General workout question

I am not saying what you need. I don't know what you need, what your's current muscle mass is or want to be. and what are your blood work, how much do you absorb etc etc.

but for me - a 145 lbs female, with low body fat % and higher muscles mass- I need 80-100 gr of proteins per day, every day to maintain my current muscles mass with moderate exercises. (I don't exercise daily)

when I lost too much weight and I started exercise to increase -re- build my muscles - i try to eat up to 150 gr of proteins per day. Mostly meat and eggs, fish. Plus fat.

To lose weight, you need to eat fewer calories than you burn. If you do that for more than just a few days, you burn fat, but you will also lose muscle. It's a universal truth, and cannot be avoided. But, you can minimize the amount of muscle lost, and maximize the amount of fat burned, by lifting heavy while you are in a caloric deficit.

Lifting heavy means lifting so much that you can only do 8 to 12 repetitions before stopping. If you can lift a weight 20 times, it's too light. The amount you can lift will increase over time if you really work at it, lifting every other day. But you are NOT adding new muscle. You are making the existing muscle stronger. Strength and new muscle are not at all the same thing.

To add new muscle, you must eat more calories than you burn, while also stressing your muscles by lifting heavy.

BUT, if you are eating extra calories, lifting heavy, and adding muscle, you are also adding fat. Because, extra calories.

Weightlifters -- real weightlifters -- do this cycle of too few calories and then too many calories. They refer to it as cutting and bulking. They lift heavy all the time. They start out bulking, eating extra calories, and add new muscle and fat. Then they cut, eating reduced calories and losing some fat and also some of their new muscle.

If they control the amount of calories closely, over many years of these cycles of cutting and bulking, they will have lots of new muscles, and not a lot of fat. But it needs precision. Most eat way too many extra calories. We've all seen plenty of weightlifters who are extraordinarily strong and muscular, but who are also fat.

Part 2, because the first part was so long.

When you lift heavy or start an intense new workout regimen, you put a lot of stress on muscles. There are actually microtears in the muscle tissue. We've all been sore the day after a hard workout, especially when it's new.

This process can hurt, but it's how muscle is made and/or strengthened. But all that minor damage causes us to retain all kinds of water to help repair the damage, and build our strength and endurance. That's why everyone who starts intense new workouts freak out, because the scale goes up. In response, they spend more time at the gym, and work out harder. And guess what? You retain more water, and the scale bumps up.

Many people explain the extra weight as their new muscle. It isn't. It's jus****er. If you are on a low calorie diet, it's not possible to have new muscle. You will be stronger. But strength is not more muscle, just stronger muscle.

Working out is good. Lifting heavy is grwat. You'll retain more muscle while losing. Long term benefits are worth it. But do not do it thinking you'll see the scale go down faster. It won't.

Part 3.

The last important thing to remember is, exercise makes many people hungry, and they eat more. They may not be conscious of it, but they do. Studies of those training, really hard, for a 26 mile marathon shows they GAIN weight.

Others think that extra exercise means they should fuel those workouts with extra food. Don't. You don't need it. It's our morbidly obese subconscious trying to keep us fat.

Work out, but stick to low calories and carbs until the weight is gone.

Thank you for so much info! ALWAYS so helpful!!!!