Having trouble losing losing fat while maintaining muscle

[Chicagotarsier]

Just from the looks your carbs are way to low to sustain a long term activity level like this. Your scans show you are burning muscle. This occurs when there is not enough carbs (or fats) to allow protein to be properly absorbed. This leads to the weak feeling you have. Just went through an experience like this. I have upped my carbs to 30% from 20% and it appears to have helped stabilize my muscle. Read up on Nitrogen level in muscle...

Macronutrient content of a hypoenergy diet ... [Int J Sports Med. 1988] - PubMed - NCBI

Weight lifters (WL) attempt to achieve a low body fat while maintaining fat free mass (FFM) and muscle function. Body composition and isometric muscular endurance were tested in 19 experienced male WL at the end of a weight maintenance and exercise routine standardization week. The subjects were assigned to either a control (C), moderate-protein (0.8 g.kg-1.d-1), high-carbohydrate hypoenergy diet (MP/HC), or high-protein (1.6 g.kg-1.d-1), moderate-carbohydrate hypoenergy diet (HP/MC). Both hypoenergy diets provided 75.3 kJ (18 kcal).kg-1.d-1. Apparent nitrogen balance (NBAL) was assessed using nitrogen in the diet, urine, and sweat. Body fat and FFM loss via hydrostatic weighing were not different between the hypoenergy groups. However, lean body mass (LBM) change as assessed by NBAL showed that the MP/HC group had an average negative NBAL of -3.19 g.d-1 while the HP/MC group had a positive NBAL of 4.13 g.d-1. Macronutrient mix did not affect biceps endurance, but quadriceps endurance declined for the HP/MC group during the experimental week. In conclusion, a hypoenergy diet providing twice the RDA for protein was more effective in retaining body protein in WL than a diet with higher carbohydrate but the RDA for protein. However, the lower carbohydrate of this diet contributed to reduced muscular endurance in these athletes.

This medical study has the RDA being met in all the participants. You are not meeting your RDA for your activity level in carbs and maybe fat. As posted above your body has to get the energy from somewhere...it is burning protien..you are catabolic. Less is not always better.

[jashim]

My carbs are looking too low now or my carbs previously were too low?

I'm trying a cyclical keto diet now so my carbs are almost nothing. I'm going to refeed soon by eating 1kg of cornflakes.

[jashim]

6/5

I decided to have a cheat meal last night and thought I may as well then make that the start of my refeed. I ate a beef noodle soup, 8 dumplings, a chives pancake and a beer at 8pm. Between 10pm and 10am I ate 500g of cornflakes. It was really tiresome eating all of those so I tried one and a half bagels at noon. I think bagels are a much better way to go.

BE: 95x2
Pull-ups, pushups

[jashim]

In the future, my refeed day will be on a Monday and consist of 12 blueberry bagels and 6 scoops of protein.
4287 calories, 258g protein, 33.6g fat, 728g carbs.

Monday: BE
Tuesday: SQ
Thursday: OHP
Friday: DL

Not bothering with any cardio.

I will do a DEXA scan on Friday the 16th of May.

[jashim]

9/5

SQ: 122.5xFail, will drop weight down a bit next week
Abs

[jashim]

10/5

DL: 130x1

[jashim]

12/5

BE: 100x2 (I think, had a bad spotter who assisted too much)
Chins, dips

[jashim]

14/5

SQ: 120x1
OHP: 55x1
PP: 60x1
Chins, pushups, abs

[jashim]

Progress pic:


I will be getting a DEXA scan tomorrow, but I will potentially be doing a clean bulk to regain lost muscle.

Potential bulking diet: 3L lite milk, 10 flat scoops of Protein Synergy 5, 1 Big Mac, 6g of fish oil, multivitamin, iron supplement. 2960 calories, 352g protein, 82.4g fat, 200g carbs
This is almost identical to a similar diet I recovered after I did Lyle McDonald's Rapid Fat Loss and I recovered a lot of muscle with some fat loss, I ended up putting on some fat once I pushed the calories above 3000.

The program:
Monday:
Squat 3x5
Overhead press 3x5
Pullups 4xAMAP

Wednesday:
Bench 3x5
Front squat 3x5
Rows 3x8

Friday:
Push press 3x3
Deadlift 1x5
Dips 4x12
Ab circuit

Starting weights:
Squat: 112.5kg, increase by 2.5kg/week
Overhead press: 52.5kg, increase by 1.25kg/week
Bench: 87.5kg, increase by 2.5kg/week
Front squat: 85kg, increase by 2.5kg/week
Push press: 65kg, increase by 1.25kg/week
Deadlift: 120kg, increase by 2.5kg/week

[jashim]

16/5

DEXA scan:
Total body weight:73.5kg -> 69.9kg
Fat mass: 12.8kg (17.4%) -> 11.1kg (15.8%)
Fat free mass: 60.7kg -> 58.8kg

[lovbyts]

I was going to say I think you are over doing it with all the Dexa scans and monitoring everything a little to much but great progress over the last few months. Still dont worry so much about day to day or even week to week. I found just taking pictures 1xa month or every 2 weeks was enough to see if there was a change I was looking for.

Nice job.

[jashim]

Haha, well when you've been training for so many years and yet gotten such unsatisfactory results, I would much prefer to overdo than underdo it

18/5

SQ 112.5: 1x3, 110: 2x5
OHP 52.5: 1x5, 50: 2x5
Pullups: 12, 8, 7, 5

[jashim]

20/5

BE 90: 4,4,3
FS 82.5: 3x5
Rows 80: 3, 70: 8,8

[hawk14dl]

I have an opinion, may or may not be true but I thought I'd point it out so that it could be discussed.

5/3/1 is a strength program. Not much (if any) good for building or maintaining mass.

In the calorie deficit, you're not doing any hypertrophy work for mass. You can possibly lose lbm while maintaining strength with your training program.

Your results look great however. This was just something I wanted to open up for discussion

[jashim]

22/5

PP 65: 2, 62.5: 3, 2
DL 120: 5
Dips: 17, 8, 6, 11
Abs

[jashim]

25/5
SQ 112.5: 3x5
OHP 52.5: 3x5
Pullups: 12, 7, 6, 4

[jashim]

27/5
BE 90: 3x5
FS 85: 3x5
Pull-ups: 13, 5, 4, 7, 5, 5, 3

[jashim]

I had a week holidays where I ate like shit and binged on booze and drugs, so I lost some progress

4/6
Jog
Rowing machine
SQ: 100x5, 105x4, 112.5x1
OHP: 45x5, 47.5x5, 52.5x3
Pull-ups: 12, 7
Dips: 13, 11
Pushups: 18, 15

[jashim]

6/6

PP 62.5: 3x3
DL 120: 5
Dips: 19, 8, 7, 10

[jashim]

9/6

SQ 115: 3x5
OHP 52.5: 2x5, 55: 1x5
Pullups

[jashim]

11/6

BE 92.5: 4, 5, 5
FS 87.5: 3x5
Rows 75: 9, 8, 8

[jashim]

15/6

PP 62.5: 2x3, 65: 1x3
DL 122.5: 1x5

[gearbox]

Progress pic:


I will be getting a DEXA scan tomorrow, but I will potentially be doing a clean bulk to regain lost muscle.

Potential bulking diet: 3L lite milk, 10 flat scoops of Protein Synergy 5, 1 Big Mac, 6g of fish oil, multivitamin, iron supplement. 2960 calories, 352g protein, 82.4g fat, 200g carbs
This is almost identical to a similar diet I recovered after I did Lyle McDonald's Rapid Fat Loss and I recovered a lot of muscle with some fat loss, I ended up putting on some fat once I pushed the calories above 3000.

The program:
Monday:
Squat 3x5
Overhead press 3x5
Pullups 4xAMAP

Wednesday:
Bench 3x5
Front squat 3x5
Rows 3x8

Friday:
Push press 3x3
Deadlift 1x5
Dips 4x12
Ab circuit

Starting weights:
Squat: 112.5kg, increase by 2.5kg/week
Overhead press: 52.5kg, increase by 1.25kg/week
Bench: 87.5kg, increase by 2.5kg/week
Front squat: 85kg, increase by 2.5kg/week
Push press: 65kg, increase by 1.25kg/week
Deadlift: 120kg, increase by 2.5kg/week

your definitely not losing any muscle. you have a lot of fat to lose. awesome progress so far. Food for thought- many think they are losing muscle cause we ALL hold more FAT then we think overall. and cutting sucks cause your strength is not there like it would be with normal or higher carbs and overall calories so you do not feel strong and often weaker which makes ppl think their losing muscle.
keep it up

[VegasBody]

I don't know if I eat "clean" or not, it's mostly protein shakes and milk which isn't the best, I know, but I work long office hours, sometimes 12-15 hour days,

There goes your problem
Cook your food ahead
Plain chicken breast brown rice broccoli
Portion it weigh it otherwise u will be off
1 month i guarantee u 2 lb a week
I drooped 5% in month and half
It boring and very hard but U can do it

[VegasBody]

Hiit 5 days week 1 hr
Weight training 5 days 1 hr
Guarantee to lose fat and preserve muscle
40 mg anavar ed
200 mg test week

[jashim]

I think I'm going to see how much strength I can recover on 3000 calories, cut on Ultimate Diet 2.0 with clenbuterol and then do just one cycle for muscle gain. I'm still researching about test etc. so I don't want to try it until I'm ready.

18/6
SQ 117.5: 3x5
OHP 55: 3x5
Pull-ups

[jashim]

21/6

BE 95: 5, 5, 3
FS 90: 3x5
Rows 80: 3x8

[jashim]

23/6

PP 65: 3x5
DL 125: 1x5
Dips

[jashim]

26/6

SQ 120: 3x5
OHP 55: 2x5, 57.5: 1x4
Pull-ups

[jashim]

28/6
BE 95: 3x5
FS 92.5: 3x5
Rows 85: 8,8,6

[jashim]

2/7
PP 65: 2x5, 67.5: 1x5
DL 130: 1x5
Dips
Abs

[jashim]

5/7

SQ 125: 5, 2
OHP 57.5: 5, 5, 4
Pull-ups

[jashim]

7/7

BE 97.5: 5, 4
FS 97.5: 3x5
Rows