Title says it all, i want to lose weight and also build some muscle, ive have been hitting the gym and cutting my calories by 500-900cal for the past two months, while i am seeing some muscle growth, its not very substantial or something people around me will notice, ive also lost about 2kgs which is not much so i am thinking of doing a 200cal surplus for a month to see how it goes I wanted to get some advice as well as read other people’s experiences
my best advice is: keep going. Dont stop. Your doing great. Remember if you are building muscle mass you ought to get heavier. The scale is not the best indicator for your fitness. Ive even heard this as a reason to go diet only. If “diet” for you means healthy eating, go ahead, but dont starve yourself.
What i am trying to figure will/is being on a deficit will hinder my muscle growth… coz i feel like 2 months is a long time, i feel like i should have atleast have somewhat noticable muscle growth from what i have heard…
Someone Brand new to working out will get newbie gains, in the first year of working out a young male can expect to put on around 10lbs of muscle. So around 0.8lbs of muscle a month. But it’ll be front heavy, but even at like 1.5-2lbs a month, fat is less dense then muscle so if you’re losing more fat than muscle you are gonna look smaller.
Look for tone not muscle growth, muscle growth isn’t fast, it’s a slow process and one day you look back at year old pictures and go “damn…”
I’m not well versed in recent research in this area. But muscle growth is expensive, keep your protein intake up. Have a good dose of protein within 2hrs of exercise.
What is your gym routine? You need to be consistent, at least 3 times per week and lift to fatigue at least 3 sets of ‘x’ .
Edit: Most importantly this will take quite some time. So do it in a sustainable way. Don’t worry about scales for weight as your weight loss and muscle gain won’t give you accurate representation of your body’s changes
Yeah gym is expensive lol, as for the routine i lift weight 5-6 times a week and do cardio 3-4 times a week
Are you a beginner? Lifting 5-6 times a week is a bit much, even for an experienced lifter, but especially for someone new.
What kind of lifting are you doing? Olympic lifts? X sets of y? Keeping track of your weights and increasing when you can?