Is this realistic?

In Patricia Heil wrote:

It's not a good idea. You can't improve your heart fitness
without aerobic exercise, and resistance work is not aerobic.
Add half an hour of walking or other aerobics every day.

You mean another half hour, in addition to the 100 minutes he's already
doing and plans to continue doing? Learn to read, you top-posting moron.


Ignoramus19471 wrote:

I am a male, 32 year old, 5'11", BMI 24.5, BF% about 17-19% according
to my imprecise tests with calipers. I recently lost 47 lbs and have
been maintaining for almost 3 months. My current shape is being able
to do 10 pullups, 35 pushups, etc.

What I would like to do is lose about 10 lbs of fat and gain about 5
lbs of muscle, within one year (2004).

To accomplish that, I plan on doing the following:

1. continue to eat a reasonable diet (no gorging on protein). Maybe
about 25% of calories from protein, 35% from fat, and 40% from
carbs. I am not willing to eat much more protein due to a variety of
reasons, one being that my current diet works great for me.

2. Continue walking 100 minutes per day on weekdays. I need this for
weight maintenance.

3. Exercise about 30 minutes per day using calisthenics -- pushups,
pullups, crunches, bridges (thanks for the tip from
misc.fitness.weights), etc. I have 20 and 35 lbs dumbbells and I am
willing to buy 50 lbs dumbbells if it becomes necessary.

4. I do not want to join a gym due to time constraints.

5. I will lose weight gradually at about 1 lb per month rate.

My question is, is this realistic. Can I accomplish a 5 lbs muscle
gain with 30 minutes per day exercise described, given that I am
already not sedentary and have been exercising for the last 5 months
or so.

i
223/176/180

Patricia Heil wrote:


It's not a good idea. You can't improve your heart fitness
without aerobic exercise,

References? Hint: the body of recent research contradicts this
statement.

and resistance work is not aerobic.

It may not be aerobic, but it's cardio.

--
-Wayne

I all depends. Some men gain muscle rapidly, others don't gain much
muscle no matter how hard they try. I say try it and see what happens.
Allow a year to see changes. Remember the principle of overload - to
gain muscle you must lift more than you are accustomed to. Your
largest muscles are your leg muscles, try squats, lunges, etc to
enlarge them.

Robert Dorf wrote in message . ..
On Sat, 6 Dec 2003 11:17:59 -0500, "Steve Freides"
wrote:

"Ignoramus19471" wrote in message
...
I am a male, 32 year old, 5'11", BMI 24.5, BF% about 17-19% according
to my imprecise tests with calipers. I recently lost 47 lbs and have
been maintaining for almost 3 months. My current shape is being able
to do 10 pullups, 35 pushups, etc.

What I would like to do is lose about 10 lbs of fat and gain about 5
lbs of muscle, within one year (2004).

To accomplish that, I plan on doing the following:

1. continue to eat a reasonable diet (no gorging on protein). Maybe
about 25% of calories from protein, 35% from fat, and 40% from
carbs. I am not willing to eat much more protein due to a variety of
reasons, one being that my current diet works great for me.

2. Continue walking 100 minutes per day on weekdays. I need this for
weight maintenance.

3. Exercise about 30 minutes per day using calisthenics -- pushups,
pullups, crunches, bridges (thanks for the tip from
misc.fitness.weights), etc. I have 20 and 35 lbs dumbbells and I am
willing to buy 50 lbs dumbbells if it becomes necessary.

4. I do not want to join a gym due to time constraints.

5. I will lose weight gradually at about 1 lb per month rate.

My question is, is this realistic. Can I accomplish a 5 lbs muscle
gain with 30 minutes per day exercise described, given that I am
already not sedentary and have been exercising for the last 5 months
or so.

I think it's realistic.

He's a 32 year old natural trying to lose ten pounds of fat and add
five pounds of muscle within a year, all without being willing to move
beyond 50 lb dumbbells (apparently fixed weight) or consider any
changes whatsoever to his diet or training.

It's not realistic.

Ignoramus19471 wrote:

In article , Robert Dorf wrote:
On 6 Dec 2003 18:28:13 GMT, Ignoramus19471
Well, if I do pullups, that means I pull 176 lbs of weight up, right?
That's quite a bit of weight. With chinups, most of the work is done
by biceps, I believe. If I do perfect pushups, that means I bench
press 100 lbs 25-30 times, also not bad. If my feet are on the
armchair while I am doing pushups, the effective weight come become
more like 130 lbs. So my program will include decent resistance
training. I agree that I won't accomplish spectacular results, but
that's not what I am after.

You're trying, at 32, to add 5 pounds of muscle while dropping 10
pounds of fat after a weight loss of 47 pounds. With an HST or
similar style weight training program, including a couple of short
bulking phases in your diet and longer cutting phases, you might have
a shot. Even then it would depend on you having room to grow.

Alternating bulking with weight loss is something that I may look
into. Maybe instead of one year, I will try to do it in 18 months,
where I would lose 1-1.5 lb a month for 12 months, and then add a few
pounds back during bulking. I would prefer, however, to be steady,
rather than alternate weight loss and weight gain.

Your preference does not matter to your body. The physiological reality
is that gaining weight and losing weight are contradictory activities
requiring opposite caloric requirements. IOW, if you want to continue
to lose weight, you will need to maintain a caloric deficit; if you want
to gain weight (add LBM), you will need to consume a caloric surplus.

Yes, there are some caveats to the generality above, which is why Bob
has been pointing out you've already lost 47 pounds, but, generally
speaking, if you're not overly fat and/or a rank beginner, you're not
going to lose fat while adding muscle in any appreciable (10 lb. of fat
and 5 lb. of muscle is appreciable) amounts.
ps

Ignoramus19471 wrote:

In article , Steve Freides wrote:

It's impossible to simultaneously gain muscle and lose fat so you're
probably best trying to lose more weight for a while, then up your caloric
intake and work on gaining muscle, and so on - you can go back and forth
between these two phases more than once during the course of a year.

Is that a hard and fast rule? If that was the case, I would not mind
alternating, if that's what I have to do. The reason why I think my
case may be an exception is that both my weight loss and muscle gain
goals are modest and I allow myself a lot of time.

i

Not only is it not a hard and fast rule, it's not even correct. I think
what Steve meant is that it is very difficult for those who aren't
overly fat to do so. For example, had you put together a decent
resistance program when you began your 47 pound weight loss you would
likely have added a bit of muscle while you dropped some of that fat.
In fact, you probably did do so anyway if you were doing any resistance
work at that time or if you were highly detrained when you started.

The problem with continuing to try to do so as you have dropped to a
more normal or reasonable body fat level is that it becomes very
difficult and inefficient to do so. Sure you could try to accomplish the
drop 10 and add 5 at the same time over a year to a year and a half, but
you could accomplish it more easily, more efficiently, and with a
greater level of assurance of achieving your goals by choosing to use
alternate cycles of bulking and cutting.
ps

Sarah Jane wrote:

In Patricia Heil wrote:

It's not a good idea. You can't improve your heart fitness
without aerobic exercise, and resistance work is not aerobic.
Add half an hour of walking or other aerobics every day.

You mean another half hour, in addition to the 100 minutes he's already
doing and plans to continue doing? Learn to read, you top-posting moron.

Come on, Sarah, don't hold back.
ps

In article ,
gps wrote:

Ignoramus19471 wrote:

In article , Steve Freides
wrote:

It's impossible to simultaneously gain muscle and lose fat so you're
probably best trying to lose more weight for a while, then up your
caloric
intake and work on gaining muscle, and so on - you can go back and forth
between these two phases more than once during the course of a year.

Is that a hard and fast rule? If that was the case, I would not mind
alternating, if that's what I have to do. The reason why I think my
case may be an exception is that both my weight loss and muscle gain
goals are modest and I allow myself a lot of time.

i

Not only is it not a hard and fast rule, it's not even correct. I think
what Steve meant is that it is very difficult for those who aren't
overly fat to do so.


Any ballpark figure for what % bodyfat the cutoff for "overly fat" would
be? Say for someone who's lifted weights for a few years so isn't
likely to be getting newbie gains in musculature at the same time?

Will wrote:

In article ,
gps wrote:

Ignoramus19471 wrote:

In article , Steve Freides
wrote:

It's impossible to simultaneously gain muscle and lose fat so you're
probably best trying to lose more weight for a while, then up your
caloric
intake and work on gaining muscle, and so on - you can go back and forth
between these two phases more than once during the course of a year.

Is that a hard and fast rule? If that was the case, I would not mind
alternating, if that's what I have to do. The reason why I think my
case may be an exception is that both my weight loss and muscle gain
goals are modest and I allow myself a lot of time.

i

Not only is it not a hard and fast rule, it's not even correct. I think
what Steve meant is that it is very difficult for those who aren't
overly fat to do so.

Any ballpark figure for what % bodyfat the cutoff for "overly fat" would
be? Say for someone who's lifted weights for a few years so isn't
likely to be getting newbie gains in musculature at the same time?

Ask Lyle or Elzi, I think they'd be the most qualified to answer. I
have no clue.
ps

"Sarah Jane" wrote in message
...
In Patricia Heil wrote:

It's not a good idea. You can't improve your heart fitness
without aerobic exercise, and resistance work is not aerobic.
Add half an hour of walking or other aerobics every day.

You mean another half hour, in addition to the 100 minutes he's already
doing and plans to continue doing? Learn to read, you top-posting moron.


Yeah baby!! I love the 'tude! Is it just me, or does anybody else think SJ
is hot!

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
Brux Brule

"Quit your whining, shut up and train."

"Steve Freides" wrote in message
...

It's impossible to simultaneously gain muscle and lose fat so you're
probably best trying to lose more weight for a while, then up your caloric
intake and work on gaining muscle, and so on - you can go back and forth
between these two phases more than once during the course of a year.


Just a question. Why do you say it's "impossible" to lose fat and gain
muscle at the same time? Are you referring to *literally* at the same time
or around the same period? I've been exercising and eating well... I
haven't been losing much weight at all but my clothes definitely fit better.
I can see my stomach has shrunk a little and my biceps are more pronounced
yet I'm still around the same weight. Doesn't that mean I've lost fat and
gained some muscle at the same time?