When's the right time to change from 'Fat loss' mode to 'muscle gain'?

StickyMcGinty

Hi all,

Been on here before so just to provide a bit of background... just want peoples opinion on my current routine as I seem to have hit a brick wall with regards to weight loss. At some point I know i'll have to change to muscle gain mode from my current weight loss one, but I'm wondering whether the two are mutually exclusive or when's the best time to overlap the two approaches??

I posted here a good while ago looking for advice, but never really got my motivation in check (too much change of routine, work, college etc). Went skiing last Christmas and was shocked at how unfit I was - smoking 20+ fags a day certainly wasn't helping. So with partial thanks to the Quit Smoking Forum on here I managed to quit in February of this year - and soon afterwards decided to get my diet in check and try and get back in shape.

Been following this forum throughout, and I suppose my habits (good & bad) & routine have been formed mostly using information from the forums here so big thanks to everyone!

The problem I'm running in to now is that I'm finding it hard to get the gains I want. I want to lose weight and get towards my goal of ~80KG but two weeks about I hit 86.6 KG and I seem to be sticking around that mark despite the routine below. Only change I've made is that I've put in a Tuesday session with extra core work.

Questions I'm asking myself...

1. Am I doing too much cardio? - Probably am but since I primarily want to lose weight, is this not the best approach
2. Do I need to do more weights? - Again I'm eating less than my BMR, so putting on muscle should be impossible right? - so am I wasting my time doing more weights?
3. Am I eating too little? - Was thinking this but once I eat above 1,200 KCals surely the KCals I'm burning off exercising wont put me into starvation mode right? Also want to make sure that if I have a few beers or eat something out of band diet-wise on the saturday I wont go too far above my quota



Height: 5'10"
February weight - 102.7 KG's
Current weight as of this morning - 86.3 KG's

Diet

Monday - Friday

9am - Porridge (80g) w/ ~70ml 1% Light Milk, 5ml honey
11:30am - Some cashew nuts on occasion before lunch @ 1pm, no more than 10 grammes
1pm - 125g of leafy salad (no dressing, some carrot, spring onion, cheery tomatoes etc) and 150g of skinless chicken. maybe once every two weeks put in some mackeral (100g) instead of the chicken. Danone Greek yoghurt w/ fruit 125g with this usually aswell
4:30pm - Some cashew nuts on occasion before lunch @ 1pm, no more than 10 grammes
8pm - dinner usually one of the following:

1. Brown pasta (85g) spaghetti bolognaise (95% lean mince) w/ low fat dolmio sauce. Throw in some garlic/onions
2. Grilled chicken breasts (skinless, 300g) w/ 300g of mixed veg boiled (butternut squash, green beans, broccoli) - some nando's hot sauce marinade on the chicken. Cob of sweetcorn if I've been working out/going to the next day
3. Salmon steamed/grilled on a bed of brown rice

I've been using MyFitnessPal to log most of my meals, so I'm generally consuming around 1,450KCals a day

On the weekends I'll usually have one night's drinking and a treat meal, but i try to drink wine/Jack Daniels to keep the KCal count down.

Exercises

Note: Cycle to/from work = 12 KM round trip. 23mins in the morning (uphill - 250 KCals HRM) and 13 mins (150 KCals) home.

Monday: 45mins Spinning class in the eve (HRM says ~600KCals) - mix of spinning and core (maybe 10 mins core work in this class). Cycle to/from work

Tuesday: Core work for about 30 mins, then upperbody pec fly, chest press machines, lateral pull down's, seated/standing leg press and calf press. 40 mins interval training on the excersise bike (HRM says about 650 KCals). Cycle to/from work

Wednesday: 45 mins spinning. Cycle to/from work

Thursday: Rest

Friday: Cycle to/from work. Core work in gym (planks, press ups, crunches), 60 mins bike interval training - HRM says about 750KCals

Saturday - Rest

Sunday - Rest


Any and all advice appreciated!

nice_guy80

Immediately
It will help with weight loss and fitness.

you need to start lifting and pushing bigger weights which will kickstart your body.

And well done on the weight loss

WHIP IT!

Fantastic weight loss - well done... as the guy before me said - start immediately.

StickyMcGinty

Thanks lads

But how can i put on muscle if i'm eating below my BMR daily?

househero

StickyMcGinty wrote: »

Thanks lads

But how can i put on muscle if i'm eating below my BMR daily?

Very good point, but if you want to put on muscle, Why are you eating less than your BMR?

If you want to gain muscle you will need to increase your protein & caloric intake massively.

Editing... Sorry your question is just confusing.

You can not loose weight and gain muscle. Loose more fat, then build up again with a high protein & high caloric diet & heavy weights.

Cheat Meal Master

Hi Sticky,

As one of my favourite strength coaches Dan John says (& I'm paraphrasing here):

Don't focus on too many things at once - if you had to pick one goal right now what would it be?