Weight Loss or Muscle Gain?

Hello,
I have only just recently been directed to this site, and I’ve been doing a lot of reading, but I just wanted to ask some others for advice as I still have no idea what I am doing or supposed to be doing.

I am 18, 5’10" and weight 238lbs. I have been wanting to lose weight and bulk up for a while now, but just havent gotten around to doing it. I started a low calorie diet about two months ago, with some very loose and weak cardio, but I have had good results from just that. When I started, I was over 255lbs. So I guess thats good considering I havent done much more than dieting.

But dieting is only half of it, as I know from research and others. And I am joining the gym and I’d like to start lifting. I own some basic weights at my house that I have been using, but they arent very heavy so I dont think they will help me build muscle which is what I really want.

I guess my main questions are this.

  1. Should I stay on a low-calorie diet and continue cardio, or should I take a bigger diet with healthy fats and protein and start lifting heavy while also doing cardio.

  2. If I change to a bigger diet what should I eat? Should I start buying Fish Oil and other supplements?

  3. What kind of lifting should I do? I’m pretty new to all the different types of lifting and exercises.

My goals are pretty much this, within one year I would like to bulk up as much as I can, while also losing as much weight as well. I primarily want to focus on getting a good size first, and then I can focus on losing the fat more.

And I guess thats it, I cant think of anything else to say at the moment.

At your weight (I’m guessing its fat), I would strongly advise cutting down first to a healthy weight.

You cannot focus on 2 goals at once, as while beginners can initially lose weight and add muscle, it becomes near impossible at a later stage.

Join a gym, find a program for fat loss on here (such as “10x3 For Fat Loss”), and lose the fat first. Protein should be kept relatively high (at least 1g per lb or bodyweight), you have to eat often to keep the metabolism high (6 meals a day), and keep you food “clean”. Have a look here:

http://www.T-Nation.com/readArticle.do?id=459493

Cardio can still be done in the “off” days during the week (when you’re not lifting).

You can try something like “The T-Dawg Diet 2.0” on here.

With regards to supplements, I would just use Fish oil and protein powder at this stage.

Pretty much what RSG said. You don’t have to avoid lifting just because you are trying to lean down.

As a true beginner, your body is likely to put on muscle and lose fat, assuming you eat nutritious foods, so take advantage of that and hit the gym.

Just be aware that the scale may not move even though you can still be making progress… dieting alone is easier to track by scale, but you might be seeing muscle loss and think it is a good thing as the scale goes down.

Ditch the scale, get a tape measure.