Need cardio for mental wellbeing, but want gains too

[silkbb]

Hi Ladies

I'm new here, please be gentle... I have a pretty specific scenario going on here.

I have about one stone of fat left to lose, but can't shake it. So I'm going to try build more muscle instead, as advised by my PT. However, I can't give up my cardio as I suffer from depression / low serotonin. I need the endorphins - so I work out about 6-8 cardio hours a week. And I go for it in those sessions, this isn't pretend cardio...

I've done a lot of reading (here too), and I understand the gist of getting good gains - I need to lift heavy, and have a calorie excess of about 300 a day - and sort my macros out as well (I'm moving onto HUEL anyway so that's gonna be easy-ish)

I guess the question is - can I still do cardio AND lifting AND gain muscle? Looking at the maths:
My BMR is 1600 (sedentary, office work, medium muscle and high fitness)
I add 300 for my excess for lifting / gaining
- So, I guess eat 1900 cals on average...

I lose 500+ from a solid zumba session (I wear a HR monitor so this is probably to an accuracy of 90% or so)
I might even lose some calories from the heavy lifting session itself - does anyone know that?
I'm now in a deficit of 200 or more!

Would I lose muscle? Keep the same? Gain a little? Bear in mind I'm super careful that my macros are right, easily getting enough protein and carbs.

Assuming I have to eat even more, what's the best way to fill the extra cals? Can I be naughty since I've already hit my macros? e.g. a small slice of cake? lol not healthy but if it's just calories that i have to fit in, then that's easier...

[hardyboysare]

I am afraid I am not going to be gentle on this as its not in my nature I say it as I see it and simple........

You are correct (well near enough :-p)

You need to work off your maintenance TDEE not BMR and add around 200 calories above this (generally I advise less surplus then men as women can only gain about half the amount of lean tissue)

Read this for all the advice on TDEE calculations, calories and macros:-

https://forum.bodybuilding.com/showt...hp?t=173439001

Now for your TDEE you will need to aim more then sedentary as your TDEE includes planned exercise this is all exercise such as weights, cardio, sports, classes etc. So aim for a higher level generally around active would be a good start.

Now just add 200 calories above this and that is your caloric target. From the link I posted you should be able to work out your required minimum amounts of proteins and fats macros you need to aim to hit this everyday (especially protein). Now as long as you hit at least your minimum macros of protein and fat, eat some veg/ fruit and a good amount of fibre for good health you can literally eat anything else you like to make up your caloric target, this can be in any form of macro and of nutritional or non-nutritional sources e.g. your cake.

Now for the cardio side all that will do is cause more calories to be burnt therefore all you have to do is eat more to ensure you hit your caloric target. This is where it gets a tad more trail and error as monitoring devices aren't reliable measurements of calories burnt and also your TDEE calculation has estimated an activity rating which includes your exercise amount. Therefore your target is to aim to add around 1-1.5lb a month in body weight, this will hopefully be mainly muscle if you are following a well balanced and progressive weight training program.

You need to monitor your weight and after a month adjust accordingly, take your weight daily and look for the trends (disregard the first weeks weight increase that will just be water weight from the extra food). Take your weight in the morning after going to the toilet and keep a record of increases, if after a week it drops (again disregard first week) then eat more calories, if after a month you have gained more then 1-2lbs (tad room for error) then drop calories by 200 depending on the weight increase.

Keep regular measurements of your body and as long as your waist is not increasing then most likely fat increase is minimal. Also weekly photos can help notice changes over time.

[silkbb]

I am afraid I am not going to be gentle on this as its not in my nature I say it as I see it and simple........

Thank you - this is giving me a lot to think about.

I had a look and my TDEE is likely between 2100-2300, so would need to eat 2300-2500 a day for big gains, right?

But what if I don't care about "optimum" gains, and would be ok with "some" gains, and "some" fat loss? Is that even theoretically possible?

As a woman who's just entered early menopause (ergo a lower BMI, supposedly) the idea of eating that much honestly terrifies me.

edit: I've been hitting min protein but not min fat, so I'll address that too (just bought some chai seeds actually)

[ProYeo]

But what if I don't care about "optimum" gains, and would be ok with "some" gains, and "some" fat loss? Is that even theoretically possible?

Generally no. You won't gain and lose. You are doing one or the other - that's why you read so much about bulking and cutting. You gain with the goal of building muscle until you hit a certain point ... you've reached a goal, you're as big as you want to be, you can't handle bulking anymore, you want to see where you are at, you are prepping for a contest, etc. When the point is reached, you cut.

It's the nature of the business and the game we play. You want to build muscle, you eat in a surplus and do the work... but fat gain comes with muscle. You want to lose fat, you eat in a deficit, but then risk losing some of the muscle you've built. That's why we pay attention to macros and control the speed of gain/loss - to try to control the undesirable effects as much as possible.

More calories doesn't exactly result in more results - at least good results. Gaining too fast or losing too fast doesn't get you there quicker. It just means gaining more fat or losing more muscle. That's the experimentation that was mentioned above... you can use online calculators as a starting point, but you have to learn your body to find your exact caloric needs.

I also do cardio and conditioning for mental and overall health. When I'm gaining, my calories are almost always above 3500 and have gone as high as 4500. I'm obviously not telling you to eat that much - it was a slow process over many months and years for me to get there. I'm a bodybuilder and powerlifter so I have to eat for that. Just giving an idea of how high some women have to go!

[hardyboysare]

Thank you - this is giving me a lot to think about.

I had a look and my TDEE is likely between 2100-2300, so would need to eat 2300-2500 a day for big gains, right?

But what if I don't care about "optimum" gains, and would be ok with "some" gains, and "some" fat loss? Is that even theoretically possible?

As a woman who's just entered early menopause (ergo a lower BMI, supposedly) the idea of eating that much honestly terrifies me.

edit: I've been hitting min protein but not min fat, so I'll address that too (just bought some chai seeds actually)

If that is the case then you can just eat TDEE maintenance and keep progressing on that. By doing that you are basically fuelling your workout for muscle development and it is possible to lose fat in the process and build muscle it just usually takes a longer time to see results.

The difficulty comes if you are still losing fat at a moderate rate e.g. 1lb a week simply because you can't really build muscle and lose fat if you are too much in a caloric deficit as you need substance to build mass, this only works for the untrained and highly overweight which you are neither.

Therefore either stick to maintenance TDEE and keep progressively increase weight intensity and volume on a well balanced training program, whilst aiming to stay close to your current weight (maybe a slight loss of weight but not much maybe 0.25lbs a week). Keep your protein above minimum (fats is more for health some people can handle lower, me for one, but they do offer more calories which might help you) and then keep monitoring gym process if you are getting stronger and can handle greater volume intensity in the working rep ranges (4-15 reps usually) you will be building muscle.

Or

Have a smaller surplus (100-200 calories) and aim to add a smaller amount of weight (0.5-1lb a month), this will hopefully ensure that majority of it is muscle as long as the same rules are implied as described above.

Which way you choose is up to you both will have the same effect long term most likely (science is mixed on this) just generally short term eating a excess amount of calories offers more visual effect but comes with the need to cut later on.