7 ms·

I would also add to your points: - If you are lifting weights at a decent intensity, as in squatting 80% of your bodyweight for an example, you WILL gain muscl

I would also add to your points: - If you are lifting weights at a decent intensity, as in squatting 80% of your bodyweight for an example, you WILL gain muscle mass if you are new to it despite a calorie deficit. Noob gains are a powerful thing. Most people just curl 5 lb dumbbells or do some other motion with a weight that is barely noticable. - This guy was eating at a very unhealthy calorie deficit (1000). You should never go over 500 kcal deficit if you don't want to lose loads of muscle in the process. A calorie deficit as high as his is comparable to a crash diet, and is prone to result in a quick upswing in weight once the diet ends, as you will have been starving yourself.

drtse4 8y ago
100% agree with your two, much needed, comments. Losing muscle mass is something you should always try to avoid (tolerable calories deficit+right amount of proteins+exercise). Muscle mass is hard to gain and serves a purpose in everyday life. The next step on the author's journey to a healthy lifestyle should be to focus on macros and on the kinds of food he eats too, since both have implications on his body composition and general health.
coryfklein 8y ago
> Most people just curl 5 lb dumbbells or do some other motion with a weight that is barely noticable. Are you recommending this as an approach to avoid noob gains? EDIT: Why the downvotes? I'm asking this as a legitimate question. The OP's tone sounds neutral and I can't tell if he is recommending low weight for muscle maintenance, or disparaging folks who do so for thinking they will gain muscle mass.
- bad_good_guy 8y ago
  OP here, apologies for the lack of clarity. I mean to say that a lot of people will go to the gym to do "weight training" but will only use dumbells or machines, etc, at such low weights that the effort is mostly futile in terms of developing your muscles. A good rule of thumb to go by is to use the maximum weight which you can successfully complete 8 - 12 repetitions of the motion without sacrificing good form (bad form will lead to injuries). edit: in response to a query of yours below, don't worry about accidently gaining strength if it is not your goal, it takes focused training to go up in strength. If you just want to maintain current muscle you just need to keep doing lifts with the weight you can manage 12 reps with. if you don't push to increase the weight from that point you will plateau at that point
- mywittyname 8y ago
  "Noob gains" is a reference to the spike in strength gains when a person first starts working out.
  - coryfklein 8y ago
    Which one wouldn't, presumably, experience if only doing 5lb weights? I'm not making judgment on whether "noob gains" are good or bad, just trying to understand why the OP even made the comment about 5lb weights in the first place.
    - zck 8y ago
      Lifting 5lb weights -- unless you're starting out not strong at all -- won't do much to increase strength. You know how, say, a crane can lift a 20,000-pound rock 10,000 times before it breaks, but lifting a 20-pound rock doesn't stress the crane one thousandth as much? Your muscles work the same way: lifting a 5-pound weight is not going to make you stronger at all. If you want to get stronger, you need to lift something your body thinks is heavy.
      - coryfklein 8y ago
        The post was in the context of dieting and maintaining muscle mass. If you don't care about increasing strength but you just want to maintain muscle mass while decreasing calorie count, could you do that by just exercising with small weights, or would that be approximately the same as not weight lifting at all?
        sincerely 8y ago
        The latter
        xchaotic 8y ago
        Exercising with small weights just means you will burn through calories. To gain muscle mass you literally need to tear muscle fibers so your body rebuilds with stronger ones.
meiraleal 8y ago
> - This guy was eating at a very unhealthy calorie deficit (1000). You should never go over 500 kcal deficit if you don't want to lose loads of muscle in the process. It is not absolute that the "unhealthy" caloric deficit is daily basis. There are some researches[1] saying that you can lose fat mass while preserving (or even gaining) lean mass while fasting and doing workout. 1. https://translational-medicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12967-016-1044-0 https://translational-medicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10...
jclos 8y ago
> - This guy was eating at a very unhealthy calorie deficit (1000). You should never go over 500 kcal deficit if you don't want to lose loads of muscle in the process. A calorie deficit as high as his is comparable to a crash diet, and is prone to result in a quick upswing in weight once the diet ends, as you will have been starving yourself. Funnily enough, that is not true. A meta-analysis of 29 studies on the topic [1] has shown that: "Successful very-low-energy diets (VLEDs) were associated with significantly greater weight-loss maintenance than were successful hypoenergetic balanced diets (HBDs) at all years of follow-up. The percentage of individuals at 4 or 5 y of follow-up for VLEDs and HBDs were 55.4% and 79.7%, respectively. The results for VLEDs and HBDs, respectively, were as follows: weight-loss maintenance, 7.1 kg (95% CI: 6.1, 8.1 kg) and 2.0 (1.5, 2.5) kg; percentage weight-loss maintenance, 29% (25%, 33%) and 17% (13%, 22%); and reduced weight, 6.6% (5.7%, 7.5%) and 2.1% (1.6%, 2.7%)." Having a plan of what do do/how to eat post-diet (and avoiding binging back to your original weight) is more important than the way you lost your weight. The muscle mass loss is also not as dramatic as people might think, since less time spent in caloric deficit (because of the aggressive dieting) means that more time can then be spent in an anabolic state, and the muscle lost during the dieting phase can be regained very fast. Bearded wonder, powerlifter and now science-person Greg Nuckols had a small blog post on the topic five years ago: https://www.strongerbyscience.com/a-bit-of-everything/ https://www.strongerbyscience.com/a-bit-of-everything/ [1] https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/74/5/579/4737391 https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/74/5/579/4737391
- ejstronge 8y ago
  From the quote: > "Successful very-low-energy diets (VLEDs) were associated with significantly greater weight-loss maintenance than were successful hypoenergetic balanced diets (HBDs) at all years of follow-up. The percentage of individuals at 4 or 5 y of follow-up for VLEDs and HBDs were 55.4% and 79.7%, respectively. The results for VLEDs and HBDs, respectively, were as follows: weight-loss maintenance, 7.1 kg (95% CI: 6.1, 8.1 kg) and 2.0 (1.5, 2.5) kg; percentage weight-loss maintenance, 29% (25%, 33%) and 17% (13%, 22%); and reduced weight, 6.6% (5.7%, 7.5%) and 2.1% (1.6%, 2.7%)." That's a remarkable degree of loss to follow-up in the VLED group compared to the HBD group. Without further information, I would take great care in trying to interpret the results of the study - the 20% of VLED participants who did not show up could conceivably widen the confidence intervals, if not change the conclusions.
bitexploder 8y ago
There are a few important things to consider with your first lifting efforts. Learn the big lifts. Deadlift, Squat, Overhead Press, (Benchpress, if you have an environment to do it). To min/max your workout, all you have to do is work the biggest muscles. That gains you the most benefit for the least amount of time. I would also point out there is a bit of a misconception about "noob gains". When starting out, and or, especially losing weight it definitely helps prevent the loss of muscle mass. But, and this is a big but, a huge amount of your initial gains in the amount of weight you can move around are not from gained muscle mass. They are from central nervous system (CNS) adaptation. Your muscles simply don't know how to fire at maximum intensity. Much of your first 6-12 months gains in terms of weight moved around are just CNS adaptation. Your body recruits more muscle fiber for activities. Folks can move a startlingly larger amount of weight without gaining virtually any amount of muscle. Once you have reached a local maximum for this sort of adaptation you start gaining more muscle mass. Of course, if you lift weights and eat at a surplus you do build some muscle mass, but not nearly as much as after a decent period of lifting. Finally, if you are eating in a calorie deficit you will not be adding muscle mass without a very carefully controlled diet that most fitness and diet novices don't have the knowledge and discipline to pull off. To actually live at a calorie deficit (lose body fat), preserve and or gain muscle mass, you have to move your calories around constantly (deficit weeks, surplus days with focused intense lifting, etc.). It is incredibly hard for someone just embarking on a fitness journey to adhere to a diet that includes surplus weeks in my experience. It just leads to a general lack of adherence and a slide back to old habits. Also, 1000 calories (per day) is definitely at the edge, but not crazy (7k / week, about 2lbs per week). I would say that is at the limit of what is medically advisable, but not crazy. Especially if you are above 250 lbs, that is not a crazy percentage of your weight. If you have enough body fat to lose, aim for something like a 1% reduction in body fat (assuming you are around 200 lbs, start at a lower percentage if you are heavier, no more than 2lbs / week no matter what). Then every few weeks you have to crank the dial down. Fat burns some calories to maintain itself and your body adapts and tries a little harder to hang onto energy stores. Dialing down the calorie deficit over a 18-12 month period in a very controlled fashion almost assures you will never "stall out" over the long run. Final random tidbit to share, use weight trend, not actual weight, to measure progress. Without an extremely consistent diet the amount of water your body caries can vary by several pounds, but trending the weight over a 1-2 week period almost assures you will measure actual progress and not how much water your body is holding a given day. edit: clarity on deficit amounts.
SergeAx 8y ago
Healthy calorie deficit is depends on one's weight. There is a rule of thumb: it is considered healthy to lose about 1% of weight per week. This gives us 40% per year. This guy lost 41% in a bit less than 11 months and his progress is quite linear, so I beleive he is basically okay, maybe a little on the rough side, but far from the extreme fasting.

drtse4 8y ago

100% agree with your two, much needed, comments. Losing muscle mass is something you should always try to avoid (tolerable calories deficit+right amount of proteins+exercise). Muscle mass is hard to gain and serves a purpose in everyday life. The next step on the author's journey to a healthy lifestyle should be to focus on macros and on the kinds of food he eats too, since both have implications on his body composition and general health.

coryfklein 8y ago

> Most people just curl 5 lb dumbbells or do some other motion with a weight that is barely noticable. Are you recommending this as an approach to avoid noob gains? EDIT: Why the downvotes? I'm asking this as a legitimate question. The OP's tone sounds neutral and I can't tell if he is recommending low weight for muscle maintenance, or disparaging folks who do so for thinking they will gain muscle mass.

bad_good_guy 8y ago
OP here, apologies for the lack of clarity. I mean to say that a lot of people will go to the gym to do "weight training" but will only use dumbells or machines, etc, at such low weights that the effort is mostly futile in terms of developing your muscles. A good rule of thumb to go by is to use the maximum weight which you can successfully complete 8 - 12 repetitions of the motion without sacrificing good form (bad form will lead to injuries). edit: in response to a query of yours below, don't worry about accidently gaining strength if it is not your goal, it takes focused training to go up in strength. If you just want to maintain current muscle you just need to keep doing lifts with the weight you can manage 12 reps with. if you don't push to increase the weight from that point you will plateau at that point
mywittyname 8y ago
"Noob gains" is a reference to the spike in strength gains when a person first starts working out.
- coryfklein 8y ago
  Which one wouldn't, presumably, experience if only doing 5lb weights? I'm not making judgment on whether "noob gains" are good or bad, just trying to understand why the OP even made the comment about 5lb weights in the first place.
  - zck 8y ago
    Lifting 5lb weights -- unless you're starting out not strong at all -- won't do much to increase strength. You know how, say, a crane can lift a 20,000-pound rock 10,000 times before it breaks, but lifting a 20-pound rock doesn't stress the crane one thousandth as much? Your muscles work the same way: lifting a 5-pound weight is not going to make you stronger at all. If you want to get stronger, you need to lift something your body thinks is heavy.
    - coryfklein 8y ago
      The post was in the context of dieting and maintaining muscle mass. If you don't care about increasing strength but you just want to maintain muscle mass while decreasing calorie count, could you do that by just exercising with small weights, or would that be approximately the same as not weight lifting at all?
      - sincerely 8y ago
        The latter
      - xchaotic 8y ago
        Exercising with small weights just means you will burn through calories. To gain muscle mass you literally need to tear muscle fibers so your body rebuilds with stronger ones.

meiraleal 8y ago

> - This guy was eating at a very unhealthy calorie deficit (1000). You should never go over 500 kcal deficit if you don't want to lose loads of muscle in the process. It is not absolute that the "unhealthy" caloric deficit is daily basis. There are some researches[1] saying that you can lose fat mass while preserving (or even gaining) lean mass while fasting and doing workout. 1. https://translational-medicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12967-016-1044-0 https://translational-medicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10...

jclos 8y ago

> - This guy was eating at a very unhealthy calorie deficit (1000). You should never go over 500 kcal deficit if you don't want to lose loads of muscle in the process. A calorie deficit as high as his is comparable to a crash diet, and is prone to result in a quick upswing in weight once the diet ends, as you will have been starving yourself. Funnily enough, that is not true. A meta-analysis of 29 studies on the topic [1] has shown that: "Successful very-low-energy diets (VLEDs) were associated with significantly greater weight-loss maintenance than were successful hypoenergetic balanced diets (HBDs) at all years of follow-up. The percentage of individuals at 4 or 5 y of follow-up for VLEDs and HBDs were 55.4% and 79.7%, respectively. The results for VLEDs and HBDs, respectively, were as follows: weight-loss maintenance, 7.1 kg (95% CI: 6.1, 8.1 kg) and 2.0 (1.5, 2.5) kg; percentage weight-loss maintenance, 29% (25%, 33%) and 17% (13%, 22%); and reduced weight, 6.6% (5.7%, 7.5%) and 2.1% (1.6%, 2.7%)." Having a plan of what do do/how to eat post-diet (and avoiding binging back to your original weight) is more important than the way you lost your weight. The muscle mass loss is also not as dramatic as people might think, since less time spent in caloric deficit (because of the aggressive dieting) means that more time can then be spent in an anabolic state, and the muscle lost during the dieting phase can be regained very fast. Bearded wonder, powerlifter and now science-person Greg Nuckols had a small blog post on the topic five years ago: https://www.strongerbyscience.com/a-bit-of-everything/ https://www.strongerbyscience.com/a-bit-of-everything/ [1] https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/74/5/579/4737391 https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/74/5/579/4737391

ejstronge 8y ago
From the quote: > "Successful very-low-energy diets (VLEDs) were associated with significantly greater weight-loss maintenance than were successful hypoenergetic balanced diets (HBDs) at all years of follow-up. The percentage of individuals at 4 or 5 y of follow-up for VLEDs and HBDs were 55.4% and 79.7%, respectively. The results for VLEDs and HBDs, respectively, were as follows: weight-loss maintenance, 7.1 kg (95% CI: 6.1, 8.1 kg) and 2.0 (1.5, 2.5) kg; percentage weight-loss maintenance, 29% (25%, 33%) and 17% (13%, 22%); and reduced weight, 6.6% (5.7%, 7.5%) and 2.1% (1.6%, 2.7%)." That's a remarkable degree of loss to follow-up in the VLED group compared to the HBD group. Without further information, I would take great care in trying to interpret the results of the study - the 20% of VLED participants who did not show up could conceivably widen the confidence intervals, if not change the conclusions.

bitexploder 8y ago

There are a few important things to consider with your first lifting efforts. Learn the big lifts. Deadlift, Squat, Overhead Press, (Benchpress, if you have an environment to do it). To min/max your workout, all you have to do is work the biggest muscles. That gains you the most benefit for the least amount of time. I would also point out there is a bit of a misconception about "noob gains". When starting out, and or, especially losing weight it definitely helps prevent the loss of muscle mass. But, and this is a big but, a huge amount of your initial gains in the amount of weight you can move around are not from gained muscle mass. They are from central nervous system (CNS) adaptation. Your muscles simply don't know how to fire at maximum intensity. Much of your first 6-12 months gains in terms of weight moved around are just CNS adaptation. Your body recruits more muscle fiber for activities. Folks can move a startlingly larger amount of weight without gaining virtually any amount of muscle. Once you have reached a local maximum for this sort of adaptation you start gaining more muscle mass. Of course, if you lift weights and eat at a surplus you do build some muscle mass, but not nearly as much as after a decent period of lifting. Finally, if you are eating in a calorie deficit you will not be adding muscle mass without a very carefully controlled diet that most fitness and diet novices don't have the knowledge and discipline to pull off. To actually live at a calorie deficit (lose body fat), preserve and or gain muscle mass, you have to move your calories around constantly (deficit weeks, surplus days with focused intense lifting, etc.). It is incredibly hard for someone just embarking on a fitness journey to adhere to a diet that includes surplus weeks in my experience. It just leads to a general lack of adherence and a slide back to old habits. Also, 1000 calories (per day) is definitely at the edge, but not crazy (7k / week, about 2lbs per week). I would say that is at the limit of what is medically advisable, but not crazy. Especially if you are above 250 lbs, that is not a crazy percentage of your weight. If you have enough body fat to lose, aim for something like a 1% reduction in body fat (assuming you are around 200 lbs, start at a lower percentage if you are heavier, no more than 2lbs / week no matter what). Then every few weeks you have to crank the dial down. Fat burns some calories to maintain itself and your body adapts and tries a little harder to hang onto energy stores. Dialing down the calorie deficit over a 18-12 month period in a very controlled fashion almost assures you will never "stall out" over the long run. Final random tidbit to share, use weight trend, not actual weight, to measure progress. Without an extremely consistent diet the amount of water your body caries can vary by several pounds, but trending the weight over a 1-2 week period almost assures you will measure actual progress and not how much water your body is holding a given day. edit: clarity on deficit amounts.

SergeAx 8y ago

Healthy calorie deficit is depends on one's weight. There is a rule of thumb: it is considered healthy to lose about 1% of weight per week. This gives us 40% per year. This guy lost 41% in a bit less than 11 months and his progress is quite linear, so I beleive he is basically okay, maybe a little on the rough side, but far from the extreme fasting.