Quote:
Originally Posted by Rmtt
I can understand. To get past the "skinny fat" mode.....you have to start putting on more muscle. Once you get to a point where your body fat is at an acceptable level for you, I would slowly transition into a maintenance phase. Add back just enough calories to where you are not losing any weight, but not gaining any weight. This will give you your baseline.
Then I would stay at that baseline, and start focusing on gym progress. It can be weight, reps, etc....but try and best your previous workout if even by a minuscule amount and ride that until progress stops for at least a few weeks.
Your body will actually build a little bit of muscle during the maintenance phase as a form of "recomp". One progress stops....even just an extra 100 calories a day can put you back into a positive balance for gaining.
Once you get to a certain point, you will find your body burning more calories than normal as more muscle means more calories needed to support it.
My training partner told me at the very start when I was asking all of these questions about bulking and cutting...he said no matter what you are doing with your calories....you always need to be in the mindset of trying to build muscle.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Now_Rudi
This is exactly the mindset I've had for the past little bit. Was making great progress for the exception of the last week and a half. I'm not sure if I've lost muscle or due to the loss of body fat it just appears that way, but the scales are showing my BMI is the same with the body fat % lowering so I'm assuming that's a good thing. It's killing me not doing weight resistance training right now. I'm considering taking some time off until I can start lifting. The way I see things is that as long as I'm still watching my caloric intake and keeping myself in a deficit, there isn't really a need to do any more cardio.
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Agree 100% with the statement from your training partner.
In regards to your first blurb, establishing where that baseline is may be the difficult part. Going off the past weights that Rudi has given us, it seems like there is a large margin of muscle that can be gained. I'm trying to determine how I would go about it if I was in his shoes and knowing what I know now, and it really just boils down to the fact that you have a long road ahead of you. Hopefully you have already come to terms with this. I agree that a baseline needs to be determined, but that baseline form may be a little ways out.
Eat. Sleep. Rest (which going off some of your other posts in other threads you might need more of, but everyone is different as you can tell from RMTT who only sleeps for an hour or some shit haha).
I'm aware that one of your main concerns if keeping the excess fat off, but do me a favor and just stay away from the scales (both BMI and your normal) for a little while. Let the mirror do the talking. Weight is just a number, i've been through phases of looking like shit at 200lbs and looking like a greek god at 200 (obviously exaggerating, but nonetheless I hope you get the point).