help-more muscle than goal weight

[marguepsi]

I weigh 205 pounds. I am a 44 yo female. I have 135 pounds of muscle. My goal weight is 130 pounds w/ 22 percent body fat. If I already have more muscle than my goal weight, will it hurt me to lift weights--i.e., should I only do cardio? If I continue to lift weights, how can I reach my goal? Currently I just started lifting weights for 1 hour twice a week and doing an hour of cardio on the treadmill 3 days per week, plus am following a diet presecribed by my dr which is high protein. Any help/advice would be appreciated.

[MsFit]

Originally posted by marguepsi
I weigh 205 pounds. I am a 44 yo female. I have 135 pounds of muscle. My goal weight is 130 pounds w/ 22 percent body fat. If I already have more muscle than my goal weight, will it hurt me to lift weights--i.e., should I only do cardio? If I continue to lift weights, how can I reach my goal? Currently I just started lifting weights for 1 hour twice a week and doing an hour of cardio on the treadmill 3 days per week, plus am following a diet presecribed by my dr which is high protein. Any help/advice would be appreciated.

Hey girl. Perhaps I read your numbers wrong. From what I've calculated you are 70#'s fat and 135 of lean mass. If you are 130 and 22% that will put you at 101# of lean mass and 29# of fat.

Forget the numbers for right now. Lifting weight will build lean mass which will aid in caloire burning. The more muscle you have the more calories you will burn. If you have JUST started training, you are doing fine for the moment. Can you add a day to your cardio. Aslo what intensity is your cardio? Please give me more detail.

Can you give me an example of your diet. I would like to see it written out to better evaluate it since you are on a fat loss mission. :)
MsFit

[marguepsi]

Thanks for replying, MsFit. Yes, you read the numbers correctly. I am 5 feet 4 inches and so I would like to weigh 130 pounds at 22 percent body fat. Currently I weigh 205 pounds and have 135 pounds of muscle. My cardio is 1 hour on a treadmill averaging between 3.5 miles an hour going up to 4.0 miles an hour (however I am not able to sustain 4.0 miles per hour for more than a couple of minutes). I do work up a sweat doing this. I have a heart monitor, but, unfortunately, it does not work near my treadmill, which is electric. My typical daily diet consists of 6 small meals a day. Three of them are whey protein drinks (130 cals each carton). The other two meals are typically a portion of skinless chicken breast and steamed green beans. Ot I may have cottage cheese (low fat). One meal is usally chicken breast or salmon on a green salad with dressing. One day a week I may cheat and go out w/ freinds and on that day I may eat bread w/butter or have an appetizer; e.g., last night I had braised figs w/ cheese and honey as an appetizer (followed by green vegetables w/ scallops). My doctor says I am insulin=resistant and has recommended a cave man diet. I have a goiter and need to avoid goiterogenoic foods, such as soy, broccoli, cabbage, etc. I am also allergic to white potatoes, tomatoes, and eggs. So, my question is, if I already have more muscle than I eventually want to weigh, instead of adding another weight day, should I stick to cardio? I don't want to build too much more muscle....I want to lose the 70# of fat. Or, do I do both with the eventual intention of adjusting my workout so I lose some of the muscle I build now later on when I get closer to my goal? BTW, I am already doing 370 pounds on the leg press--after 2 weeks of training.

[MsFit]

Sound like you are genetically gifted in the muscle department. I have to hot glue muscle on.

Cardio: You will get better results if you vary your moderate/high intensity. For example, walk at 3.5 mph for 3 minutes and light jog for 1 minute. This rotation will prevent cardio adoption and keep you burning fat.

Your diet sounds wonderful. Eventually I'd like to see you consume 4 meal and 2 shakes. Solid meals will up your metabolism because it gives the body something to do, digest. You man continue eating protein and veggies if this is what you like. I know about insulin resistance, I feel I am too so I do the 'caveman diet'. I eat protein and fats and it works well for me.

Ok, you don't really want to build more muscle at this point. Stick to your training and keep it light, higher reps too. Keep the cardio up and cycle the moderate/high intensity. I also suggest mixing your cardio technique up a bit if possible.

370# leg press after 2 weeks, maybe I should be asking you for suggestion. *wink*.

So give me input on your cardio. Does what I'm saying make sense? It 's it attainable and can you switch up the cardio methods to prevent staleness?
MsFit

[Jay]

just do high reps and limit rest to loose weight :)

[MsFit]

No Jay! Diet to lose weight!

To lose weight safely and effctively there needs to be a balance in the diet as well as a caloirc deficit. This is obtained by eating small balanced proportioned meals spaced evenly every 3 hours.

To aid in the continual fat loss cardio can be add using interval techniques to keep the body from adapting.

Resistance training builds lean body mass. It does not result in fat loss, hence, lean mass will. She is content with the amount of muscle she possess. Decreasing the amount of weight and increaseing the reps will maintian the muscle with out building extra size. DIET is the key to fat loss.
MsFit

[marguepsi]

Thanks, Ms. Fit. I won't do any more hours of weight training per week and I'll try the ajustment you suggested in my cardio program. I'ml going to have my body composition done again in 2 weeks to find out what progress I've made in a month. BTW, I wonder what your thoughts are on the Body for Life program? I was reading the book. His cardio and lifting workouts seem to go on this idea of increasing intensity. I was thinking of giving it a try. It would be about the same amount of weightlifting overall, but broken up over 3 days instead of 2, for a shorter time period.

[MsFit]

You're welcome!! I think BFL Program is quality for beginners. I think you can benefit from it since it's a guidence book and you can always refer to it. Personally I think his resistence training is too much. If you want to give his method a try I'd prefer modifying the training aspect so you won't overtrain and get burned out. Your focus will be cardio and the amount of weight training he suggest is too much, not giving the body time to recover. You will be better off weight training everyother day or MWF or 2 days on, 1 day off. Each bodypart should be trained once a week, no more. I can help disign a plan and you can still use the intensity method it you like. Just don't want you overtrained. :)
MsFit

[marguepsi]

Great! I have a card w/ what I've been doing at the gym. I will copy that into this thread so you can see what I've been doing, and then make some suggestions....I know with some of the weights I was easily doing 20 reps, and I was trying to get my reps lower, to reach muscle failure when I get to 12. But anyway, if I show you what I've been doing, would that be a good start?

[MsFit]

That sounds splended!! I'll be looking for it. :)
MsFit

[marguepsi]

As promised, MSFit, here are my weight workouts (i was doing 45 mins cardio 3/week and am trying to up it to 4). I have only been training 3 weeks, so I am still trying to find my appropriate weights and sets. I establish something one week, but then next week if I can do more than, the trainer at the gym said to keep increasing weight bc I should burnout at 12 reps. I started w/ a combo program, but last week I broke it up into something more along the lines of BFL to give it a try. On some exercises, I am able to do lots of reps at one weight but hardly any w/ a small increase, so I'm not really able to increase each set and max out per the BFL schedule. In otherwords, I'm still kind of inconsistent. I list here what I did do, which isn't exactly what the workout calls for.

Original Workout done 2x week for 2 weeks; weights given are from the first workout:
3 sets of 10-20 reps each, to see how many I could do
Bicep curls 25 pounds
Tricept extension 40
Chest Press 20
Latt Pulldowns 45
Shoulder press 30
leg extensions 90
Leg Press 210
Abduction machine 100
Aduction machine 100

Plus:
3 Ab Supersets: 20 reverse curls, 20 curls, 40 obliques
Back extension 2 sets of 10 reps my body's own weight



Week 3: an attempt at a BFL Workout:
First day I worked out:
Lower Body
Leg Extensions:
Sets/Reps/Weight
1/12/110
2/10/110
3/8/115
4/6/120
5/12/110

Seated Curls:
1/12/90
2/10/95
3/8/100
4/6/100
5/12/90

Leg Press: Here I started w/ 20 reps at 250, so I ended up at the 5th set doing 12 reps of 390

Abduction:
1/12/130
2/10/145
3/8/150
4/6/150/130

Adductors:
1/12/90
2/10/95
3/8/100 (but I start to lose range at 100)
4/6/95 (not supposed to go doen here but I did)
5/12/90

Calf:
1/12/130
2/10/235
3/8/240
4/6/245
5/12/230


On another day:
Upper Body
Modular arm curl
1/12/40
2/10/35
3/8/30
4/6/25
5/12/20

Lat pull down (tough for me!)
1/12/60
2/10/70
3/8/75
4/6/7
5/12/60

Chest press:
1/12/50
2/10/45
3/8/45
4/6/45
5/12/50

Triceps extension
1/12/50
2/10/45
3/8/50
4/6/50
5/12/40

Rear Delt row Cybex
1/12/80
2/10/85
3/8/90
4/6/100
5/12/80

Arm Extensions Cybex
1/12/40
2/10/45
3/8/40
4/6/45
5/12/35

Chest Press #2
1/12/40
2/10/45
3/8/45
4/6/50
5/12/35


Thanks for reviewing this!

[MsFit]

I sent you a pm marguepsi.
MsFit

[MsFit]

Whew, that's a lot. Ok, your goal is to lose excess bodyfat so foucs all that time and energy on cardio, but don't get burned out. Increase to 4 days a week at 45 minutes of interval training.

Training, the Body for Life training routine is a bit much. To maintain the muscle you already possess stick with the basics and keep the reps at 8-10, perhaps closer to 10 for now since your goal is to lose fat and not build much mass. My recommendation is as followed
DAY #1
CHEST-SHOULDERS-TRICEPS
Incline Press 3x10
Flat Press 3x10
Incline DB Flys 3x10

Shoulder Press 3x10
Lateral Raises 3x10
Front Raises 3x10
Rear Delt 3x10

Overhead Ext. 3x10
Skulls 3x10
Dips/pushdowns/kicks 3x10

DAY#2
BACK-BICEPS
Lat Pulldown 3x10
Seated Rows 3x10
Hyper Ext. 3x10

EZ Curl 3x10
Hammer Curl 3x10
Alternate DB Curl 3x10

DAY #3
LEGS
Squat or Press 3x10 (alternate the 2 per workout)
Hack or Lunges 3x10 (alternate the 2 per workout)
Exentsions 3x10
Cursl 3x10

Train eveyother day and do cardio on your off training days. If you do cardio on the days you lift, put the cardio after training. Do abs and calves everyother workout. :)
MsFit