When I restarted lifting again about 2 years ago now, I was losing 1 or 2 lbs a week and still making good progress in my lifts (I hit rep PRs every week without fail, on bench and squat). That was regaining lost strength though, so YMMV.
My experience at that time was that I made better progress doing 2 hard lifting sessions a week, both of which were far more than the original author of the programs had recommended. I may have also done a few light conditioning sessions later in the week, but not necessarily. This worked better for me than trying to do a more reasonable 3-5 day split with more moderate effort. Again, YMMV.
I just restarted lifting recently, but I was getting too fat so I did a reset and dropped a bunch of weight (i.e. fat). Now I’m getting close to the weight I want and I just want to slowly gain muscle. I think 6-8 lbs in a year is realistic for someone starting off in the beginning. One big issue is that I don’t feel comfortable doing barbell squats, so I deadlift and do single leg squat exercises, lunges, leg curls, etc. I don’t think this is a big issue, since my goals are pretty modest. I’m not trying to gain an insane amount of muscle. If I could add 7 lbs of muscle in my first year I’d be very happy.
Were you lifting during the time that you lost the 15lbs?
It’s especially important to keep lifting while losing weight so you can limit the amount of muscle you lose while doing that.
Once you’ve nailed down your form, gaining strength is one of the best indicators of whether or not you’re making progress. So focus on that and not worry about the scale too much. Just eat at your maintenance calories or barely over, make progress in the gym, then when you stall, add a little bit more calories.
In terms of my other lifts not much to report…I just started deadlifting recently so I’m easily adding 10 lbs per session, so what I’m currently lifting doesn’t indicate what I can do. In terms of pullups I can do 10 with full range of motion. I can do 11 dips with a 5 lbs weight using one of those dip belts. Not sure if that’s telling or anything…
Just keep riding the wave then. For example, Add 5lbs to you pull-ups, you might only be able to do 8 reps, work on adding another rep to each workout until you get to 10 again, then add a little more weight.
Do that for all your lifts. Add 1-5lbs, once you hit 10 reps for all your sets, then add a little more weight.
Like I said, if you stall completely on all your lifts for a couple weeks, then add more calories.
Make sure to deload or take a rest week after 3 months of this or so.
Goal is to gain between 6-8 lbs of muscle in a year. So that would put me at around 144 lbs from my current weight, if I’m being optimistic. But it has to be with minimum fat gains. I’m done with trying to bulk.
In terms of weight lost goals…I wanted to just start to see my abs. I just wanted to prove I could drop that much weight…especially those last few stubborn pounds. I don’t really see abs…unless I suck my stomach in and then I can kind of see the top one. I do see a vertical line indent in the abdominal area, which is something new. The idea behind the weight lost was also to learn how to track daily calories, etc. That’s how I lost it. I would track everything I ate mostly.
In fact listen to it at least twice. I am only 1 inch taller than you and you weigh the same as I did when I was 11 years old. You need to learn to eat. Find a simple full body program with a good progression model that suits your training style and the equipment you have available. There are lots of good programs on here and as we don’t know what equipment you have or training history you have I wont recommend something.
Pick something, learn to eat and train HARD. Don’t change the program, don’t miss sessions, don’t skip meals, don’t eat good for 5 days and stop at the weekends, don’t make excuses, start a training and diet log and record everything. Do this consistently for 12 months minimum and then look at what progress you have made.
Listen to the guys above. I’m 5’9 and currently sitting at 155 to 160 and I still look lanky. You might want to follow @jackolee ‘s log too. I think we weigh roughly the same but he definitely more buffed than I am! Got them freakin’ abs too if that’s what you’re really after
Sorry, not to be offensive or anything. Trust me, I’m super impressed by anyone natty or not who puts on muscle given how hard it seems to me. I don’t think just because someone takes “supplements” that its easy to get a physique like that. I just don’t think the same rules obviously apply to someone doing it the natural way.
Here’s an example of what I just ate. I’m at around 500 calories.
2 eggs + 1/2 cup egg whites
230 g potato
1 tsp olive oil
1/2 tsp margarine
Small slice bread (75 cal)
1.5 Tbsp ketchup
Looks nice, now do that 5 more times today and every day for a year. Seriously though, you need to eat to grow and you need to train hard and rest. It really is that simple for anyone. If you are training hard and resting well but don’t eat, you wont grow. If you are eating lots bit don’t train you wont grow muscle. The process though, is not a quick one, especially when you are not 20 years old. You may have to train, eat and sleep consistently for 12 months to see 4-6lb of muscle, the rate of growth will largely be down to genetics. But do it for 5 years and that’s 20-30lbs of muscle. This will make a massive difference to how you look and feel.
You shouldn’t need to get overly fat to add that amount of muscle. If you want to walk round all year with under 10% bodyfat then it will be very hard. You could be at 15-20% bodyfat which would be flat stomach with outline of abs (in the right light if you squint …LOL) and gain that muscle no problems.
Also if eating that meal 5-6 times a day makes you get fat fast, then I would suggest you are not active enough or not training hard enough. I may be coming across a bit blunt and that is not my intention. But I am not going to fluff up my response or soften it. Progress is simply a case of consistent hard effort over time with the right food. This doesn’t mean it is simple or easy to do though. It takes effort and commitment and you need to be able to not focus on the short term and just embrace the process. Most people find this the hardest part.
