Question about gaining muscle, not losing weight

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Frozenimages
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Question about gaining muscle, not losing weight

Post by Frozenimages »

Hello,

This is first post on here. I am a mother of two boys, youngest is 16 months. I finally found the time and motivation to start a exercise program. I am kind of all over the place right now. I started the HIIT, but then found some other exercises and exercise apps. I'm also not on a diet. I'm small framed and "fat skinny". goal isn't too lose weight, but to tighten, tone, build strength, and muscle. I'm not sure which section I am supposed to post under, so hopefully someone can assist.

What would be the best suggestion? Do something like the 30 day HIIT challenge, but add some extra exercises in and just switch out the extra's every week? The HIIT is great, but I feel it's not enough. I have the energy and time to do more. I don't expect to be transformed overnight, so I'm in it for the long haul. I am just not sure if I need to stick to the same exercises for a certain period before I switch it up or if I need to change every other day.

With the non-diet approach, it's partially because I can't afford all those health food stores products, I have a family consisting of three grown men and two growing boys that aren't too keen on "diet" food, but I cook homemade meals. I don't drink soda, a lot of caffeine or splurge of junk food, I try to eat sensible, but I don't count calories or say no to food because it's "junk". Does it seem like this eating/drinking approach will hinder or help goals?
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Boss Man
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Re: Question about gaining muscle, not losing weight

Post by Boss Man »

Hi Frozen, good to speak to you.

Your eating habits will only hinder you based on what you are actually doing. I:E: eating a portion of junk food once a week wouldn't be serious, but eating it once a day is could be more affecting on your goals.

As for the training, apart from HIIT, can you be a little more specific about what you are doing currently?
jtnkkm
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Re: Question about gaining muscle, not losing weight

Post by jtnkkm »

HIIT is good for gaining muscle. Although if you don't want to lose weight, then strength training is the better option. Lifting weights
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Re: Question about gaining muscle, not losing weight

Post by Boss Man »

However lifting weights can cause 45-50 additional calories to be burned for every 1lb of muscle a person gains, so then there is the possibility that someone might lose weight depending on their circumstances even if it was just 2-3 lbs in the long-term, as there would be no guarantees that the individuals biological response to weightlifting, would be for someones body to replace any lost fat and water weight with an exact or greater quantity of muscle.
Frozenimages
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Re: Question about gaining muscle, not losing weight

Post by Frozenimages »

Right now I'm doing low impact exercises. I usually have a 5 pound weight for each hand and a 5-10 pound weight on each foot. I try to work all the target areas evenly at least every other day. I don't have heavy weights, so I usually do between 10-15 reps on each side for every exercise. I know it's not much, but I'm trying to pace myself. The areas I spend a little extra time on is butt and abs. I have pretty toned arms and legs, excepts triceps. I still want to make sure I work out every area though.

I guess I should specify. I don't want to lose weight as in like going on a diet. If I does lose weight, no more than 5 pounds would be okay. I'm already considered "underweight" for height and weight, which I disagree. That's really why I'm not cutting out foods or counting calories. I spread of snacking I do on sweets. I would say on average, maybe 3-4 times I have thing like a couple cookies, small piece of cake, food like that. It's always in small portions and I don't eat to where hurts. I have found that since I have been doing these exercises, appetite seems to have increased, but I'm still watching what I eat and not trying to overdo it.

I'm naturally small framed, I gained 45 pounds with last pregnancy and I'm already back into regular clothes. I am just trying to avoid being a skinny stick woman and work more towards have curves and a strong body.
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Re: Question about gaining muscle, not losing weight

Post by Boss Man »

This kind of system might work for you. It's something I've posted before.

Breakfast

Option 1.

Bowl of Whole-grain Cereal and scrambled Eggs, (2 Egg Whites + Yolk)

Option 2.

Protein shake, small portion of Nuts, (excluding higher carb ones like Cashews, Chestnuts and Grapenuts).


Snack

Option 1.

Portion of Turkey + Orange

Option 2.

Small Portion of Peanuts, some Chicken


Lunch

Option 1.

Large Beef Sandwich with trimmings, I.E. Tomato, Lettuce, Cucumber etc.

Option 2.

Bowl of Chicken Soup, + Pot of yoghurt.


Snack

Option 1.

Turkey + Cashews

Option 2.

Ham + 2 large Tomatos


Dinner

Option 1.

Pork with mashed Potato.

Option 2.

Chicken and Rice

Option 3.

100g Halibut + Broccoli


Snack

Option 1.

Beans on Toast

Option 2.

Ham Sandwich, no trimmings.

Easy on the bread with both options.

You could add a few things to certain meals, like Sea Salt, Cracked Black Pepper, Parsley, Mustard, Herbs, Garlic.

As for the training you could do a schedule something like this using the weight you've got.

Squats, 2 sets, 10 reps

Lunges, 2 sets, 10 reps

Deadlifts, 2 sets, 10 reps

Military Press, 2 sets, 10 reps

Bent over Rows, 2 sets, 10 reps

Shrugs, 2 sets, 10 reps

Planks 30 seconds.

You would do that 3x a week every other day.

This is how your schedule could look per week

Day 1. Weights

Day 2. Cardio

Day 3. Weights

Day 4. Day off

Day 5. Cardio

Day 6. Weights

Day 7. Day off.

This prevents you doing 5 days straight and 2 days of nothing, as I think that's allowing too much consecutive taxation and 2 days of your body doing nothing, slowly starting to adjust to it, before 5 days of grind again, which might take the edge off progress potential, so the 5 split days should be better for you.

As for the weight I'd use the bars without any weight for shrugs and the other exercises except planks by adding the smallest amount of weight possible to both bars.

Then you increase the weight used by the smallest amount every 2 weeks and increase planks by 5 seconds a week until you're doing 90 seconds of it.
Frozenimages
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Re: Question about gaining muscle, not losing weight

Post by Frozenimages »

That is really great. I appreciate the reply giving me guidelines. I admit I had a problem of not sticking to a schedule and just doing things here are there. When I first started exercise regiment, I noticed I was getting headaches almost every day. I did some research and I received a lot of feedback that I need to make sure I stretch, warm up, and drink plenty of water. I'm not very good about drinking enough water, which is something else I need to work on.

I also think if I did more cardio, it may help motivation. I try to get up early enough in the mornings to do exercise or sometimes I'm able to squeeze in some time after I put the kids to bed. I did some reading on late night exercising and it seems that it's actually okay to do. There are days where this is really the only time I have to do any working out. On days off, I can usually do some in the morning after I drop oldest off at school.

If there are any suggestions to help me stay on track, it would help. Sometimes I lose sight of goal when I get busy with work, kids, the house, and everything else going on. I try to keep a journal, but I'm not very good about writing everything down or forgetting to do it that day. youngest also doesn't sleep through the night most of the time, so I run low on hours of sleep I get every now and then.
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Re: Question about gaining muscle, not losing weight

Post by Boss Man »

It is understandable that with circumstances relating to your domesticity, that the required time to commit to this could be a bit difficult to find sometimes.

However if you find that working out later in the day is good for you, then that would be the way forward, as early morning working out even on days off would have to be after the children have been sorted out and you had had at least one decent meal and definitely not 12-14 hours after a previous workout, or you'd be not getting adequate time to recover from workouts and it could eventually lead to over-training / going stale.
Frozenimages
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Re: Question about gaining muscle, not losing weight

Post by Frozenimages »

Boss Man wrote:However if you find that working out later in the day is good for you, then that would be the way forward, as early morning working out even on days off would have to be after the children have been sorted out and you had had at least one decent meal and definitely not 12-14 hours after a previous workout, or you'd be not getting adequate time to recover from workouts and it could eventually lead to over-training / going stale.
I actually did not know that. In all the information gathering on exercising, I don't recall reading about how long to rest in between workouts. I knew in regards to days, but not hours. That's very informative. Some days I'll exercise late at night and then get up early enough to do some in the morning. That time frame window may be 6-8 hours usually. I'll be sure to keep that in the back of head. I really want to make improvement, but don't want to over do it or hit a plateau. Thank you for the information :)
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Re: Question about gaining muscle, not losing weight

Post by Boss Man »

Some people may have better recovery times than others but in general you large muscle groups need around 2 days to recover and small ones 24 hours.
HoneyBadger
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Re: Question about gaining muscle, not losing weight

Post by HoneyBadger »

The best way to stick with things is to figure out what you enjoy and go from there.

For me, I like to have a trainer put together a plan for me. I'm familiar with most exercises, and I mostly need them to split up muscle groups and come up with some variety and make sure I'm not missing any of the smaller muscles in the process. I also need a plan that is pretty specific to me, and needs for sport.

I use cardio time as warm up on days when plan is just ST and not a WOD/HIIT type session. I like to have a WOD/HIIT type workout 2 days a week, 3 days of ST/Cardio, and 1 day of "free" exercise of choice (may be a bicycle ride, hiking, moto ride, whatever).

But that's what I enjoy. Some people enjoy classes. Some like to be all outdoors. Find your favorite, then find things within that to do.

I'm a morning workout person - get up early, go to gym shortly after they open, and home in time to get ready for work. That way, no matter how stressful the rest of day is, at least I got workout in! I'm not a morning person, but I'm WAY more consistent with a morning routine, so I just suck it up. Once I'm out of bed it's not too bad :)
xMaxZ
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Re: Question about gaining muscle, not losing weight

Post by xMaxZ »

You should definitly do strength training because other types of training will make you go down in weight aswell.
So just lifting weights will do the trick.

-Max
Vegas Jon
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Re: Question about gaining muscle, not losing weight

Post by Vegas Jon »

best way to put on muscle is strength training--namely compound movements like the squat, deadlift, bench press, overhead press, and rows.
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