Muscle Building While Maintaining Weight

Training
21

[quote]Ecchastang wrote:

[quote]Quick Ben wrote:
eggs(1 whole to 6 whites or so)[/quote]

I have to ask why you would leave out the most nutritious and tastiest part of the egg? I would rather have 6 yolks to 1 egg white. [/quote]

Depends, man. I cut out some yolks when I’m dieting. Fresh eggs are an excellent protein source, but eating a bunch of them at one sitting will usually mean I can’t eat any fat the rest of the day. If you can fit it into your plan, by all means eat whole eggs… it’s just a preference. My eggs still taste good as long as there are a couple whole eggs in with the whites.

22

Personally I wouldn’t spike my blood sugar like that PRE-workout, I’d fall asleep in the middle of a set. lol

If you’re coming off a training lay off you will lose fat and burn muscle, no problem. For diet there are tons of resources out there. Berardi’s stuff is great. Some online coaches around too who don’t charge much, if you want someone to assess your progress and make changes where appropriate.

23

[quote]Quick Ben wrote:
Personally I wouldn’t spike my blood sugar like that PRE-workout, I’d fall asleep in the middle of a set. lol

If you’re coming off a training lay off you will lose fat and burn muscle, no problem. For diet there are tons of resources out there. Berardi’s stuff is great. Some online coaches around too who don’t charge much, if you want someone to assess your progress and make changes where appropriate.[/quote]

Maybe when I get into the flow of this diet thing and start to see some more progress beyond the early stages I may look into something like that. For now I just am content to pick up what I can from the net and you guys till I feel like I have a basic handle on things. Thanks, by the way. I love the training side of all this but the nutrition part is just a pain in my ass ha.

24

[quote]jbpick86 wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]jbpick86 wrote:

[quote]csulli wrote:
Dude me too exactly. I don’t focus on my diet even remotely well enough to accomplish this, but it’s kind of a “back of my mind” goal. I’ve dropped down from 198 to like 194 though :(. And it was just fat, so that’s fine I guess, but the goal of building 4lbs of muscle to make up for it while you lose that fat is fucking tricky.[/quote]

Right now, it would not break my heart to fall of into that 180 range if I got pretty lean. I just am trying to avoid spinning my wheels. So I am thinking as long as I am in excess of LBM maintenance calories, I should be putting on LBM but I don’t really know. [/quote]

“recomping” is a good way to spin your wheels.

What are you after? A look or performance? Or even both? Because, neither of those equate to a specific body weight. You can look bigger, perform better and be lighter.

Why does being at a certain weight matter to you?
[/quote]

The weight doesn’t really matter at all. That’s just where I am at right now so that is what I have based my caloric needs off of. My goal is aesthetics and just overall health. As you said, neither of those are tied to a bodyweight. Setting my calories and trying to map progression is the only real purpose I have for tracking bodyweight. By my logic, if I am at 198 20ish%bf (I really have no clue, just a guess for argument sake) that makes LBM at 158.

So with that knowledge, eating enough calories to maintain 198 (my only accurately measurable variable is bodyweight) puts me in excess of the 158lbs of LBM so I should be gaining LBM. And if I am gaining LBM while maintain bodyweight I should be getting less fat (decreasing my bf%). This makes sense to me but I am unsure if that is totally flawed thinking.
[/quote]

BF numbers just plan suck for progress indicators. First, they just plain aren’t accurate. Hydration, bone densities, est. all throw off measurements.

Next, if you were to add pure fat you actually add lean body mass, blood/fluid. To loose pure fat, youâ??d also loose “lean” body mass. But remember, lean body mass means everything that isn’t fat. It doesn’t really mean muscle. If you got your large intestine to grow, you are adding lean body mass. If you eat a crap ton of salt and drink a crap ton of water, you just added a ton of lean body mass (bloat).

If you want to move your physique toward your goal, don’t get caught up in bodyfat/lean body mass numbers. If you want to know if you are retaining muscle pay more attention to things like strength.