Lose weight WHILE gaining muscle??

SparkPoints: (50,624)
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Posts: 2,099
1/22/12 2:13 P

It is possible to lose weight and gain muscle too. Just don't expect too much to gain. Personally, I have been doing some very basic strength training, like crunches, push-ups, lunges, and their variations, and every week I see that my reps are increasing. By changing the posture of my body, I can also increase the weight that I lift. I notice nowadays that I need to lift my feet higher when doing the push-ups, because the regular push-ups have become too easy for me.

You don't need to do a whole a lot, just simple stuff, and you can build some muscle.

Posts: 1,160
1/22/12 10:47 A

I completely agree with everyone. You might want to readjust your fitness goals and nutrition goals on SP. I was doing the same a couple of weeks ago - giving it more than my all - and seemed to be gaining weight instead of losing weight. After reducing intensity of exercise and funnily enough eating a little more, i started losing again. This weight loss thing is so confusing, isn`t it?

Posts: 24,598
1/22/12 10:26 A

I am most concerned by your 2 hour workout and think this maybe the problem area with weight loss. I think you will get the most benefit by evaluating this component of your program and the intensity that you are giving this workout. I am forwarding your post to our SP fitness expert, who will give you more specificis.

SparkPoints: (5,031)
Fitness Minutes: (529)
Posts: 165
1/21/12 6:22 P

Try taking your measurements and tracking those along with the weight. If your measurements are going down, but your weight isn't changing, then you definitely know that it is because you are gaining muscle.

SparkPoints: (825)
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Posts: 32
1/21/12 6:04 P

It could be a few things:

- you are not consuming enough calories for your activity level and your body is holding on to your weight because it thinks it is starving, so it slows your metabolism
- you are gaining muscle weight
- you are eating more than you think you are and are not accurately measuring your food. Use measuring cups, measuring spoons, and a food scale to figure out portion sizes correctly.

Weight training speeds up your metabolism, which helps you lose weight, so it is good you are doing it.

SparkPoints: (32,307)
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Posts: 2,704
1/21/12 4:40 P

Have you set up your Goals to accurately reflect that you're exercising two hours each day? If I were you, I would do a few things:
- Double-check my goals page to ensure I had entered an accurate number of calories burned through cardio.
- Eat the number of calories that Spark recommends based on my accurate number of calories burned, height, weight and goal weight. This will probably involve eating more. It works. Trust me.
- Re-think the two-hour exercise sessions. I went from 152 to 124, and from being able to do eight girly knee push-ups to twenty full-body man push-ups. I worked out for about five hours each week, but I made sure that my workouts included intervals of high and moderate intensity, and worked my whole body (sitting on a stationary bike reading a magazine wouldn't have even crossed my mind... today I was doing jumping jacks on top of a 12" gymnastics mat and squats on a BOSU ball while passing a twenty-pound medicine ball to a partner!).

SparkPoints: (993)
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Posts: 71
1/21/12 3:24 P

I posted this in fitness and exercise too, just wanna make sure all my tracks are covered. Haha. I've been working out steady for about 2 months, 2 hrs a day and 5 days a weel. I've cut back on my cals, 1500 is the max daily, and I've changed my eating habits. I do a lot of weight training because when I do lose weight I want to be very toned, not just skinny. But all this time I have not lost 1 single pound. So is this because I'm gaining muscle? And if so how do I go about losing weight while gaining muscle at the same time?