Programming lifting for weight loss

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mikeylikey
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Programming lifting for weight loss

#1

Post by mikeylikey » Mon Nov 21, 2022 8:55 am

I'm going to be 40 next year, and I'm too fat, and it's only going to get harder to do anything about it as I get older so it's time to get the thing under control.

Goal: weigh <200lbs by my 40th birthday 10/23/23.
Today: 5'10, 247#. I wear 38 pants but honest measurements are 40" waist at the belt, 43" at the navel relaxed.

I am past the point where I can delude myself that "this is okay because I lift." Maybe it was at 220 with a 4 plate squat, probably wasn't even then.

I have been consistently inconsistently lifting in fits and starts the past few years, I am not completely de-trained but down quite a bit from PRs of 405/275/450 from 3-4 years ago. I deadlifted 315x5 at RPE 8-ish about a week ago, for example.

My plan is to break this up into 3 or four cycles of cut/maintain. I think I can figure out the eating part.

Question: what should my lifting look like?
Lots of programs out there for untrained fat novices, untrained skinny novices, as well as advanced lifters looking to eek out moar gainz. Not so much specificlaly, for a middle aged overweight person with moderate lifting experience already. High volume or low? Lots of cardio, or add that in later? Heavy 3's? Lots of 8's at RPE 7? Wut do.

I assume it's not wise to try and work up to a PR deadlift while losing weight. But what about making some slow linear progress on like OLY lifts, which I have not really ever worked on before. Just so there is something making forward progress to help in the motivation department.
Last edited by mikeylikey on Mon Nov 21, 2022 11:43 am, edited 5 times in total.

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Re: Programming lifting for weight loss

#2

Post by FredM » Mon Nov 21, 2022 9:08 am

mikeylikey wrote: Mon Nov 21, 2022 8:55 am
I assume it's not wise to try and work up to a PR deadlift while losing weight. But what about making some slow linear progress on like OLY lifts, which I have not really ever worked on before. Just so there is something making forward progress to help in the motivation department.
Congrats on prioritizing your health. If you haven't done it before, losing weight while lifting is going to suck really bad. For like 2 weeks. Then your body adjusts and you're just mildly weaker and it's not a big deal at all. Just be ready for that initial fall when you lose water weight (and thus some strength) and your body questions where all the carbs went. Don't let it demotivate you -- it'll be over real soon.

What you wrote here is actually opposite. It's not a great idea to work on highly technical skills you haven't practiced while losing weight. You want to send your muscle signals that you need them bad. Like you're going to get crushed by a heavy barbell if they leave your so please stay a while. So working up to a heavy deadlift single is actually an extremely good idea. And deadlift, in particular, is very possibly going to increase on a cut because of improved leverages (your gut gets out of the way and you can turn your SLDL into a real boy).

Generally a balanced program that isn't all hypertrophy and isn't all strength is a good idea. Your MRV volume will go down but your MEF will go up. So you probably can't get away with 30 min twice a week but most people are going to be fine on 45m-1h 3x/wk. To stay motivated try doing weighted dips and chins/pullups. You'll make easy progress on those as you lose weight (because your weight loss offsets the added weight) and they're pretty great strength exercises for keeping muscle.

If you really want to Oly lift for fun and have the time to train a lot still go for it. But if you're looking for efficiency I'd either skip it or do something simple like pick a single oly lift and just add a few sets of 1-3 at the end of your workout.

Tldr; your lifting should look like off-season powerlifting -- well rounded and not too focused on the big 3/4 so you don't get too demotivated. If you're close your MRV right now (feel beat up frequently) you should bring the volume down. If you're close to your MEV (working out a couple hours a week or less) you should bring volume up. Do lots of "weighted" exercises for mental gains. Don't be afraid of heavy main lifts -- it's the optimal way to send the signal to your brain to keep your muscles around.

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Re: Programming lifting for weight loss

#3

Post by dw » Mon Nov 21, 2022 10:05 am

From the fat loss perspective just work on CICO and design maintenance workouts that have some decent volume but are not too gruelling for compliance in a deficit.

Your situation is a bit atypical in that (1) you have lifted regularly in the past (therefore you need to do some maintenance work and not expect much progress), yet (2) not recently, so you don't have a good template to modify into a maintenance workout.

If you're sufficiently detrained you can actually make some good strength progress in a deficit. So you could work on it from that point of view.

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Re: Programming lifting for weight loss

#4

Post by mikeylikey » Mon Nov 21, 2022 10:21 am

dw wrote: Mon Nov 21, 2022 10:05 am From the fat loss perspective just work on CICO and design maintenance workouts that have some decent volume but are not too gruelling for compliance in a deficit.

Your situation is a bit atypical in that (1) you have lifted regularly in the past (therefore you need to do some maintenance work and not expect much progress), yet (2) not recently, so you don't have a good template to modify into a maintenance workout.

If you're sufficiently detrained you can actually make some good strength progress in a deficit. So you could work on it from that point of view.
If you care to take a stab at it: What does "sufficiently detrained" (in this context) look like in terms of % of former lifts?

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Re: Programming lifting for weight loss

#5

Post by dw » Mon Nov 21, 2022 11:29 am

mikeylikey wrote: Mon Nov 21, 2022 10:21 am
dw wrote: Mon Nov 21, 2022 10:05 am From the fat loss perspective just work on CICO and design maintenance workouts that have some decent volume but are not too gruelling for compliance in a deficit.

Your situation is a bit atypical in that (1) you have lifted regularly in the past (therefore you need to do some maintenance work and not expect much progress), yet (2) not recently, so you don't have a good template to modify into a maintenance workout.

If you're sufficiently detrained you can actually make some good strength progress in a deficit. So you could work on it from that point of view.
If you care to take a stab at it: What does "sufficiently detrained" (in this context) look like in terms of % of former lifts?
I don't have the experience to try to quantify it, but it comes down to how much muscle you have lost from your peak.

On one extreme if you just quit SBD but replaced them with comparable hypertrophy work while not losing any weight, I would expect to be able to get all your former strength back (minus the substantial temporary effect of glycogen depletion).

On the other if you were in a coma for 6 months and lost a bunch of weight at the same time, I would expect your muscle loss to make it impossible to regain your former strength without bulking again.

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Re: Programming lifting for weight loss

#6

Post by Hardartery » Mon Nov 21, 2022 12:00 pm

Training while in a deficit is largely about recovery management. There is no hypertrophy in a calorie deficit, so just chuck any notion of that out the window and don't worry about it. It just won't happen without chemical assistance and it is largely irrelevant if you have a weight goal as opposed to a measurement goal (Like I want my waist to be X for example). Lower reps on compound movements, higher reps with lighter weights on iso stuff because that will burn more calories and have less direct negative impact on recovery. Cardio past your health needs is largely not productive in weight loss past the direct impact on CICO, and it is not the most effecient way to burn calories unless you are really going for it and trying to run a marathon or do an Ironman thing.
Diet seemingly matters past simple CICO. I know, that's blasphemy in the current fitness belief climate for many. But, I have heard several coaches lately discuss diet approach for their non-pro athlete clients who just want to not be fat and dead. A common approach seems to be low carb/keto initially and then a gradual introduction of carbs back into the diet over time. The stated reason I keep hearing is that the no carb period helps boost metabolism and then slowly adding in quality carbs improves the training while not screwing up the metabolism. The balance of CICO still has to be maintained, but it is claimed that it pushes the needle of caloric needs up making it easier to be in a mild deficit and not killing the metabolism in the process. I am not stating that this is in fact true for you or anyone else, just what is currently being used by many professional coaches I have heard of late. It does seem to be the case for me, personally. I am back on a slow cut and my calories are higher than they have been on quite a few years. I am largely keto, with letting myself have somereasonable carbs once a week or so. Generally along the lines of one normal meal or part of a meal (Like three slices of sourdough with my normal eggs one day, or dinner out eating something not over the top). My daily intake of calories is slowly creeping up, but I am still losing.

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Re: Programming lifting for weight loss

#7

Post by mikeylikey » Mon Nov 21, 2022 12:54 pm

Hardartery wrote: Mon Nov 21, 2022 12:00 pm Diet seemingly matters past simple CICO.
My thinking, and by all means, poke holes in this; CICO first, add complexity when that plateaus.

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Re: Programming lifting for weight loss

#8

Post by dw » Mon Nov 21, 2022 1:15 pm

mikeylikey wrote: Mon Nov 21, 2022 12:54 pm
Hardartery wrote: Mon Nov 21, 2022 12:00 pm Diet seemingly matters past simple CICO.
My thinking, and by all means, poke holes in this; CICO first, add complexity when that plateaus.
+1

Of course CICO is not everything but for someone who doesn't have a lot of experience dieting or has some fundamental misconceptions about how it all works (not the case here of course but common out in the wild), CICO is so much more important than spinning your wheels about TEE and whatever else.

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Re: Programming lifting for weight loss

#9

Post by Hardartery » Mon Nov 21, 2022 1:21 pm

mikeylikey wrote: Mon Nov 21, 2022 12:54 pm
Hardartery wrote: Mon Nov 21, 2022 12:00 pm Diet seemingly matters past simple CICO.
My thinking, and by all means, poke holes in this; CICO first, add complexity when that plateaus.
Ultimately it is CICO. I found it was easier to control that on a keto/low carb diet with a limited menu so that's what I did. Having a family tendency towards type 2 diabetes in middle age, keto carries a bonus for me as it is considered to be helpful in avoiding or controlling the diabetes and I absolutely want to avoid it. That is eems to be kicking up the metabolism is a nice bonus from my perspective. But, everyone is a little different and I doubt very much that it works for everyone. Just something to consider if the diet part is troublesome. And being 50, I feel exactly where you're coming from with the whole waistline spread.

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Re: Programming lifting for weight loss

#10

Post by augeleven » Mon Nov 21, 2022 1:37 pm

I say do what you want, and have a backup/auto regulation plan to accommodate being in a calorie-restricted state.

I have been in this mode for about a year, more or less successfully. Observations:

Carbs aren’t bad for you. But they hold water, which means you’ll be heavier. Doesn’t really matter in the long run, but it can spook you. I try for low carb, but I know when I do carb up, to disregard the scale.

Eating in a bigger deficit won’t always lead to faster losses. TEF (Thermic Effect of Food) is a real thing and accounts for a significant part of your daily expenditure. If you cut hard, you could slow that metabolism down (controversial, a lot of metabolic adaptation is TEF related according to Nuckols and all of them), then when you crash and binge you are eating in a bigger surplus. ETA: there’s also the whole unconscious downregulation of NEAT…

Don’t nocebo yourself with training. I’m running BBB and jogging for 3.5 hours a week on a ~600-800 calorie deficit.
Just have a backup plan for when you show up but your strength/endurance doesn’t.

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Re: Programming lifting for weight loss

#11

Post by 51M0N » Mon Nov 21, 2022 3:37 pm

My $0.02 worth. Focus on variations to the main lifts. I struggled to cut while doing SBDP because sooner or later my lifts drop, and then I freak out and undermine my cut. So I drop them and use variations, means that I can make progress on a new lift for a cycle or two, and when that get stale switch to another variation. Also helps avoid the freakout because I'm not emotionally invested in box squats or football bar presses.

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Re: Programming lifting for weight loss

#12

Post by ChasingCurls69 » Mon Nov 21, 2022 5:25 pm

@mikeylikey what programming worked for you when you hit those PRs and how much of a time commitment was it? That would inform my best guess as to what approach you should use for your current lifting endeavors. I don'y think it would be impossible to hit PRs by the end of a full year of consistent training even while losing weight, or to at least get significantly stronger than you are now and have a slow but steady rate of strength gains while losing weight.

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Re: Programming lifting for weight loss

#13

Post by asdf » Mon Nov 21, 2022 8:26 pm

mikeylikey wrote: Mon Nov 21, 2022 8:55 am what about making some slow linear progress on like OLY lifts, which I have not really ever worked on before. Just so there is something making forward progress to help in the motivation department.
Personally, I like that idea. In addition to motivation, they're great for increasing/maintaining mobility, coordination, and power. Combined with your weight loss, they'll help you feel athletic.

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Re: Programming lifting for weight loss

#14

Post by CheekiBreekiFitness » Mon Nov 21, 2022 11:52 pm

Here's what I do when I want to lose weight while trying to maintain my muscle mass (n=1):

- Training: I train as per normal (same exercises, rep ranges etc), I just do a bit less volume (say about 3/4 of what you would do if you were trying to gain muscle). Maintaining muscle requires much less training volume than gaining it so there's no point training with high volume in a fat loss phase. I also avoid doing cardio / conditioning above the minimum level. Essentially the idea is: try to maintain muscle mass and work capacity while doing as little as you can get away with.
- Expectations: you should go into training expecting to get stronger or at least maintain your strength. If you are convinced that you're going to get weaker then it's going to happen. Now when you see your lifts going down (which will inevitably happen if your diet is long enough and you get lean enough), just let it be, it's OK, you're not a competitive powerlifter, your e1RM right now does not matter.
- Nutrition: -500 kcal deficit, 1g protein/lb of bodyweight, 0.4g fat/lb of bodyweight and the rest as carbs (more or less what is recommended by RP). For a 200 lbs person maintaining his weight at 2800 kcal/day you would end up with 2300 kcal, 200g protein, 80g fat, 200g carbs. I want to eat as many carbs as possible to maintain training performance and preserve muscle mass. The easiest way for my to comply with the calorie deficit is to replace breakfast by a protein shake and eat normally for lunch / afternoon snack / dinner. Also try to eat voluminous food in order to stay full if you have a big appetite.

As a side note, there are three main things that affect how much you can lift on a given day:

- muscle mass
- fatigue
- neurological factors (skill technique rate coding etc)

Assuming that you can maintain your muscle mass (if you do a moderate deficit and you have a lot of body fat then I doubt that you'll lose any muscle at all), and that your fatigue stays constant (by keeping training volume moderate), there's no reason why you wouldn't be able to get stronger by improving the third factors. Especially if you have been inconsistent with your training, so that those factors are not already peaked.

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Re: Programming lifting for weight loss

#15

Post by mikeylikey » Tue Nov 22, 2022 9:50 am

CheekiBreekiFitness wrote: Mon Nov 21, 2022 11:52 pm - Training: I train as per normal (same exercises, rep ranges etc), I just do a bit less volume (say about 3/4 of what you would do if you were trying to gain muscle). Maintaining muscle requires much less training volume than gaining it so there's no point training with high volume in a fat loss phase. I also avoid doing cardio / conditioning above the minimum level. Essentially the idea is: try to maintain muscle mass and work capacity while doing as little as you can get away with.
- Expectations: you should go into training expecting to get stronger or at least maintain your strength. If you are convinced that you're going to get weaker then it's going to happen. Now when you see your lifts going down (which will inevitably happen if your diet is long enough and you get lean enough), just let it be, it's OK, you're not a competitive powerlifter, your e1RM right now does not matter.
It's not that I'm convinced I'm going to get weaker, I'm just not really that worried about it. I don't need a 500 lb deadlift. It would be nice to get there sure. But 50 extra lbs is going to take years off my life. And I'll still have time to get the DL later.

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Re: Programming lifting for weight loss

#16

Post by Hanley » Tue Nov 22, 2022 12:07 pm

I think you'd be fine running any good off-the-shelf intermediate strength program until you hit about 225-230 (so long as you're not really aggressive with the deficit). I like Nuckols programs quite a bit.

From ~ 225 down, I like the idea of switching focus to oly lifts with a whopping side of work capacity (hiit classes really are pretty great during the slog of weight loss....they're what I used to get from 240>>>215 a few years ago [not CrossFit* in my case]).

Machine work is also pretty great. I find it much easier to remain emotionally neutral with machine progress/regression. I don't even know what loads I'm working with most of the time....I'm just pushing to crazy local fatigue/burn/pump.

* For hiit classes, I'd try to find a facility that trains D1/pro athletes and see what they offer for genpop hiit work.

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Re: Programming lifting for weight loss

#17

Post by mbasic » Wed Nov 23, 2022 4:46 am

Hanley wrote: Tue Nov 22, 2022 12:07 pm
Machine work is also pretty great. I find it much easier to remain emotionally neutral with machine progress/regression. I don't even know what loads I'm working with most of the time....I'm just pushing to crazy local fatigue/burn/pump.
+1 This ^

well said

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Re: Programming lifting for weight loss

#18

Post by hector » Fri Nov 25, 2022 6:51 am

Some quick thoughts. (On old phone, so can't easily quote other's text, but much of what I'm typing is in response to them.) Also, I am an overweight moron, but have been lighter and heavier, and hopefully some of this could apply.

(1) Fuck imposing some kind of nocebo slowdown on yourself. Get that 500 deadlift! I was lighter than I am now when I got mine. As others have said, there are other factors you can maximize. (How good is your sleep? How good are you at getting 1g-protein/lb-of-bodyweight?) If you're bad at both, you could maximize these factors to mitigate effects of lower overall calorie consumption. And since deadlift 1RM is largely technique/neurological, maybe you can still creep closer to 500.
(2) I would not obsess over carbs vs fat. Like Wender says, this is "majoring in the minors." Just hit your protein goal, and then fill in remaining calories with whatever combination of carbs/fat feel best for you.
(3) Might take a minute to figure out what carb/fat combo actually "feels best for you." After experimenting with low-carb and higher-carb, I found that I can do pretty well with low-carb 90% of the time. Then, before workouts, I have some carbs. I'm so carb sensitive after a few weeks of lowish-carb that those pre-workout carbs feel like rocket fuel and are great at powering me through my sessions. (One carb source I like before workouts is to make a drink of powdered gatorade mix and collagen protein. Collagen protein is low quality, but if you're hitting protein goals then protein quality doesn't actually matter that much. And collagen is tasteless and blends much better than any other protein would. I use "vital proteins" brand, they sell it at Costco.)
(4) If you add lots of cardio on top of squats and deadlifts then things get tricky in terms of recovery. One option (that will probably be shit on by many here if they read this post) is to just stop squats and deads. Instead, just do upper body lifts. This will allow you to go fucking bananas with running, biking, elliptical, whatever, while you keep yourself excited about your still-increasing bench press. (This was my strategy when I wanted to keep lifting while running marathons.) Can you watch an entire movie on your tablet while you do the elliptical at a moderate? It's not optimal in terms of appreciating fine cinema, but you willl burn 1,000+ calories and you'll still be fine deadlifting the next day. Another option, one I also like, since you're probably not going to stop squatting and deadlifting, is to walk a lot. Walking will have zero drain on your recovery, but if you can listen to an audio book or just enjoy nature for an hour, then you can burn a few hundred calories. I wouldn't know how to quantify it, but there's also something great for mental health that you get from walking outdoors. (Keep in mind this is just walking. If you get aggressive and start hiking mountains on the weekends then, while you'll have lots of fun, it will eat into your recovery a little bit. Long term though, I think hiking is great exercise.)
(5) Don't eat a few hours before bed. Make this a law. The benefits are two-fold. THe first is that it will help you keep your calories down. THe second is that you'll potentially sleep better, thereby improving recovery, which will help keep your lifts up.
(6) It will sound boring, but I would try to find a few delicious meals you can eat often that are compatible with your goals. Having to figure out calories at the last minute is time consuming and inefficient. Maybe ground beef along with peppers and onions would be appealing, easy to cook in bulk, and fit your macros. If yes, just do that 3 or 4x week. Figure out a couple other meals and you're good to go. Yeah, it's a little boring, but spices have few calories and can do a lot. Steak and eggs (for me) is another great meal. If you can find meals that work for you, and eat them often in lieu of worse options, success is that much more obtainable.
(7) It is a rabbit hole, but if you have some time and like learning about this stuff, you can google "Inigo San Milan" and "mitochondrial health." He is a medical school professor and endurance athlete coach who talks about using low intensity exercise to improve mitochondrial health which helps with fat burning. This is absolutely not necessary, but is, in my opinion, fascinating and also useful in improving long term health and rate of burning calories while at rest. Specifically, he advocates lots of "zone 2", which is low intensity cardio and not difficult to recover from.

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Re: Programming lifting for weight loss

#19

Post by Hardartery » Fri Nov 25, 2022 8:25 am

hector wrote: Fri Nov 25, 2022 6:51 am Some quick thoughts. (On old phone, so can't easily quote other's text, but much of what I'm typing is in response to them.) Also, I am an overweight moron, but have been lighter and heavier, and hopefully some of this could apply.

(1) Fuck imposing some kind of nocebo slowdown on yourself. Get that 500 deadlift! I was lighter than I am now when I got mine. As others have said, there are other factors you can maximize. (How good is your sleep? How good are you at getting 1g-protein/lb-of-bodyweight?) If you're bad at both, you could maximize these factors to mitigate effects of lower overall calorie consumption. And since deadlift 1RM is largely technique/neurological, maybe you can still creep closer to 500.
(2) I would not obsess over carbs vs fat. Like Wender says, this is "majoring in the minors." Just hit your protein goal, and then fill in remaining calories with whatever combination of carbs/fat feel best for you.
(3) Might take a minute to figure out what carb/fat combo actually "feels best for you." After experimenting with low-carb and higher-carb, I found that I can do pretty well with low-carb 90% of the time. Then, before workouts, I have some carbs. I'm so carb sensitive after a few weeks of lowish-carb that those pre-workout carbs feel like rocket fuel and are great at powering me through my sessions. (One carb source I like before workouts is to make a drink of powdered gatorade mix and collagen protein. Collagen protein is low quality, but if you're hitting protein goals then protein quality doesn't actually matter that much. And collagen is tasteless and blends much better than any other protein would. I use "vital proteins" brand, they sell it at Costco.)
(4) If you add lots of cardio on top of squats and deadlifts then things get tricky in terms of recovery. One option (that will probably be shit on by many here if they read this post) is to just stop squats and deads. Instead, just do upper body lifts. This will allow you to go fucking bananas with running, biking, elliptical, whatever, while you keep yourself excited about your still-increasing bench press. (This was my strategy when I wanted to keep lifting while running marathons.) Can you watch an entire movie on your tablet while you do the elliptical at a moderate? It's not optimal in terms of appreciating fine cinema, but you willl burn 1,000+ calories and you'll still be fine deadlifting the next day. Another option, one I also like, since you're probably not going to stop squatting and deadlifting, is to walk a lot. Walking will have zero drain on your recovery, but if you can listen to an audio book or just enjoy nature for an hour, then you can burn a few hundred calories. I wouldn't know how to quantify it, but there's also something great for mental health that you get from walking outdoors. (Keep in mind this is just walking. If you get aggressive and start hiking mountains on the weekends then, while you'll have lots of fun, it will eat into your recovery a little bit. Long term though, I think hiking is great exercise.)
(5) Don't eat a few hours before bed. Make this a law. The benefits are two-fold. THe first is that it will help you keep your calories down. THe second is that you'll potentially sleep better, thereby improving recovery, which will help keep your lifts up.
(6) It will sound boring, but I would try to find a few delicious meals you can eat often that are compatible with your goals. Having to figure out calories at the last minute is time consuming and inefficient. Maybe ground beef along with peppers and onions would be appealing, easy to cook in bulk, and fit your macros. If yes, just do that 3 or 4x week. Figure out a couple other meals and you're good to go. Yeah, it's a little boring, but spices have few calories and can do a lot. Steak and eggs (for me) is another great meal. If you can find meals that work for you, and eat them often in lieu of worse options, success is that much more obtainable.
(7) It is a rabbit hole, but if you have some time and like learning about this stuff, you can google "Inigo San Milan" and "mitochondrial health." He is a medical school professor and endurance athlete coach who talks about using low intensity exercise to improve mitochondrial health which helps with fat burning. This is absolutely not necessary, but is, in my opinion, fascinating and also useful in improving long term health and rate of burning calories while at rest. Specifically, he advocates lots of "zone 2", which is low intensity cardio and not difficult to recover from.
There was a bro thing in the 90's that cardio didn't affect lifting because you utilize different fibre types for cardio work than you do for anaerobic work. It is an oversimplified black and white view of how muscles actually function but does hold some merit in practice. You can absolutely do cardio and still lift if you prioritize. I would discourage (But this is my opinion and everyone should make their own decisions) stoppin lower body movement or large compound movements entirely, you stimulate hormone release with these that helps a lot of things. But certainly recovery needs should dictate intensity and volume. It's a lot easier to recover from a cardio session that burns 1k calories than a lifting session that does that for sure.
The carb thing, I am certainly not going to argue with. I find that keto is easy to stick to and supposedly helps ward off diabetes (The bane of the men in my father's family, all of them for several generations at least), but I also find that I do better eating a FEW carbs. Like 20-50 grams a day. I think my body over does it with making it's own when I am really zero tolerance with the carbs and I tend to plateau but taking in a few carbs seems to stimulate weight loss and also keep the bowels moving. Plus, if I take them right before lifting I think it helps with the session like you said, but I don't get any kind of rocket fuel feeling.

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Re: Programming lifting for weight loss

#20

Post by janoycresva » Mon Nov 28, 2022 12:34 am

Hardartery wrote: Mon Nov 21, 2022 12:00 pm Training while in a deficit is largely about recovery management. There is no hypertrophy in a calorie deficit, so just chuck any notion of that out the window and don't worry about it. It just won't happen without chemical assistance and it is largely irrelevant if you have a weight goal as opposed to a measurement goal (Like I want my waist to be X for example). Lower reps on compound movements, higher reps with lighter weights on iso stuff because that will burn more calories and have less direct negative impact on recovery. Cardio past your health needs is largely not productive in weight loss past the direct impact on CICO, and it is not the most effecient way to burn calories unless you are really going for it and trying to run a marathon or do an Ironman thing.
Diet seemingly matters past simple CICO. I know, that's blasphemy in the current fitness belief climate for many. But, I have heard several coaches lately discuss diet approach for their non-pro athlete clients who just want to not be fat and dead. A common approach seems to be low carb/keto initially and then a gradual introduction of carbs back into the diet over time. The stated reason I keep hearing is that the no carb period helps boost metabolism and then slowly adding in quality carbs improves the training while not screwing up the metabolism. The balance of CICO still has to be maintained, but it is claimed that it pushes the needle of caloric needs up making it easier to be in a mild deficit and not killing the metabolism in the process. I am not stating that this is in fact true for you or anyone else, just what is currently being used by many professional coaches I have heard of late. It does seem to be the case for me, personally. I am back on a slow cut and my calories are higher than they have been on quite a few years. I am largely keto, with letting myself have somereasonable carbs once a week or so. Generally along the lines of one normal meal or part of a meal (Like three slices of sourdough with my normal eggs one day, or dinner out eating something not over the top). My daily intake of calories is slowly creeping up, but I am still losing.
I would disagree with lowering reps on compounds during a cut. In general higher reps (not necessarily high reps, but something like 8-12 vs. 3-5) will have higher stimulus to fatigue ratio for hypertrophy, and even though hypertrophy won't occur on a cut you still want to send the biggest signal for muscle retention with the least fatigue. Anecdotally, whenever I tried to hang on to my low rep strength for dear life, I had significantly worse results than when I shifted emphasis to higher reps.

Also, depending on how deep you get into a cut your leverages might get significantly less favorable for most big compounds, which shows up more on heavy sets IME. There's also some evidence for fiber conversion in a deficit in favor of slow twitch fibers, and conditioning in general tends to be better at lower bodyfat, so high rep work tends not to eat shit quite as hard as your lower rep work. Generally agree with what you said about higher rep isolation work for the same reasons, but I think any calorie burn that adds will probably be pretty minimal.

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The biggest cut I've ever done (years ago, maybe 2017 or so) was 235->185 @ 12% bf. I retained most of my muscle mass, but I could have done it much better than I did. If I had to do that cut again (hopefully not in this lifetime), I would change a few things (pretty much all based on Renaissance Periodization recommendations combined with my observations during that cut):
1. Phasic dieting. I would have gone 235->215, then 215->200, then 200-> 190, then 190->185 (maybe). These phases would be interrupted by maintenance periods equal in length to the time spent dieting. I imagine the final cut from 190->185 would not have been so brutal if I had done this, it turned into some kind of fucked up 1800 calorie pseudo-PSMF deathmarch. It probably would not have taken any longer either, since my TDEE became so incredibly low towards the end due to the almost year spent in a deficit (I was eating 1800 cal/day at 6'3" 190lbs, training 4x/week, and losing maybe 0.5lb/week).
2. Deload in a more structured way, and make sure my deloads were at maintenance calories. There were periods where I really accumulated way, way too much fatigue and it compromised my training.
3. Abandon powerlifting style training entirely deeper into the cut (maybe once I dropped below 210, for sure below 200). Train in bodybuilding rep ranges with bodybuilding exercise selections (maximizing stimulus to fatigue ratio, minimizing technical demand, minimizing mental focus required to execute the lift - lots of machine and cable shit, dumbbell work, some higher rep barbell compounds but only those I tolerate well and don't beat me up). I would also have thrown in some bodyweight shit and set goals based on that, like Hanley suggested earlier. Doing things that improve with leanness is always a good psychological boost on a cut. I was doing heavy sets of fahve on squats and deadlifts on extremely restricted calories and stimulating basically nothing but my joints and involuntary hardship organelles, this was extremely stupid.
4. Be cognizant of reductions in NEAT and actively try to fight them. If I find myself almost subconsciously parking my car super close to the office, or taking the elevator instead of the stairs, or just sinking into the couch when I could be moving around and doing something, try to fight that. That shit definitely adds up in terms of calorie expenditure, and it's less fatiguing than pretty much any cardio modality for the amount of calories burned. I'd get more done, too.

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