Body recomp what am i doing wrong

[Chelcey123]

i hope someone can advise on what i am doing wrong

i have been trying for months now to grow muscle and reduce my body fat percentage (body recomp)

i have been Gyming seriously for 2 years

the last 2 months i have been doing progressive overloading, lifting weights 4 times a week, and one Cardio day (a 5 k run or a hockey match)

i am calorie cycleing, i eat 1600 to 1700 in the week and allow myself and extra 500 to 700 at the weekends. i get 140 to 150g protein 50g fats and the rest carbs

i make sure i get at least 7 hours sleep every night, often more

for the last 8 months my weight has went up and down between 52 and 55kg and my body fat moves in tandem with this 22% to 24% and my muscle mass remains around 38kg

i dont know what i am doing wrong, please help! if you need more info to advise just ask

[faithbrah]

pick one goal and stick to it. sometimes recomping works, but sometimes it doesn't and this happens

[SuicideGripMe]

55kg... and 22-24% bodyfat? How tall are you? Are you a male or female?

Your calories are extremely low if you are tracking accurately and there is no reason your bodyfat should be that high with such a low bodyweight. Without being disrespectful, would you describe your shape as pear shaped or skinny-fat?

Your plan sounds like a cut plan gone wrong, not a recomp.

I would go back to the drawing boards as this is just not great...

[chimojes]

i hope someone can advise on what i am doing wrong

i have been trying for months now to grow muscle and reduce my body fat percentage (body recomp)

i have been Gyming seriously for 2 years

the last 2 months i have been doing progressive overloading, lifting weights 4 times a week, and one Cardio day (a 5 k run or a hockey match)

i am calorie cycleing, i eat 1600 to 1700 in the week and allow myself and extra 500 to 700 at the weekends. i get 140 to 150g protein 50g fats and the rest carbs

i make sure i get at least 7 hours sleep every night, often more

for the last 8 months my weight has went up and down between 52 and 55kg and my body fat moves in tandem with this 22% to 24% and my muscle mass remains around 38kg

i dont know what i am doing wrong, please help! if you need more info to advise just ask

Chelcey, I can understand your frustration and congratulations on achieving what you have as it is already impressive. I am a physician and have worked with many fitness atheletes and bodybuilders helping them to prep.

First, what is your age, as this can play a factor.

To go below where you are is almost contest prep level as you are fairly lean where you are. By the calculators that I use, you may be a little high on protein and fats (leading to too high on calories). We would suggest 118 g of protein, 48 grams of fat and 124 g of carbohydates broken up into 5 meals daily. That probably increases the amount of carbs that you are taking in, but fat burns in the fuel of carbohydrates when done correctly.

Also, you mention progressive overload, but don't actually mention how you are training, i.e. sets, reps, time in gym, intensity, etc. I frequently see competitors stuck because they are actually over training and, despite adequate sleep, are not able to recover. This starts a cascade of stress hormones making it impossible to lose fat.

It may sound weird, but we recently had someone like yourself go from 25% to 12% in ten weeks by decreasing training from 2 hours daily to 2.5 hours weekly.

[xsquid99]

55kg... and 22-24% bodyfat? How tall are you? Are you a male or female?

Your calories are extremely low if you are tracking accurately and there is no reason your bodyfat should be that high with such a low bodyweight. Without being disrespectful, would you describe your shape as pear shaped or skinny-fat?

Your plan sounds like a cut plan gone wrong, not a recomp.

I would go back to the drawing boards as this is just not great...

This...

OP, without photos of your current physique we really can't give you proper advice one way or the other. But at such a low weight and such a high bodyfat something seems amiss. I would like to assume you're a female, in which case those stats wouldn't be unheard of, but sometimes usernames don't necessarily indicate gender.

[Horizon92]

It sounds like you're using some sort of smart weight or similar to assess your physique. I would say that unless you have state of the art equipment, its not precise enough. In my opinion, you should do the following from now on:

1. Take pictures of yourself unflexed and flexed. Make sure its same lighting conditions and posture. Take new pictures lets say once a month.
2. Measure your bicep, thighs and waist. Measure again once a month.
3. Weigh yourself, of course. As I'm sure you know, do it first thing in the morning after going to the bathroom. You can weigh yourself every day or once a week. Keep a log book over your weight.

^

These measures will in combination make it much easier to know if there is actual progress happening or not. As for "recomping", consider this:

While there is of course a strong relationship between training and nutrition, you need to view it as essentially two different processes. When recomping, you are trying to accomplish two tasks:

(1) Lose fat
(2) Gain muscle

Now first of all, recomping at the same bodyweight isn't for everyone. Gaining muscle as fast as you're losing fat is unrealistic for most people, unless its done extremely slowly. Most people don't want to lose fat that slowly. However, gaining muscle while losing body fat - but losing overall body weight - this is totally realistic for most people. Exceptions being advanced trainees with low bodyfat percentages. Its important that you don't have the mindset of its either gain muscle OR lose fat. You can do both at the same time.

So, as mentioned - treat it as two seperate processes with different measures to reach each individual target.

(1) fat loss

You need to achieve a calorie deficit over a given time period. Step one is getting a realistic idea of your actual calorie usage. This is highly individual and depends on gender, body weight, age, activity levels etc. There is also a mental side of things of how fast you should attempt to lose weight. Some people work better going in a deep deficit for a shorter time period, others rather do it more slowly. For an individual who struggles with weight control, its important to realize that some control mechanisms will need to be in place for the rest of your life. That could be counting calories, intermittent fasting, portion size control or restriction of certain foods. Whatever your approach, the most important thing is consistency. Fat loss (and muscle gain) are processes which happen "slowly" over time. Luckily a lot can happen in 3-6 months, and even more in 6-12+ months. But the number one enemy of most people trying to lose weight is lacking consistency, leading to spinning their wheels spending discipline and motivation on being good most days, then ruining everything (typically in the weekend). Bottom line is: figure out how fast you want to lose weight, and restrict calories to match your prefered rate of weight loss. From here, its a very personal and individual journey in terms of what foods you eat in what portion sizes, when you eat etc. This is so different for everyone that I can't give any meaningful advice here. Personally, I intermittent fast to reduce the time spent eating. I prepare healthy and protein rich foods like chicken/beef + rice in advance, so I don't go for quick solutions when I'm tired. Then I have some sweeter type foods like greek yoghurt + corn flakes and strawberry jam for if I get cravings. I also like fruits and some low calorie yogurt ice cream etc. In the weekends I allow myself some treats as long as I can count it (either logging or good estimate). I avoid alcohol and make sure to drink a lot of liquids (tumbler/stanley style cup has been a game changer for me in this regard). Staying hydrated is important for satiety and performance / day to day life. Last but not least, you should aim to get an apropriate amount of protein in every day. How much you need is a bit controversial, but generally speaking the more the better assuming you eat a regular, balanced diet. Protein is very satieting, is used in a lot of metabolic processes in the body and obviously is important for gaining muscle mass. This is especially important when in a caloric deficit, as your body needs every incentive it can to use your fat for energy, not muscle mass - which is why we signal the importance of the muscle mass by breaking it down, then feeding it with protein to rebuild it.

(2) Gain muscle

When it comes to gaining muscle, there are a few core principles that most trainees unfortunately gets wrong.

(a) Proper intensity in the gym
(b) Sufficient volume
(c) Progressive overload
(d) Consistency

When it comes to (a), this basically boils down to actually pushing yourself hard when doing your exercises. That means making ugly faces and some noise towards the end of the sets. Depending on the exercise, you should push yourself to the point where you could at most do 2 more repetitions with a gun to your head. Some exercises can be safely taken to failure, others not so much. The easiest way to make sure you have the right intensity is to not make up your mind about how many reps you should do in a set, but rather lift until you're within two to zero reps in reserve. Once you have that baseline, you can aim to improve this number next time. So if you take a given weight and manage 10 reps week 1, you can aim to improve to 11 or 12 reps next time.

(b) simply means doing enough work week to week. Generally speaking, more is better. But how much is realistic or necessary depends on how you structure your training, how advanced you are etc. You can either do more sets on a given exercise, or (preferably) divide the volume on different exercises to get a variety of stimuli, as this will help develop a more balanced physique and avoid over use injuries. If you want to train 3 times per week, the volume per workout will look different than if you train 6 times per week etc.

(c) means increasing the work you're doing over time, i.e. as you get stronger you keep doing more to keep stimulating the muscles. In practice, this means increasing reps per set, weight or amount of sets. Whats best depends on the exercise. A general rule of thumb is that increasing reps is better on isolation exercises, while increasing weight is better on compound exercises like bench, squat etc. Rep ranges should probably be around 5-30 reps depending on exercise, with most being in the 8-12 range. A good approach to ensure progressive overload is doing a given weight for lets say 8 reps, then increase reps until you can do 12, at which point you increase the weight and repeat the process - going from 8 reps to 12. Its fine if you can only hit a new "pr" on the first set on any given exercise. You should of course log your training either in a notepad or on your phone, so you know what you did last time.

(d) is self explanatory. Keep consistency up over time to reap the benefits.