I Lost 95 lbs.... What Now?

Bigger Stronger Leaner
1

I lost about anywhere between 90-100 lbs in the past year. I have only started lifting since December 2011 and I built some muscle while burning fat, probably beginner gains.

At the moment, I am still at a high BF% and I want to drop an additional 30-40 pounds and then up my calories to build more muscle, ultimately my goal is to build as much muscle as possible.

But right now as I have been lifting consistently and am seeing gains, my body is asking for more nutrients which is making fat loss harder. I am very hungry on leg day and I easily go above my caloric deficit for that day. Back day is also the same.

I am noticing that I am dropping some scale weight but I am not sure if this is an optimal situation for my body.

I started losing weight because I want to be healthy and look good naked but I always wanted to be muscular.

At the moment I am 19yo, 6’6 and about 250 pounds, wanting to get down to about 220.

Any inputs from you guys on what I should do now? Should I go on a stricter diet to lose the fat and then go slightly above my maintenance to build muscle? I will never go on an aggressive bulk as I am afraid of gaining a lot of fat again.

2

Lift hard, eat less, drink lots of water.

What do your lifts look like? Are you strong?

-Zep

3

[quote]Zeppelin0731 wrote:
Lift hard, eat less, drink lots of water.

What do your lifts look like? Are you strong?

-Zep[/quote]

Well I gained some strength but not a lot. Ive been in a caloric deficit for longer than a year now. I am not that strong.

4

First off, great job on the fat loss so far. That is excellent work.

One possible suggestion would be a bit of a ‘break’ from the diet to rev up your metabolism a bit… ie spend about 6-8 weeks eating a bit above maintenance, make sure you lift hard and your lifts are going up during this point… at the end of the 6-8 weeks if you lift hard and eat good foods you could gain a little bit of weight without putting on much (if any) bodyfat, then start dieting again.

5

100-pound cutter checking in.

Congrats OP. My suggestion? Take a SHORT break, and keep going to your target weight. Cutting sucks and you never wanna hafta to do it again.

Once you’re at your target weight, ramp up calories over a few months. Then lift heavier and heavier. Might want to even drop cardio and focus purely on strength/muscle mass. I like Starting Strength for people who need to get a novice strength gain in there, it builds a good powerlifting, olympic lifting or bodybuilding base.

After that, get an intermediate program (either a BB split, Wendler 5/3/1 or Texas Method)and proceed to beasthood.

6

[quote]Samir wrote:
100-pound cutter checking in.

Congrats OP. My suggestion? Take a SHORT break, and keep going to your target weight. Cutting sucks and you never wanna hafta to do it again.

Once you’re at your target weight, ramp up calories over a few months. Then lift heavier and heavier. Might want to even drop cardio and focus purely on strength/muscle mass. I like Starting Strength for people who need to get a novice strength gain in there, it builds a good powerlifting, olympic lifting or bodybuilding base.

After that, get an intermediate program (either a BB split, Wendler 5/3/1 or Texas Method)and proceed to beasthood. [/quote]

You mean a short break from lifting?

I thought about that. My plan was to get on a keto diet for 3 months and ramp up the cardio. In a year I only had like 2 or 3 cheat meals and I am very disciplined. I should lose the fat and weight I wanna lose within 3 months. For some reason Im afraid of becoming discouraged if I dont go to the gym anymore. Im afraid of losing the muscle (even if its little) and strength I gained over these 6 months of lifting. Although I am sure I would gain more stregnth and muscle if I were to be a bit above my maintenence.

7

^^ Good advice from Samir

Congrats on the weight loss. You’re a tall guy so being 250 atm prolly isn’t a bad look. If you’ve been a calorie deficit for this long and you have been lifting consistently, your body is primed for a nice rebound in terms of muscle gains from a calorie surplus.

If you track your calories and bust your ass in the gym, you won’t gain much fat…just be consistent and somewhat picky about food choices.

8

[quote]Samir wrote:
100-pound cutter checking in.

Congrats OP. My suggestion? Take a SHORT break, and keep going to your target weight. Cutting sucks and you never wanna hafta to do it again.

Once you’re at your target weight, ramp up calories over a few months. Then lift heavier and heavier. Might want to even drop cardio and focus purely on strength/muscle mass. I like Starting Strength for people who need to get a novice strength gain in there, it builds a good powerlifting, olympic lifting or bodybuilding base.

After that, get an intermediate program (either a BB split, Wendler 5/3/1 or Texas Method)and proceed to beasthood. [/quote]

Agreed on all points except the starting strength. He stated he wants to ‘get healthy, look good naked’ and ‘get muscular.’ All the other programs you mentioned are better for the looking good naked and getting muscular part than starting strength. Starting strength is good for absolute beginners to get good at the basic movements, but after that, it’s a very unbalanced program, physique-wise especially.

Samir I know you’re not a big proponent of direct arm work, and you’ve built some nice ones without it, but many people aren’t so lucky. Especially since this dude is 6’6, he’s gonna need to put some serious size on his arms for them to look impressive, and I don’t think doing starting strength will help him get there nearly as well as other programs.

9

[quote]Gmoore17 wrote:

[quote]Samir wrote:
100-pound cutter checking in.

Congrats OP. My suggestion? Take a SHORT break, and keep going to your target weight. Cutting sucks and you never wanna hafta to do it again.

Once you’re at your target weight, ramp up calories over a few months. Then lift heavier and heavier. Might want to even drop cardio and focus purely on strength/muscle mass. I like Starting Strength for people who need to get a novice strength gain in there, it builds a good powerlifting, olympic lifting or bodybuilding base.

After that, get an intermediate program (either a BB split, Wendler 5/3/1 or Texas Method)and proceed to beasthood. [/quote]

Agreed on all points except the starting strength. He stated he wants to ‘get healthy, look good naked’ and ‘get muscular.’ All the other programs you mentioned are better for the looking good naked and getting muscular part than starting strength. Starting strength is good for absolute beginners to get good at the basic movements, but after that, it’s a very unbalanced program, physique-wise especially.

Samir I know you’re not a big proponent of direct arm work, and you’ve built some nice ones without it, but many people aren’t so lucky. Especially since this dude is 6’6, he’s gonna need to put some serious size on his arms for them to look impressive, and I don’t think doing starting strength will help him get there nearly as well as other programs.[/quote]

I have already done a powerlifting variant called Stronglifts. I stopped doing exercises as my form was horrific. Im talking about serious back rounding doing deadlifts/bent over rows, etc. Today most of my lifts are compound movements and I do some arm work including forearms 2x a week since my forearms and are my weakest point, calves too.

10

Can you provide #'s for your lifts? Do you have any idea about your body composition? You may not even need to drop that much more weight. There was a kid that I knew that was like 320, but he was repping 315 for 5 on the bench and squatting/deadlifting 405 for 5. When he lost weight he was a pretty big guy. Granted he lost a lot of weight. (He was down below 240 if I remember correctly. It was a long time ago though, so I could be wrong.)

-Zep

11

[quote]Zeppelin0731 wrote:
Can you provide #'s for your lifts? Do you have any idea about your body composition? You may not even need to drop that much more weight. There was a kid that I knew that was like 320, but he was repping 315 for 5 on the bench and squatting/deadlifting 405 for 5. When he lost weight he was a pretty big guy. Granted he lost a lot of weight. (He was down below 240 if I remember correctly. It was a long time ago though, so I could be wrong.)

-Zep
[/quote]

To be honest, I am not that strong at all. When i first started out I could only bench 60 pounds excluding the barbell. Now I do dumbbell bench press with 55 pound DB’s as I feel my chest being worked more with DB’s. Shoulder press I hit 50 pound DB’s, dumbbell curl is 40 pounds. 45 degree leg press is 390 pounds

Maybe it’s because I have long ass arms and leggs.

12

[quote]ipbl wrote:

[quote]Gmoore17 wrote:

[quote]Samir wrote:
100-pound cutter checking in.

Congrats OP. My suggestion? Take a SHORT break, and keep going to your target weight. Cutting sucks and you never wanna hafta to do it again.

Once you’re at your target weight, ramp up calories over a few months. Then lift heavier and heavier. Might want to even drop cardio and focus purely on strength/muscle mass. I like Starting Strength for people who need to get a novice strength gain in there, it builds a good powerlifting, olympic lifting or bodybuilding base.

After that, get an intermediate program (either a BB split, Wendler 5/3/1 or Texas Method)and proceed to beasthood. [/quote]

Agreed on all points except the starting strength. He stated he wants to ‘get healthy, look good naked’ and ‘get muscular.’ All the other programs you mentioned are better for the looking good naked and getting muscular part than starting strength. Starting strength is good for absolute beginners to get good at the basic movements, but after that, it’s a very unbalanced program, physique-wise especially.

Samir I know you’re not a big proponent of direct arm work, and you’ve built some nice ones without it, but many people aren’t so lucky. Especially since this dude is 6’6, he’s gonna need to put some serious size on his arms for them to look impressive, and I don’t think doing starting strength will help him get there nearly as well as other programs.[/quote]

I have already done a powerlifting variant called Stronglifts. I stopped doing exercises as my form was horrific. Im talking about serious back rounding doing deadlifts/bent over rows, etc. Today most of my lifts are compound movements and I do some arm work including forearms 2x a week since my forearms and are my weakest point, calves too.[/quote]

You should definitely get on some kind of proven program. And don’t stop doing exercises cause your form is bad, work on your form so that you can do them.

13

[quote]Gmoore17 wrote:

[quote]ipbl wrote:

[quote]Gmoore17 wrote:

[quote]Samir wrote:
100-pound cutter checking in.

Congrats OP. My suggestion? Take a SHORT break, and keep going to your target weight. Cutting sucks and you never wanna hafta to do it again.

Once you’re at your target weight, ramp up calories over a few months. Then lift heavier and heavier. Might want to even drop cardio and focus purely on strength/muscle mass. I like Starting Strength for people who need to get a novice strength gain in there, it builds a good powerlifting, olympic lifting or bodybuilding base.

After that, get an intermediate program (either a BB split, Wendler 5/3/1 or Texas Method)and proceed to beasthood. [/quote]

Agreed on all points except the starting strength. He stated he wants to ‘get healthy, look good naked’ and ‘get muscular.’ All the other programs you mentioned are better for the looking good naked and getting muscular part than starting strength. Starting strength is good for absolute beginners to get good at the basic movements, but after that, it’s a very unbalanced program, physique-wise especially.

Samir I know you’re not a big proponent of direct arm work, and you’ve built some nice ones without it, but many people aren’t so lucky. Especially since this dude is 6’6, he’s gonna need to put some serious size on his arms for them to look impressive, and I don’t think doing starting strength will help him get there nearly as well as other programs.[/quote]

I have already done a powerlifting variant called Stronglifts. I stopped doing exercises as my form was horrific. Im talking about serious back rounding doing deadlifts/bent over rows, etc. Today most of my lifts are compound movements and I do some arm work including forearms 2x a week since my forearms and are my weakest point, calves too.[/quote]

You should definitely get on some kind of proven program. And don’t stop doing exercises cause your form is bad, work on your form so that you can do them.
[/quote]

This advice will help you a lot if you take it. Make sure whatever you are doing, you enjoy, you are consistent with, and it is geared toward your goal (if you want to be a world class powerlifter, don’t go buy a racing bike and spandex).

-Zep

14

Definitely.

Gonna increase the cardio a bit starting Monday and I will see how it goes from there. Might experiment with lowering my carbs to 50 grams which wont be that hard since I already consume about 110 grams daily.

15

1 look into taking a full diet break maybe for a week. this is not an excuse to pig out, rather just eat sensibly for a week, yes even eat some junk in small portions. don’t stop training though.

2 look into calorie/carb cycling for back and leg days. adding something like another 50g of carbs to those days for more energy likely won’t harm your weight loss, provided you’re really training hard enough.

3 don’t stop ALL forms of cardio whenever you decide to start gaining. I’d keep in hill sprints, prowler work, BB complexes, intervals of any sort etc just to build your maximal cardio and recovery capacity.

4 as mentioned above, learn how to perform exercises you aren’t good at. barring injuries or serious anatomical issues, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t learn to do something as beneficial as the deadlift or BB/DB row.