Building strength and weight loss

Hi all

I am 24, 5"7, 152lbs.  When I started on CC back in March I was just trying to lose about 10lbs to fit into my summer wardrobe and get my BMI back into normal.  I have now lost 18lbs.  The more I got into it the more I enjoyed the exercise and found balance in what I was eating.  Now I still want to lose a bit more weight (for aesthetic not health reasons).  When I started I was putting all me effort into Cardio to lose weight.   I discovered when I took aerobics (step/cardio kickbox) that I was the most intense person there for the cardio stuff (always doing the hardest version and moving between sets) but when it came time to do the strength training at the end, I couldnt even do 1 push-up on my knees.

I have started focusing more on strength as well.  I now do about 15min of weights after work outs and I do the Les Mill Pump class once a week.  I originally thought I was best lifting small amounts of weight.  But after reading this section and several other articles I am now trying to lift more weight or doing it until failure.  However, a lot of the posts say you can't build muscle when you are at a calorie deficit.

I am not trying to be super "toned" or buff (though it would be nice), I just want to have a healthy amount of strength.  If I am still running a calorie deficit, is there any point in my trying to get stronger?  If I just want to be stronger is a class once a week and a small amount of weight training the right approach to strength development if losing another 10lbs is my main goal.

You won't be able to build much muscle on a deficit (beyond newbie gains), but you can gain strength without increasing muscle mass.

I would recommend lifting more often than once a week - 2-3x/week is going to be more useful. I'd also suggest following a program like New Rules of Lifting for Women, rather than a class. The one lifting class I took... it wasn't well structured and was pretty much just keeping people moving in a circuit on the machines. I know that the Les Mill classes are different, but I'm not convinced that lifting is somethign that should be done as a group - you should be lifting as much as YOU can, at your own pace - not at someone else's.

And yes, lifting more will help you towards your goal of losing the last 10 lbs of body fat.

I'm pretty sure you can get stronger even while losing weight.  I've kept track of my weights lifted from when I started lifting (about middle of May) to now.  During that period, I've lost 12 pounds.

Almost all of the weights I'm lifting have increased by 50% in that same period.  Some have almost doubled.  I would expect that gain to slow down, but I'm still increasing on a regular basis, even though I'm still losing weight.  I HAVE put on muscle as well, even while losing weight.  My guess is that it's not nearly as much as I would have if I was eating a surplus of calories, but it is a noticable difference (IMHO).  It's not just an uncovering of what muscles were already there.

Keep in mind that I'm a guy, so that might make some sort of difference.  I've also been careful to keep my diet at a 50/30/20 (carb/protein/fat) percentage.  All of the above is based on my experience and opinions... No facts where harmed in the making of this post.

Clint

Thanks so much! :)

Thanks.  So what is the relationship between muscle mass and strength?

You can build muscle while at a calorie deficit. But not as much as you would if you were eating more. Girls don't get bulky without drugs or extreme heavy hard lifting. 3 days a week of weight lifting is plenty. Not consecutive days. 2-3 days of HIIT or interval training and 2-3 days of another type of cardio. I like race walking. That is what I do. Then 3-4 days I also do other types of activities, calisthenics and strengthening exercises. Pull-up's, push-up's, sit-up's, crunches, squats, lunges, planks, stretching, leg and ab work. 1 full day off a week. Once you reach your maintenance weight it is easier to build muscle and strength. I maintain now on about 1800-2100 calories a day. I am 4'11" and 92-95 LB. I eat clean/balanced.

I alternate my HIIT days with my lifting days so I have enough strenght to do both effectively. On Sunday's I do both and by the end of my workout I am spent. I do the HIIT first and then the lifting. Stretch in between the two.

Strength is a combination of muscle mass(how big your "engine" is) and neural factors (how well tuned your nervous system is to use your existing muscle). Which means that muscle strength and muscle size is only about 2/3 correlated, or put another way that if you start from untrained status your nervous system might only be trained enough to perform at 67-70% of the maximum potential of your existing muscle.

 Almost all the biological processes involved in making more muscle protein are tied to energy-sensing feedback loops that only really work in a calorie surplus unless they're somehow distorted (drugs, obesity, not fully established in the beginner), but all the neural factors depend more on motor skills and training.

 So even if you can't depend on adding more muscle protein to build a bigger engine barring 'newbie gains' of 1-2lbs the first month or two, you can almost certainly fine-tune the ignition and grow significantly stronger just through improving the motor skill part of strength.

 Plus of course, while dieting it's use-it-or-lose-it time for your muscle; while you can't depend on adding more muscle protein to your existing muscle, you can certainly lose quite a lot unless you give your body reason to keep the metabolically expensive muscle tissue around.

 (and of course some people are annoying since their superior muscle-building genes means they can in fact build significant muscle in a calorie deficit when their newbie days are long gone, but it's exceedingly rare in the normal population. I can think of 3 men and 1 - maybe 2 - women this applies to out of the 1.5 million users on CC ;)

I'd also say, make sure you're keeping a really close eye on your protein levels as well.  I had ongoing muscle exhaustion before I did some research and learned how much protein I really needed (prior to that I was going by the average, which is not appropriate given my exercise level, height and weight).  ooh, plus, the more muscle you gain, the faster your metabolism gets, so even if you increase your Kcal intake, you might find it easier to take off that last 10 lbs.