what to expect after 6 weeks of cutting + weight training?

[dangerice]

started at about ~265lbs around 35% bf
calorie deficit is at least 600-1200 a day (i'd say it's usually around the 900 mark)
weight training 3x a week (core secrets, not exactly the greatest program but gives me a pretty good workout and I finally got my bench and olympic set this week so i'll be moving on)
on EC for 3 weeks

during the last one or two weeks i've noticed certain muscles in my body are harder, but then again i might just by psyching myself up and they might have already been like that

so anyways, 6 weeks in,
~3-4lbs drop in weight (pretty sure it's mostly fat loss, but I don't know my real bodyfat %)
seems kinda low after 6 weeks, could this be due to noob gains in muscles? or am I just not training hard enough/eating right?
or should I be happy with these results?

[BigNath]

Have you done any resistance training before dude ??

[BigNath]

And also post your diet dude !!

[dangerice]

nope i first started everything about 6 weeks ago
my diet is pretty much a clean 40/40/20 diet, had like 3 cheat days in the last 6 weeks, funny thing was i still remained in a deficit for 2/3 cheat days without even thinking about it

basically i'm just wondering if my muscles are putting on weight which is why it's showing such a low weight drop after 6 weeks or if this isn't a good progress for a beginner

[BigNath]

Well ive dropped just over 140 pounds in about 10 months.. During that time, i have had numerous spells where my body won't loose a great deal of weight but my measurements still come down.

Best bit of advise I can give you seeing as your a big fella is to take measurements around your upper arm, chest, abdomen and middle of your thighs.

As long as your measurements are coming down, don't really worry about the weight because chances are you are just trading fat for muscle.

hth

Nath

[TI-OG]

What type of cardio you doin?

[dangerice]

cardio...not much at all, i spend 20 minutes walking picking up my sister from school everyday (10 mins each way)
other than that I might go to the supermarket about once a week, it's a 15 minute walk downhill then back uphill, fairly steep carrying a good 2-5lbs in each arm
i have a knee problem that's why i'm not doing any jogging but I just got a new elliptical this week so i'll be doing that from now on


BigNath: 140lbs in 10 months? man that's great! was any of it muscle loss?

[Swivel]

You may want to seriously consider adding in cardio if you want to see maximum weight loss. You're cheating yourself by not doing so.

[laeklar]

If you have noticed improvements in with your strength then I am positive you lost a few more than 3-4 pounds of fat. You have certainly added a few pounds of muscle during this time as well!

Congratulations!

[KowboysUp]

What the guy above me said. You sound like you're somewhat new to lifting, so I'd imagine you put more than a few pounds of muscle on and lost way more than 3-4lbs of muscle in this time period. Great work, but don't always go by the scale, take measurements if you can, and use the mirror and the way your clothes are fitting as a guide.

[smackdaddyD]

I'm in a similar boat (6'2", 260, around 25-27% BF currently).

With a body that size, you're mostly endomorphic. Many (most?) endomorphs have a good bit of mesomorph in them as well, and generally are able to pack muscle on very easily, but have difficulty shedding fat.

In three months, I've only lost 8 pounds of weight, but I'm sure I've lost at least twice that much in fat, if not more, replacing the balance with muscle. Everybody I know is commenting on how I look lately, usually saying I'm looking "fit" (older people) or "jacked" (younger people).

All of that said, you have to understand your body to most optimally achieve your goals. It's great that you have an elliptical available to you, as that's (in my opinion) the best cardio. You can easily get up to 70% of your maximum heart rate and go for a solid hour without your muscles feeling anaerobically worked and stressed. The more you can use activity to create your calorie defecit, the better your results will be. Just shorting yourself on calories is a recipe for disaster.

If I were you, I would strongly consider stopping the EC. If you really want to go that route, save it for when you're trying to cut the last few difficult pounds, rather than the first 30-40 which will come more naturally. If you DO stay on the EC, you really need to be aggressive in your rehydration.

Try to lift 5 days a week. Take full advantage of your current propensity for anabolism. This is your chance to really make a noticable difference...like everything, body transformation has diminishing returns. That means that the closer you get to your ideal figure, the harder you have to work to go to the next level. Use this chance to add a bunch of muscle, it will make you feel and look better, and make it easier to burn fat in the future.

Lastly, I'll offer two extremely important pieces of advice.

Number one, take pictures of yourself with your shirt off from the front and from the side. Whenever you have any doubt about your progress, take more pictures and compare. Let the pictures be your scale.

Number two, whatever you do, do not give up. The absolute worst case scenario is that you take longer to get in shape than you had hoped. But you must hold in your mind the simple fact that you can get what you want with sheer determination! The only thing between you and your goal body is a period of time and yourself! The only reason people fail is because they give up. If you don't quit, you will win. It's that easy.

[BigNath]

cardio...not much at all, i spend 20 minutes walking picking up my sister from school everyday (10 mins each way)
other than that I might go to the supermarket about once a week, it's a 15 minute walk downhill then back uphill, fairly steep carrying a good 2-5lbs in each arm
i have a knee problem that's why i'm not doing any jogging but I just got a new elliptical this week so i'll be doing that from now on


BigNath: 140lbs in 10 months? man that's great! was any of it muscle loss?

I was pretty unfit dude !! But nah I have increased my muscle mass greatly too.. Gotta lift and do cardio and no whinging about its too cold to get out of bed or I can't be bothered or any other excuse, just go to the gym and get it done !!

[Aquilius]

calorie deficit is at least 600-1200 a day (i'd say it's usually around the 900 mark)

How do you determine your caloric requirements/deficit exactly?
Do you get enough protein with your diet?
Do you drink enough water?

on EC for 3 weeks

Hm. You may want to skip or reduce this for now, it's effect would be IMHO similar to adding 5-10 minutes of cardio a day, but could adversely affect the actual cardio you're doing. At least that was the experience I had from caffeine - my average heartrate doing cardio went right up after starting with Xenadrine NRG, severely impacting my ability to prolong the cardio. Went way down when I reduced the caffeine, and cardio is working now much better for me.

during the last one or two weeks i've noticed certain muscles in my body are harder, but then again i might just by psyching myself up and they might have already been like that

No, that's IMHO the first real gains showing. I always imagine that as the muscles squeezing the fat out which is in there for now, thus getting harder...

so anyways, 6 weeks in, ~3-4lbs drop in weight (pretty sure it's mostly fat loss, but I don't know my real bodyfat %) seems kinda low after 6 weeks, could this be due to noob gains in muscles?

I don't really think so. Don't believe that you have lost 10lbs of fat and added 7lbs of muscle. App. 10lbs overall weight loss in 12 weeks would be the average for 3x45 minute workouts per week (at least according to some studies). The first few weeks you worked out were probably mostly training your CNS to better utilize the existing muscle. Now that that's done actual muscle buildup will slowly set in (as you have noticed by now).

The word here is slowly. Were you to train vigorously, and you already had a good base, with a perfect diet, and using something arachidonic acid based like X-Factor (which I would be very very reluctant to advise because of potential side effects), and if that actually worked for you as advertised, and if you were not trying to shed weight at the same time, you might have gained (as some report) 15lbs (which would IMHO really be a lot) muscle in 50 days (but probably much less). For you, in the current situation? Not likely at all.

I'd say you simply train not enough, and eat to much... for now. But - who am I to speak....

or am I just not training hard enough/eating right?

How long are your training sessions?

Also, as you are still very much at the beginning, try to increase the number of your sessions. I started out with 4/7, and have upped that to 6/7 after week 6. You always can add more rest days if you see no more strength gains. Try to train muscle groups on non consecutive days, with more rest for "larger" muscles (legs). What I try to do (though not very strictly) is simply to have at least 1 day rest for small muscles, at least 2 days for intermediate ones, and at least 3 for the big ones. Usually leaves something to train for every day.

Typical session duration for me is 55 to 100 minutes, with 10 minutes cardio as warm-up at the beginning, and 10-15 minutes of cardio at the end of a session. Since your target is weight loss, you may wish to do more cardio at the end, though.

or should I be happy with these results?

Do you have a log of your training results? Do you notice actual gains in strength? Do you have increased your endurance?

For comparison: I'm hovering at app. 40%BF, 5'8", 215lbs. I do not try to reduce weight for now, but try to simply maintain it. I have increased measurable strength (i.e. weights I can do for the same amount of repeats) by about 100 to 150 percent in the first 8 weeks in almost every area, and measurable endurance by at least 50%.

Are you happy with your results if you do not compare your weight over the last few weeks, but just ignore the weight issue and compare your strength/endurance development in that timeframe?

If you do not have any reason for urgency concerning your weight loss, you may wish to focus on strength gain for now, and take additional weight loss of 4lbs/6weeks as added bonus (just never allow any weight increase to happen). Slow and steady may work better for you than fast and sloppy. If you also up your training massively (more/longer sessions, more cardio) I am convinced your results will improve.

Please be not confused about a lot of the information you may find concerning overtraining, rest, etc. - a lot of that is meant for fully trained athletes reaching plateaus. It does IMHO not fully apply to "us" guys with mostly fat and little muscle whose measly developments do not require that much rest yet...

Regards,
Aquilius

[FrankVista]

Your basically not doing enough. Step it up a few gears and you could drop 20lbs over the next 6 weeks.

Keep your diet pretty clean (plenty of protein, no sugar) & increase your deficit to the 1500-2000 range through exercise. What works for me is walking 10-15km a day. For cardio i'll do something vigorous like carrying a 100 lb dumbbell up and down stairs for 30 min a few times a week. Feel free to throw in the odd cheat day, keeps the body guessing. As long as your hitting a serious deficit 5 times a week your good to go.

As regards training hard enough - Always aim for close to the biggest weight you can use and work to failure two or three times on each exercise. Do about 3 different exercises per muscle group per session - Once a group feels better hit them again. You should be a sweaty mess after a weighttraining session.

[Odin]

You need to post your diet and workout. Walking a little is not really cardio, you need to step that up big time. Time to kick it in, to give you an idea of what kind of progress you could have made: I started at ~260 lbs and lost 40 lbs in my 1st eight weeks of a strict program. I did this on ~500 calorie deficit. I did this by reading everything I could find. That was the big initial loss, admittedly a lot of water, (which all obese people are carrying alot of) it took me another 4 months to lose the other 40 lbs and see the abs. Most obese people can achieve this kind of large intial loss. Well you asked.