Heyo, I randomly stumbled upon this thread after being a 9-year OCR lover, and am hoping to join in on the fitness fun. 7 months ago I started working out for the first time in my life, and have been really excited & motivated the entire time to keep it going. Even though I've been at it for over half a year it STILL feels so new to me, so I'd love to get your guys' input on what I've been doing.
My regimen is the at-home P90 program. Basically for 6 days per week, you alternate between 1 day of 45 min overall weight training (all muscle groups, dumbells-only), and 1 day 50 min cardio/situps. Continues back and forth, so no particular day is devoted to a muscle group, but you don't work out any muscle groups 2 days in a row (though I do pushups & situps every day). I also walk ~50 minutes per day and jog ~10.
My TDEE is apparently ~1800. Over the first 4 months, my macros were 1400-1500 cal, 30 fat, 4 sat. fat, 180 carbs, 110 protein. I cut 20lbs over those 4 months, which was my ultimate goal. In a self-performed body fat test using calipers, I measure about 9% (5mm belly, 6mm pec, 22mm thigh).
Since then I've been eating much closer or above maintenance: 2000 cals, 45 fat, 12 sat. fat, 250 carbs, 145 protein. In the 3 months since that increase, I've seen virtually no weight loss/gain. Which I guess makes sense given that I'm eating more, but I would have expected an even bigger increase in weight gain. Maybe my TDEE is just higher than calculators show.
So, my questions:
- Ultimately, I'm looking to gain muscle. I'll admit that I'm a bit "scared" to eat more to achieve this, given all the work I've put into cutting. Sounds like a stupid question, but I guess the answer is simply to man up and do it, huh?
- Visually I see a small amount of muscle increase. However, 1) the change is coming exceedingly slowly, and 2) I don't *feel* much stronger, evidenced by the fact that I have barely increased my weights at all during this time. I usually do 15-20 reps of any given lift, but my capabilities here have never really increased. Should I be aiming to increase my weight regardless, doing fewer reps per exercise?
- If caloric deficit is all that matters in weight loss, I'm having difficulty understanding the role of fat, sat. fat, and carbs in weight loss. In my research I've never found a final answer to this. I've only found a few studies which showed that low-medium cal/low carb diets outperformed low cal/low fat diets.
- This last page had some discussion about sodium. I understand its impact on water weight, but sodium has close to no longterm effect on weight whatsoever, correct?
- The only break I've taken during this time (besides the 1 day per week) is a week in January. Should I be taking extended breaks of no workout whatsoever more often? Say, a week every few months or so?
- Does my regimen sound effective? From what I've read it's pretty standard, but it's a fairly outdated approach (2005), and it seems HIIT is becoming the hot ticket these days.
Thank you! Catching up with this thread has been enlightening, I've learned a lot of things I wouldn't have expected.