A lot of talk about plateaus......new idea

Hi all.  Thank you so very much for your support over the last few months.  Until today I have been one of the lurkers.  I have been observing and learning from you all.  Today I go as one with you.  When I started I was 233 lbs and today I am 193.  I lift three days a week and do cardio on the other two.  I am 5'11" and eat a balanced +/- 1600 - 2000 calories per day. 

I have been reading a lot about plateaus and can identify two that I have already been through.  I understand from your responses how to get through a plateau.

My question is quite simple.  If I am gaining muscle and loosing fat, is there a point at which weight on the scale will remain the same due to the fat loss and muscle gain balance each other out?

In other words, am I in a plateau now at 193?  I have not lost a pound in a while but my definition is really coming along.  (I have a 46" chest and a 32" waist.)

Thanks again for all of the support to get this far.

~Dave

 

Unless you are a total beginner or a genetic freak it isn't possible to gain muscle and lose fat, they are two seperate processes and require different caloric conditions.

And this is why I have stayed silent for so long.  Thank you so very much for the detailed knowledge. 

 

Can't gain muscle and loose fat???  That sounds a little bizarre.

Very few people can gain muscle and lose fat at the same time, unless on steroids, or just incrediably overweight and undermassed. Muscle building takes a significant caloric ammount, and you generaly must eat OVER your maintenance calories to achieve that.

For example, i'm losing weight now, at 1800 calories a day, to maintain I need around 2600, and to gain muscle i'd have to be at close to 3200 or higher. And when gaining muscle, you need a certain amount of protein, good fats, and everything else... So the 3200 calories must be pretty clean, or your gains will significantly suffer.

Alright, now I am starting to feel like an idiot.  And for a guy with a bio degree I am a little confused. 

I have lost around 30 lbs yet have added at least 1/2-1" on my arms.  They are bigger than they where in high school and college.  Am I imagining the change on the tape measure?

One last thing...

 

If I can make no gains from a muscle point of view, why bother to lift at all whilst loosing fat?

Everyone has to ask questions, don't worry about it :)

You lift while losing because A) its an excellent way to burn calories for a sustained period of time, and B) it will help you preserve your muscle mass.

Its possible you did gain some muscle mass, people new to weight lifting/excercise usually can, i'd not expect it to continue. But don't quit lifting, if you can gain, then more power to you, almost every body builder out there would die to have your genes ;) And if you stop gaining, keep lifting to help preserve muscle, and it helps you lose fat as well.

you are not an idiot, and everyone other than the regulars are "genetic freaks."  having said that -- if you see gains, keep, keeping on.  everyones routine is different, and everyone can see various results.  i don't have a tendency to stay silent about much when i'm learning and trying to help myself, so i don't care if i seem like an idiot when i post.  ;)

search around for a post from melkor about why as long as you doing strength training while in a caloric deficit, you can retain muscle (which your body would typically feed on in a deficit...) and this ss why you keep weight lifting, though you might not actually gain. you don't want to lose the muscle you already have. 

Original Post by delta311djo:

Alright, now I am starting to feel like an idiot.  And for a guy with a bio degree I am a little confused. 

 Remember the "law of conservation of mass"? You can't get something from nothing, so if you aren't giving your body enough calories to maintain it's current size, where is the matter comming from to make it even bigger?

Ok...This is starting to make sense.  I fiqured that my fat would feed the weight loss and the protein that I eat would breakdown into the AA's needed for the muscle 

 

I didn't even think of Lavoisier and his law of conservation of mass.  Of course that law does clearly state that matter is neith created nor destroyed, it merely changes form.

Science makes everything make sense. You should also remember that your body would rather get rid of muscle and keep fat because muscle is more expensive (requires more calories) to maintain.  Also, you can only get so much energy from fat (Melkor has posted a study that said 31 calories per day per pound of bodyfat) and after that your body burns muscle to get the extra energy to make up for your caloric deficit.

floggingsully,

http://www.mindandmuscle.net/mindandmuscle/pr int/printview.php?artID=35

is that the article you were refering to?

Original Post by floggingsully:

Unless you are a total beginner or a genetic freak it isn't possible to gain muscle and lose fat, they are two seperate processes and require different caloric conditions.

 Wrong.  Plain wrong.  Completely Wrong.

Muscle growth and "burning calories" are different.  They are unrelated.  I think what you mean is that while you are hypocaloric your body tends to derive a great deal of its energy from muscle, making it difficult to gain muscle.  But your advice is simply incorrect.  There are tried and true methods to optimise catabolism favoring the use of adipose tissue over muscle.  Get your facts straight.  I think you know a lot, but you don't know this.

Read this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catabolism

Before giving any advice on this topic.

While you're at it... read about LEPTIN optimization.  Google the word... it'll be fascinating to anyone interested in keeping muscle while losing weight.

Dave,

Its unlikely that you're gaining enough muscle mass to offset the fatloss, but to be sure, start using a tape measure.  Muscle is denser than fat, so even if the scale number stays the same, your overall body dimensions should be shrinking.  You can start by keeping a log of your waist, hips, thighs, and biceps.

By the way, contrary to what many have said, I do believe its possible to gain some muscle while losing fat.  I started off in Jan at 240lbs and am now around 210, and have put on some muscle in areas where I've emphasized weight training (large muscle groups in legs and chest primarily).  Muscle burns more calories than fat, so its benefitial to do some weight training in these muscle groups, so that you get more effective burn throughout the day and during cardio sessions.

Finally, if you've think you've hit a plateau, try adding some HIIT (high intensity interval training) to your routine to give your body a new challenge. 

Quote: Alright, now I am starting to feel like an idiot.  And for a guy with a bio degree I am a little confused. 

Nothing wrong with the "Q" asked this may give you the help and advice you asked for

www.building-muscle101.com 

how to lose bodyfat and build

It was too long to cut & paste happy reading

Ann

 

Original Post by legaleli:

 Wrong.  Plain wrong.  Completely Wrong.

Muscle growth and "burning calories" are different.  They are unrelated.  I think what you mean is that while you are hypocaloric your body tends to derive a great deal of its energy from muscle, making it difficult to gain muscle.  But your advice is simply incorrect.  There are tried and true methods to optimise catabolism favoring the use of adipose tissue over muscle.  Get your facts straight.  I think you know a lot, but you don't know this.

Read this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catabolism

Before giving any advice on this topic.

While you're at it... read about LEPTIN optimization.  Google the word... it'll be fascinating to anyone interested in keeping muscle while losing weight.

Muscle growth and fat loss are two seperate processes. Muscle growth requires a calorie surplus, you can't gain size if you don't consume enough to maintain your current size.  Fat loss requires a calorie deficit, you must consume less than you burn.  Unless you can find a way to have both a calorie deficit and a calorie surplus you can't do both at the same time (though some studies have shown that beginner can accomplish both for a short period of time, and some people are genetic freaks).

Your article about Catabolism makes no mention of caloric requirements to build muscle or burn fat.  I'm sure Leptin is very facinating for anyone interested in KEEPING muscle while losing fat, keeping muscle is just fine, GAINING muscle is entirely different.

Muscle growth does not require a calorie surplus.  Why would it?  Muscle growth requires nothing but the energy required to repair cells.  Your logic is flawed.  ALL cellular repair requires energy.  According to you if I scratched my skin, or broke a blood vessel, or a bone, I would need to be in a calorie surplus to heal.  That's just wrong.

You sound like a bulking freak body builder!  I love you guys because you grow massive and then cut to perfection... but it's NOT necessary.

Thank you, Legaleli, I totally agree with you. I am in a health class right now, and we are talking about body composition, percent body fat, etc. ...Let me quote something from my book ("Lifetime Physical Fitness & Wellness: Ninth Edition" by Hoeger and Hoeger):

"At then end of the 6 weeks, the average weight loss for the entire class was 3 pounds. But, because body composition was assessed, class members were surprised to find that the average fat loss was actually 6 pounds, accompanied by a 3-pound increase in lean body mass."

and

"A benefit of strength training, accentuated even more when combined with aerobic exercise, is a decrease in adipose or fatty tissue around muscle fibers themselves. This decrease is often greater than the amount of muscle hypertrophy. Therefore, losing inches but not body weight is common.
Because muscle tissue is more dense than fatty tissue (and despite the fact that inches are lost during a combined strength training and aerobic program), people, especially women, often become discouraged because they cannot see the results readily on the scale. They can offset this discouragement by determining body composition regularly to monitor their change in percent body fat rather than simply measuring changes in total body weight."

This is why you need to take into account your percent body fat along with your BMI.

 

Floggingsully, I don't know where your logic is coming from, but if you are lifting weight, you are burning calories and building muscle. So you are just flat out wrong.

If you look at studies its far more efficient for the body to build, then cut, then it is to try and achieve both of them at the same time. You can do it, but both results suffer. Which is why 'the freaks', always cycle, because simply in 10 weeks, 5 weeks build 5 weeks cut, they'll have gained more muscle, and lost the fat, then if they'd try to do it at the same time in 10 weeks.

Original Post by techraven:

If you look at studies its far more efficient for the body to build, then cut, then it is to try and achieve both of them at the same time. You can do it, but both results suffer. Which is why 'the freaks', always cycle, because simply in 10 weeks, 5 weeks build 5 weeks cut, they'll have gained more muscle, and lost the fat, then if they'd try to do it at the same time in 10 weeks.

Fine, but it is not impossible to do both at once. And I wasn't under the impression that we were talking about body builders here. The point is that if you are lifting weights, you are going to be building muscle and losing fat. Maybe you're not totally bulking up, but you are building muscle. If you are exercising, you are using muscles, and therefore breaking down muscle tissues, which then rebuild themselves, and you are also burning calories, and therefore burning fat. As the quotes from my health book said, it is often the case that you are doing both at once, which is why you will sometimes not lose weight, and instead just lose inches, because you are bringing your percent body fat down while building lean body mass.

Which now takes me back to my original question....

My question is quite simple.  If I am gaining muscle and loosing fat, is there a point at which weight on the scale will remain the same due to the fat loss and muscle gain balancing each other out?

Thanks to all who have posted thus far.