Fat vs. Muscle

[team-d]

If you lose 20 pounds of fat and gain 20 pounds of muscle you will still weigh the same, but you're going to need smaller clothes… any questions?

1lb of Muscle vs. 1lb of Fat

One pound of muscle will burn ~10 kcal per day.
The pound of fat will burn ~3 kcal per day.
Weight is a poor measurement of fat loss, for obvious reasons.
So, you lost a pound? That’s a pretty big deal.

Lift heavy stuff and eat enough and you’ll build more muscle which will allow you to burn more fat and get the look of muscular definition and tone that you desire.

Starving yourself and doing cardio for fat loss is a sure fire way to keep your muscles from growing properly and never reaching your full potential. Go lift weights!

If you want to track your progress accurately then you should use some sort of journal to log your body’s measurements and strength changes or take progress pictures on a regular basis.

And stay off the scale… better yet hide it in your closet and only break it out on rare occasion...

 

[MrWiskers]

You have to eat to lose weight. Cutting calories is good to a point, but if you go too far your body will fight you and when (not if) when you start eating normally again the fat will come right back.

The diet I do is 6 days of eating clean (as I can) and 1 day of eat anything. This will keep your body from going into starvation mode. Once you master this and get your fat % down, you can cut down to a cheat meal a week and even go clean 100% of the time. I have cut 25 lbs of fat in the last 16 months doing this, losing a few pounds a month and re-training my body to be at a lower weight. Losing weight too fast on starvation diets does not hold and is not healthy. I went from a 38 waist pant to a 34.

It is also important to eat enough so you have energy for workouts. If you look at P90 it has 3 resistance days (weight lifting) and 2 cardio (plus Yoga, which is a mixture of both). Each exercise will burn 500-1000 calories. You will not do these long on a starvation diet, you have to eat, but eat the right stuff.

When I get time I will post more detail around my eating patterns and workout patterns.

 

[SpurHunter]

Looking forward to hearing more about your diet plan

 

[team-d]

Good stuff! Yeah people look at me like a deer in headlights when I tell them they probably need to eat more in order to lose weight. But by eating more it has to be real food in the right amounts, several times a day.