Build Muscle or Lose fat first?

Nutrition
1

Hey all.

So sorry for the long post here.

Just after some advise. I have been training for 4-5 years consistently - method of training has always been powerlifting, the idea behind this was my coach was wanting to get me stronger, build muscle and not worry too much about losing body fat yet.

I have gotten stronger… alot stronger, however…. im just fat.. I tried keto with decent results in the past but had to do it behind my coach’s back as he never wanted me to diet down to lose weight as it made me weaker and my lifts suffered. which in truth is what happened, I just got somewhat skinner, still had fat around my midsection, but arms and legs became skinny. Did this for 14 weeks but eventually was told to reverse diet and then shortly after this, lost all progress - during this time from 91kg I got down to 83kg (if i remember correctly)

His idea is, build as much muscle as I can, and then think about losing the weight because if I start to consider dropping body fat now, I will lose some muscle alongside it and I have not built enough to consider this approach yet.

Some info about me:

Age 37
Height 5’9
Weight 88kg
24% BF
Currently on TRT.
Insulin Resistant

Something that I noticed is, carbs seem to really bloat me, rice, potatoes, pasta, oats, sweet potato - its why I have always leaned more to Keto, never counted calories.

Im not sure where I should begin, should I try to put on more muscle or try to lower my BF? In the past 4-5 years, tbh I never have made any progress in either direction..

The past week I have been eating the following:

Meal 1 and 2 - 6 whole eggs with tbsp butter

Meal 3 - 250 Chicken breast coated with tbsp Olive oil and a small amount of greens

Meal 4 - 3 x Chicken leg quarters with Skin and a full Avacado.

Sorry if I missed out any vital info.

Any advise will be greatly apprecaited.

Thanks in advance.

2

24% BF really does you no good. Inslin resistance. Lower test levels. Higher estrogen. High blood glucose.
For now I would pick a diet style you like that is sustainable for you. Eat at maintenance for at least four weeks to determine if that is indeed your maint. While you are doing this you need to track your cals. Intuitive eating is obviously not working for you.
Get some pics up so we can see what’s going on.
Sounds like you are just yo-yoing back and forth and really not making any steady progress in either direction.

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Post a picture

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4

Drop some fat…

As @s.gentz stated, track your cals for a bit.

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Crazy enough, I am your height, 86kg, 40, and eat a almost no carb diet. What are your lifts at?

I don’t see much benefit to being 24% bodyfat.

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Squats - yesterday 192kg still getting stronger (all time 252 at around 90kg)

Deadlift - 202kg (all time 245) this suffers most when i drastically cut carbs.

Bench - 116kg yesterday (all time 127) bench is really weak for me.

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7

These are 1 rep maxes you tested yesterday?

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1 rpm for bench and squat yesterday. Deadlifts I did last week for 1 rpm

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I will post some pics shortly guys.

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I don’t see how this is possible. You have been training consistently for 4-5 years. Powerlifting style training that period. Yet, 2kg heavier than you are now, you squatted 252kg (555lbs) but you could only squat 192kg (425lbs) today. That is a 60kg (132lbs) drop in strength for someone training consistently. What am I missing?

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The part where he crash dieted down to 81kg and submarined his strength before gaining back up to this bodyweight

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12

To make things clear. I caught an injury to my lower back when I managed the 245 deadlift and it meant that for over a year I didnt try to max out on any of my lifts further until I could correct this problem during this time is where I decided to drop some body fat too.. the all time lifts were when I was around 90-93kg if I remember correctly.

I have slowly been building back up every week im adding 2.5kg to the bar on squats (bench is 1kg per week).

Yesterday happened to be my squat and bench day, following Saturday my target will be 195kg Squat and 117kg bench.

With deadlifts im in a strange place, the aim is to stay pain free whilst correcting my spinal stability, so we are taking things very very slowly on this one. But if the pain kicks in at any point then it also means we take it easy on the squats that week too.

hope that sheds some light.

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What do you say to people that say you can’t build muscle without carbs ?

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I personally don’t think carbs play any role in building muscle but I am by no means an expert in this field, so please no one go crazy at me for saying this. For myself when I do indulge in carbs its to add bulk to my meals along with convenience and I do notice fuller muscles, but again thats due to water retention, other than this, it hasn’t really helped.

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That is what I was missing. Your weight loss was only a single Weight Class, which made the strength loss by diet alone questionable to me.

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Nothing

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Haha. I gave up too.

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I’ve been doing a carb backloading protocol and have noticed zero benefits tbh. I prefer a lot of protein and enough fats to support training demands.

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19

Whenever I dropped fat for a bodybuilding contest, I had a strength metric to alert me when I was dropping weight too fast. With your back injury at play, you should use the Bench Press as your strength metric. It seems the best strength metric to alert you when you are doing something right or doing something wrong.

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This makes so much sense!! I did have an alert and that was deadlifts… but now thinking about it, it never made sense to have that as a measure due to lower back issues as the weights would fluctuate depending on recovery and therapy.. great pointer that! Thanks!