Wanting to add lean muscle and cut weight at the same time....possible?

[ww2006]

First of all...In my life I have been overweight by up to 70lbs. Then as I grew and worked my ass off, I have lost roughly 50-55lbs of it. Also, through my on and off years of training Ive added around 15-20lb of muscle. Well I want to start a new routine where I can add the muscle and cut the fat. Now I live on a college campus and my food here is limited. I have a selection of Cereal, fruits, salad, soups, peanut butter, milk, nuts, cottage cheese & tuna (both which I love and can tolerate easily) and hamburgers. I have creatine on hand and Whey Protein. I did purchase H-drol but after some more thought, decided to return that. So with this limited food selection and limited money....What kind of routine cna I set up? Also...I have been doing around 1 hour and a half worth of cardio everyday for the past week and trying to eat right..already noticing some weight loss. the machines list me losing 1500 cals but...who knows. What I have been doing is just eating 3 times a day, taking protein 52grams, only on days I work out, and doing at least an hour of the elliptical everyday. I am willing to purchase up to 60 bucks worth of supplements to help reach my goals. The only for sure goal Id like to meet is 15-20 lbs of pure fat lost within 2 months....and Id like to max muscle gain during that time then after lower the cardio and focus all on muscle gain. I currently also do 1 day upper/1day lower/1day off w/ cardio/repeat. Can some of you guys suggest a supplement and a diet and/or weight reps that can help me out? I currently do 8-7-6 with weights

 

[doingwork30]

I've heard people losing weight and increasing muscle doing HST. Google hypertrophy specific training.

 

[julius kelp]

well, some say it's not possible, however if this were true, how would anyone ever get bigger & end up lean as well?

 

[sub001]

If you are over weight I'd suppose you could lose major excess fat, and gain muscle just from the way your body runs. However, I don't think you can beef up and keep a super low body fat. Eat really clean and do a bulking routine and you should lean out a little and gain muscle, then slowly switch over to a cutting diet once you are done.

 

[kingdong]

Assuming your going natural, I would say it most likely depends on your bodyfat. The fatter you are, the easier it would be to do what you are talking about, and vice versa.

 

[EasyEJL]

The only for sure goal Id like to meet is 15-20 lbs of pure fat lost within 2 months....and Id like to max muscle gain during that time then after lower the cardio and focus all on muscle gain.

your goal is ridiculous. at a current weight of 185 there is no way you will lose 20lbs in 2 months and gain any muscle unless its the first 2-3 months of you working out (which it sounds like it isn't). Sorry it just doesn't work that way. Particularly with limited food selection and limited money to fill in that selection your best bet is to be realistic about goals (maybe at your size 1.5lbs a week lost of fat) and reach your leanness goal before concentrating on muscle gain.

Trust me, losing too fast will lose muscle as well, and trying to ride the thin line between fat loss + muscle gain is difficult even if you have full resources.

 

[slacker86]

i do have to say that the limited food selection and limited money is probably the deciding factor, that is an assumption that your bf % is over 20%. If u are 15% bf or lower its basicly impossible to do what you want.

In doing something so complex you have to really eat perfectly, and that does not seem like a viable option for you right now seeing ur eating college food.

My suggestion is that you find what your goal is for the next 3 months weather you want more muscle or to cut fat. If u cleanly bulk and or use periodization and new ways to stimulate your muscles you can gain a decent amount of muscle with very little fat addition. If you want to cut than try to cut efficiently without muscle loss.

The worst possible thing you could do is lift heavy for hypertrophy and then in the same day do cardio for extended periods of time. You are going to either pull a muscle or your going to overtrain and not get much benefit at all.

All in all i guess what im trying to say is pick one and do it well, it will be much more beneficial than doing 2 things at once without 100% focus on one goal.

 

[ww2006]

How about this then? I want to lose the 15-20lbs first without losing much if anything of the muscle I have already built underneath. Can that be done and if so, how? Light reps?

 

[EasyEJL]

How about this then? I want to lose the 15-20lbs first without losing much if anything of the muscle I have already built underneath. Can that be done and if so, how? Light reps?

the workout routine hardly matters. target 500 calories below your maintenance, add some extra cardio in. Look for 1.5 or so pounds a week in loss. And over time you'll get there. Its all about physiological processes, its hard to get the body to liberate all that much in fatty acids a day. So if your caloric deficit is too high, then you lose muscle as well as fat.

Do cardio before eating in the mornings, even if its just a 20 minute session.

 

[Spazmenos]

well if you do a clean bulk and gain more mass than fat, your body composition WOULD change and you WOULD be/look leaner

 

[R1balla]

this is what im doing and its been working for me. my goal is to cut fat and add muscle. and idc what anyone else says about it not being possible. its working for me, ive had my BF index measured each week along with weight and each week its improving.

I eat like im doing a clean bulk. train like im bulking but 30 min of cardio is added to each workout only on workout days along with abs every other day.

 

[thetylerbrown]

HGHup. It's crazy. Get it. $45 at NutriShop

 

[R1balla]

ive ran HGHup with prime and creatine last summer. i didnt see much from HGHup cause ive taken prime before this stack and saw about the same results. HGH works better over time, not one month. i think if u ran two bottles back to back it till suffice.

 

[micro2000]

You can look up the old Ultimate Diet by Dan Duchaine and Michael Zumpano, or the new UD2 diet by Lyle McDonald. Both are designed to maximize lipolytic and anabolic environments and with the addition of some androgens could produce a small increase in muscle mass while losing fat.