Feeding Your Muscles vs Reducing Calories to Cut? - Confused

[VolleyballNut]

Hey everyone! My first post on AM. Been reading here for a few weeks and learning a lot. I'm 42 years old and have been lifting for 15 years. Always struggled to gain weight. Finally 6'3" - 200 pounds. I lift heavy and strength is not an issue at all. After reading posts on AM with regard to BF %, I have no clue where I am at. 12-16%? I have done no cardio (I know... I know) other than play hoops and volleyball once a week. As I am getting older, I have now noticed the abs have slowly been covered up. Time to start leaning down (especially for summer). As I have been doing research on this site as to how to cut, I have heard to reduce calories, but I have also read I need to keep feeding my muscles. Never ever watched what I ate before. I simply ate sensibly and that worked fine. Ugh... getting old blows at times.

I am on the road daily and entertain clients to lunch every day (tough life), so I have limited control of what I can prepare and bring for the day. I also have three kids, a wife and a busy life so I am trying to figure out how many calories I should be taking in? What kind of calories (considering my limitations). I typically eat about 3,000 calories a day of normal every day food. Do I need to keep my calories the same and do more cardio? Reduce my calories? Ugh... life was a lot easier when I was just naturally cut.

My goal is to get rid of my slight muffin top and see the abs again without sucking in my gut the whole time. Would love to avoid only eating alfalfa sprouts all day. Help!

 

[xigotmailx]

You have a basic understanding of exactly what you need to do, it's just one or the other. Increase cardio to put yourself into caloric deficit or reduce calories...to put yourself into caloric deficit. With your lifestyle, tracking cals is probably tough since you can't prepare your meals yourself, so I'd just do cardio. 250-500 cals burned from cardio, 3x a week should start the ball rolling. From there you can either increase cardio to more frequency or slightly lower cals if you stop seeing results

 

[Jiigzz]

Cardio is an option, but simply increasing calorie expenditure is as well. I.e. moving around more. Cardio has its benefits (HIIT and Aerobic based) so I do recommend a form of cardio but not necessarily for weight loss reasons.

Often people do cardio because it a higher proportion of fat (referred to as the 'fat burning zone') than carbohydrate. Sitting and standing also burn a high proportion of fat and should also therefore be called the 'fat burning zone' but what is important is that all movement burns fat whether as the direct result of training, or indirectly through increased resting metabolism (i.e. after sprinting).

The fat burning zone doesn't exist and there is a difference between proportion of fat used as fuel and VOLUME. Higher volumes of fat are used during and after HIIT.

 

[hardwork25]

Cardio is an option, but simply increasing calorie expenditure is as well. I.e. moving around more. Cardio has its benefits (HIIT and Aerobic based) so I do recommend a form of cardio but not necessarily for weight loss reasons.

Often people do cardio because it a higher proportion of fat (referred to as the 'fat burning zone') than carbohydrate. Sitting and standing also burn a high proportion of fat and should also therefore be called the 'fat burning zone' but what is important is that all movement burns fat whether as the direct result of training, or indirectly through increased resting metabolism (i.e. after sprinting).

The fat burning zone doesn't exist and there is a difference between proportion of fat used as fuel and VOLUME. Higher volumes of fat are used during and after HIIT.

Thank god someone finally agrees with me about the "fat burning zone" I see people and hear people talk about this on treadmills at the gym and I just shake my head as I watch everyone on those damn machines do nothing but teach their body how to store fat. I digress....

want to lose fat? Sprint 3x a week and when entertaining your clients order grilled chicken breast or two with water. That's what I do and everywhere can accommodate that. Slap some hot sauce or something on it and you're good. I never have to worry or fret about a meal like that affecting my diet either way.

 

[Epolis13]

^^ Awesome posts, and totally agree on the fat burning zone.