The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
-
Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
-
Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
-
Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
-
Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I don't know anything about this stuff, but I thought I remember hearing people (maybe even Motte people) say that it's much easier to have weight loss cycles separate from bulking cycles. I'd be curious to know, because I'm also losing weight and working out, though I'm more focused on losing weight, and I'm working out much less intensely than you. I'm just working out a few times per week, and if my smart scale is to be trusted (I don't actually trust it, it's too inconsistent day to day), I'm losing muscle, despite the working out. But still, my body fat percentage is still going down, meaning in losing more fat than muscle.
Yeah cutting cycles and bulking cycles are different, but your training in the gym shouldn't differ too much between them. The things you do in the gym to gain muscle during a bulk are the things you need to do to maintain muscle during a cut. What I do is a 6 weeks training -> 1 week deload cycle. So for 6 weeks I eat in a hypocaloric diet, and add weekly sets to all my muscle groups over those 6 weeks, then I take a week completely off from training to recover, during which I eat at maintenance, then repeat the cycle.
More options
Context Copy link
It's the ladder of building muscle:
noobs can gain non-trivial amount of muscle while dieting or later eating at maintenance
intermediates can gain non-trivial amount of muscle when bulking
advanced bodybuilders can only gain non-trivial amount of muscle when bulking on a very strict diet
In general, skeletal muscles are luxury organs. Your body will get rid of excess muscle as soon as it convinces itself it needs to conserve energy and it doesn't really need them that much. That's why it's necessary to keep all your muscles well-fatigued during cutting, especially when you have bigger muscles that usual: your body goes, "shit, not enough food, what can I convert into energy? These fat stores look useful for a rainy day, how about I start with these biceps?"
More options
Context Copy link
Yeah, it's generally more efficient to cut and then bulk than to do a recomp at maintenance. It is possible to gain muscle while on a deficit but it depends on certain things like, starting body fat %, training history, previous training history, size of the deficit. If you have a higher body fat % it's easier to maintain or gain muscle on a cut (until you get to a low bf%), if you're new to training it's easier to build muscle, if you have previous experience lifting but took an extended break and lost muscle mass your body will put it back on faster than an untrained beginner and if you diet more slowly it's easier to maintain or gain muscle than if you lose the weight fast.
Still important to train while dieting though to maintain as much muscle as possible, and usually cutting diets have even higher protein targets.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link