that the definition of my quads is less even though I have not gained inches or pounds. I have also noticed that I am not building strength when I do high resistance on ellipticals/stairs as fast as I was, and suspect that I am losing muscle mass as well as fat. I really want to at least keep what I have until I hit my goal weight, after which I might want to build more muscle, so I have a few questions:
- What is the best way to maintain muscle when cutting calories?
- What exercises can I do that require no equipment (I am going to be in the field most of the summer)? And what should the frequency, duration, etc be?
Posted May 7, 2016, 6:13 PM UTC
614
Keep your protein high, eat around 0.8g of protein per lb of goal weight every day as a rule of thumb.
Do resistance exercise, if you have no weights (and I mean real weights, not 2lb dumbbells) check out r/bodyweightfitness.
Don't be too aggressive on your deficit. Calculate how many lbs of body fat you have using the navy formula. Multiply that number by 22, this is approximately how many calories your fat stores can release every day - make sure your deficit is not greater than this. As you lose weight, your maximum deficit will decrease accordingly.
By doing these three, I have lost very little lean mass according to the body fat calculations I have been doing, and that's 105lbs down.
Thanks for the info!
I might be an idiot, but I tried looking in R/bodyweightfitness and before posting this could not make heads or tails out of anything. How do you figure out a strength goal? What is a vertical or horizontal goal? Assistance pushing movement? That place confused the shit out of me and a bunch of their video links took me to people working out on or with equipment :/
Did you take a look at their recommended [routine?] (https://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/wiki/kb/recommended_routine) It probably will be a bit baffling at first, you might need to do a bit of reading around to understand things a bit better before proceeding.
Yeah, I definitely need to do some studying for this. I don't know most of the terms :)
I think I have a handle on the routine basics. I might have to find a work around for the squats because of a bum knee
Depending on how bum your knee is they may actually help. Just be sure to make sure your knees go out when you squat - if they go inward that ruins your power and can cause nasty injuries.
I didn't know this!
EDIT: ha for me that's ~800 calories. My TDEE is ~1470 calories. NVM.
For BF%: OK, just to check that I am doing this right, here is what I calculated:
Navy BF% = 26% (seems low, but whatever)
Fat mass=37
Fat stores can release= 37*22=814
TDEE=1785
BMR=1289
Current intake=1200
Current deficit=585
So I am good to go, because that is much lower than 814, correct?
ETA: For protien consumption, I got that I need to eat 104 grams of protein (0.8*130). That kind of seems like a lot, but maybe that is because I suck at getting enough protein. I wish I didn't hate chicken :/
Yes those numbers look good. Be creative with protein, here's how I get a lot of mine:
Chicken
Salmon
Whey Protein fruit smoothies
Tuna
Letils/Chickpeas
Eggs
High protein pasta (contains pea protein extract, very good)
MyProtein snacks, brownies, wafers, flapjacks and puddings.
Basically there are tons of places to get protein, even if you don't like chicken. 100g isn't all that much, I'm on 150g at 1200 cals daily.
Mine is mostly from fish, tofu, lentils, and eggs. Not a fan of smoothies because I don't like sweet things, especially sweet drinks. I make my own Turkish-Grerk-Persian-Balkan-whoever claims it yogurt and have been trying to figure out a way to make the sour whey palatable. I am getting closer blending it in with some yogurt, salt, mint, and sumac. What I really need to do is to teach myself to crave high protein foods, rather than have them something I eat because I have to, especially because I don't find them very satiating.
Anyway, thanks for the advice. I definitely need to suck it up and eat more protien, especially since I am going to be adding in some bodyweight exercises. I am thinking I can use 10 and 20 gal water jugs as weights in the field. Prepare for more dumb questions as I undertake this! :)
I mix greek yogurt (Chobani, ~12g of protein) with Kashi GoLEAN cereal (which is 8g of fiber and between 9-11g of protein, depending on what flavor you get). It comes out to about 22g of protein or so and 300 calories for one serving of each mixed together. The GoLEAN cereal gives just enough sweetness to counterbalance the sourness of the greek yogurt, and gives some pleasant texture to it, IMHO.
Cottage cheese is another great way to get protein, and there's a bazillion different ways to mix it with other ingredients to get a variety of sweet and savory flavors. I like mixing it with whole wheat crackers and buffalo sauce, personally.
Where are you getting the 22 from?
Edit: Nevermind, I found the data :)