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Fat loss maintaining most muscle

holysnikey

New member
Hey everyone I'm 22, 5' 8" @ 155lb ~15%. I recently in the past few months have been training with a microcycle program. I've gained 20lbs so far and significant strength but my BF% has gone up a few %. I want to try and cut it back a bit to maybe 10-12% but I don't want to lose muscle and possibly gain muscle. I'm probably considered an endomorph and have quite a high metabolism. I've been consuming 3000kcal a day with around 200g Protein, 300g carbs and 100g fat give or take on each one. I still have a bit of processed food in my diet because in the summer I have a job that requires driving a lot and not very much time to prepare food although I try to eat as much whole food as possible. Once I start up college again in the fall I will be able to have a much better diet. All these different diets are dizzying but the main thing is I don't want to lose muscle. I also don't know if I should be doing a lower carb or lower fat diet. I know on workout days I should have more carbs. I just started to add HIIT at the end or beginning of my workout. I guess my question is what's the optimal way to lose fat while maintaining or possibly gain muscle. There is so many different techniques that it can get confusing.

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holysnikey said:
I know on workout days I should have more carbs.
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you sort of answered it largely yourself. keep your carbs as is on workout days, drop them significantly on non-workout days. the most important factor in keeping muscle while losing fat is to not drop calories by too much. your body will only release so much in stored fat into the bloodstream per day, losing more weight than that means losing muscle mass. figure if you cut your carbs in half non-workout days, that should be fine.
 
forget fad diets, just keep it consistent, train hard, interval training, weights and resistance cardio (tough cross trainer or other) and you should replace the fat with muscle over time. If the fats getting out of hand, Thyroidals are the best of the bag i found so far, and Ive tried them all.

Many bulk and cut but its becoming evident there is an in between where you can just workout and eat well to get a lean gain
 
For the record im in a similar bag, but my bodyfat was high, if i bulked i got bigger but the fat didnt go away, if i cut i lost muscle and kept the fat, instead Im building a decent platform of burning cals where i can , eating higher protein and doing resistance training 3 times a week
I take TT-33 for the fat burn, testosterone booster because im over 30 and need some alpha male-ness, AI for the bloat, and preworkout for the kick after a ****ty day at work which is when i have time to train. Weights 3 times a week plus cross trainer in the days between.

Im getting there, the missus notices too
 
Thanks guys ya I'm still a bit too small for cutting in my opinion but I definitely want to keep the BF in check. I've calculated my BMR on several websites and quite a few say 1800kcal while the ones which take physical activity into account said around 2700kcal. I do pretty physical labor all day involving climbing ladders, carrying equipment up ladders or several flights of stairs etc so I'm guessing I burn a bit just working. I definitely don't want a fad diet because I can lose weight pretty quickly but wanted to maintain the muscle. So I should consume 3000kcals on workout days which is usually Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. Then say around 2400 on non-workout days with the reduction being from carbs. What if I do cardio on non-lifting days do I eat a deficit? I have read conflicting things with cardio to burn fat. A lot of studies and people say HIIT is the least catabolic and is actually anabolic because of HGH release and test level rises. While some say a very slow paced cardio is the least catabolic. So stick with HIIT?

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Ya I was eating horribly before I started training but I was still very small. All the weight I did have was fat which sucks because if I was just skinny before I started I would probably have a visible 6 pack. Oh well everyone has been telling how much bigger I look just from the 20-30lbs I gained. Most of it was muscle though because I do have a Tanita scale that does BF% which I know isn't super accurate but it does tell you trends like rises or drops in BF. I probably gained maybe 1-2% during this few months period problem is that I was 14-15% when I started.

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I'm also a student 22, 5'8" except im at ~170 not too sure on the bf% but not higher than 15. I've also just started trying to do the same thing your trying to accomplish.HIIT is a great way to destroy body fat, but keeping a good body composition comes with eating right. As long as your taking in the right nutrients and keeping up the training, you will slowly see your goal starting to come in. Nothing happens over night. Work hard train and eat right and youll see what you want start to come in. IDK if your trying to be all natural but theres plenty of supplements that will help you. I heard a lot about erase pro by PES being a great product and helping people get the gains they want. Can't post the link yet but its on nurtaplanet just search it. Erase Pro and DAA stack
 
Ya I have been researching some of the stronger supplements lately as my gains have slowed although I've been on maintenance ~2600kcals on training days and a small deficit ~2300kcals with low carbs on non-lifting days. Right now I am doing 15min of HIIT 2 min jog 1 minute sprint 3x a week. I've been maintaining 155lb but some of my measurements have gone up while my waist dropped 1/2".

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Gains are always gonna slow, its the unfortunate truth of our bodies phsyiology.
 
Ya I don't know how much they've slowed partly because I didn't like my BF% being as high as 16-17% so I dropped down my calories 400-500.

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Whats helps me a lot is zig zag dieting. Basically, let's say, you are eating 500 under maintenance ( 2000 for example ), so you basically consume 14000 in the week. But instead of eating them all equaly, you bump them up on workout days and make them lower on rest days.
 
can't that be counter intuitive considering most of your muscle size gains are achieved from your rest days?
 
more of an assumption than actual science considering how mostly everyone is always stressing the importance of rest days, but you know what they say about assumptions...
 
Most of your muscle is gained/rebuilt during sleep of the night you worked out.

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