Hey all, I am looking for all sorts of feedback to help me along. I want to get more muscular since I’m tired of not having much to fill my frame. I started out at 78kg in Nov 2024 (about 15 months ago) ago, now 88kg. Calorie intake started at 4500 then reduced gradually. Currently on 3000 cals daily, with macros at 260p/330c/70f. I’ve been on high protein since starting. Diet is quite clean, I’ve kept up a meal plan well, home cook everything etc.. Sups are creatine and whey gainer.
Im 42, 6ft tall. I have gotten stronger, increasing volume in workouts and inching closer to lifting goals. Those goals are not 1RM though, I am currently lifting each 5x5.
I am worried that if I drop calories to lose belly fat, that I will lose muscle gains.
Just recently switched back to 3 day full body workouts with a mix of strength and hypertrophy exercises, from a 4 day split only focussed on volume. I reduced to 3 days since I can’t fit In that 4th day anymore.
Any advice on what I should do next? … reduce calories?
Would be more than happy to post post-workout pics with a good pump but thought these might be best for a more realistic set of shots.
Thanks!
We all worry about this, and we’re all being silly. Unless you’re doing something insane for a relatively long period of time, you’re not going to diet all your muscle off. When you see it in studies, it’s usually because they are measuring “lean mass,” which consists of water, glycogen, and tons (well, pounds) of other variables that aren’t skeletal muscle. When you see if in bodybuilders, it’s because they’re pulling out all the stops to get a lot leaner than you or I are looking to do; something has to go. When you see it in soccer moms, they are not lifting or eating any protein for, like, ever.
For the rest of us, we’re usually actually going to look bigger once we trim down (yay!). We’ll go through a period on the way down where we look worse, because we’re flat but still fat, but ya gotta power through that. We also tend to not have all the muscle we thought we did, and will have to see lower numbers on the scale than we wanted in order to look lean.
Keep lifting and eating protein, and don’t crash diet more than about 1% of your weight off per week, and you’ll do great.
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@TrainForPain thank you very much for that review. Appreciate it man. I’ll adjust my calorie intake and press on.
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