What happens if I eat maintenance and work-out?

[kusok]

?

If I lift 4-5 times a week for an hour, do cardio a few times a week, eat my maintenance calories. Am I going to drop ANY fat? Am I going to gain ANY muscle? Will there be ANY visible change in my body if I do this for a few weeks or months?

[TitanFB11]

usually it depends. if your just starting out, youll deff lose some fat and mabye even gain some muscle. but if your not a begininer, prolly more along the lines of slow weight loss while maintaining most muscle.

[kusok]

usually it depends. if your just starting out, youll deff lose some fat and mabye even gain some muscle. but if your not a begininer, prolly more along the lines of slow weight loss while maintaining most muscle.

Hey, that last part seems awfully good!

[TitanFB11]

The weight loss will be vvery slow though thats why most people cut back around 500 cals under maintenance.

like i said depends on if your just startig and how lean you are right now.

[kusok]

The weight loss will be vvery slow though thats why most people cut back around 500 cals under maintenance.

like i said depends on if your just startig and how lean you are right now.

Recently I tried both: a mild cut - hated the skinny look since I don't have much muscle to begin with, and a heavy bulk - instantly stopped that after realizing that I'm only gaining about 1lbs or less of lean muscle per week or two, and the rest is fat causing me to think about getting bigger pant size which I will NEVER do

So I decided to stop the bulk completely and stay at maintenance until I figure out WTF is going on... I'm 34, 6'2 about 215lbs with about 34-35 inch waist 14-15% bodyfat ectomorph.

I also read this:

http://www.tmuscle.com/free_online_a..._about_bulking

which does not exactly make one want to grab that mass gainer anytime soon...

[TitanFB11]

I would try to zig zag diet. you kinda like i am right now. not much muscle but a little high on bf. im at 13 but 14-15 you should be alright to do a zig zag bulk.

its to try and cut bf and still add mass to kinda recomp your body.

what im doing is 3 days of low cal/carbs (around 400-500 under maintenance and 1g of carbs per lb. also do HIIT cardio on 2 of these days in the morning on emtpy stomach. the day i dont do HIIT its my rest day and i drop carbs down to 60g)
1 day of maintenance (maintenance cals and around 1.5g carbs per lb. i do legs this day) 2 days of high cal/carbs (500 above maintenance and 2g carbs per lb these both are my lifting days obviously cause your eating more and will have more energy with high cals and carbs.) and 1 day of a even higher cals/carbs (around 1000 above maintenace and 3g carb per lb this day i also lift a major muscle group (chest and traps)

im also using cla and nordrenalean. id look into them.

on real high day, i dont reeally just shovel down junk. i just add a footlong subway sub insubstitue for my normal lunch that id have on my 500 days. and substitue some light icecream and whey for one of my normal snacks that id have on my 500 over day.

you can try this for 2 weeks and evaluate. if you see you have added some fat then cut down on the highest day from 1000 to mabye just 500.

but if your doing HIIT on the low days and lifting hard the rest of the days you should be alright.ill keep you updated on how its going for me if you wanna see my results b4 you try this

[BloodRaged]

?

If I lift 4-5 times a week for an hour, do cardio a few times a week, eat my maintenance calories. Am I going to drop ANY fat? Am I going to gain ANY muscle? Will there be ANY visible change in my body if I do this for a few weeks or months?

Considering your maintenance levels should be based off your activity levels it would only allow you to maintain your weight.

Only way to lose weight or gain weight is to consume more calories then you burn or burn more calories then you consume.

[TitanFB11]

Considering your maintenance levels should be based off your activity levels it would only allow you to maintain your weight.

Only way to lose weight or gain weight is to consume more calories then you burn or burn more calories then you consume.

very true. how were you finding your maintenance b4? bodyweight X15 or actually adding in your activity lvl. if you just did bw*15 without adding activity, then with cardio and lifting youd prolly end up with a deficeit at the end of the day.

but like i said above. zig zag recomp looks like a good option for you.

[We Drowned]

A pound of muscle a week is a really great consistant gain. I don't know why you didn't keep it up.

It sounds to me like you don't have much muscle at all to begin with. If that's the case, of course you'll have a high body fat percentage because the ratio to fat to muscle is obviously thrown off from being inexperienced with resistance training.

I think what you want is a large muscle to fat ratio with that mean, lean look. Right? The only way you'll accomplish this is if you gain weight. Bulking doesn't mean eating 5000 calories a day. Just like cutting, start with 500 over maintanance, and I guarantee you're gains will be more muscle than fat if you're lifting hard and eating clean.

The fat is unavoidable. It will come. Here's the thing, though. You're body will immediately want to store the extra calories as fat because it will entirely surprised by the surplus and think you're getting ready for a famine or something, so dont be alarmed. After a few weeks, your body will acclimate.

just my 2 cents.

[Nate2003]

I'm having a issue gaining weight or even maintaining wait currently. I work out 2-3 times a week for like 1 1/2 hour sessions. I used to weigh like 185 before I started working out about 1 1/2 years ago. I've been sitting around 168-170lbs for a while now.
I weighed myself yesterday and it claimed i was 165 now! That's like 3lbs since last Wednesday from weighing! My diet was really off this Halloween weekend and had several drinks at a party.
It's like I know I gotta eat more calories but I eat healthy. Seems like the foods I'm eating to be healthy aren't cutting it. I mean it consists of grilled chicken, oatmeal, brown rice, bread, 2%milk, green tea, water, etc for the most part.

I really don't wanna continue to lose weight, I'll just be losing muscle I feel if this continues.. last time I checked I was like 10%BF.

[BloodRaged]

I'm having a issue gaining weight or even maintaining wait currently. I work out 2-3 times a week for like 1 1/2 hour sessions. I used to weigh like 185 before I started working out about 1 1/2 years ago. I've been sitting around 168-170lbs for a while now.
I weighed myself yesterday and it claimed i was 165 now! That's like 3lbs since last Wednesday from weighing! My diet was really off this Halloween weekend and had several drinks at a party.
It's like I know I gotta eat more calories but I eat healthy. Seems like the foods I'm eating to be healthy aren't cutting it. I mean it consists of grilled chicken, oatmeal, brown rice, bread, 2%milk, green tea, water, etc for the most part.

I really don't wanna continue to lose weight, I'll just be losing muscle I feel if this continues.. last time I checked I was like 10%BF.

Good chance you lost a bit of water weight. Get your diet back to normal and try adding 357 calories a day. See how that works out for you. If you don't add still after 1 - 2 weeks, add another 100-200.

[PickItUp]

If you are going to try and eat at maintenance, then at least make sure that it is in fact maintenance. Don't use a general rule of thumb like 15X bodyweight for maintenance...or whatever...figure it out for yourself.

I would suggest that you take a good two weeks to figure this out. Weigh yourself a few times over the course of the two weeks, and see where you are at the end of the week. You should be at the same weight (give or take).