Bountyhunter74
Newbie
In order to give the proper perspective on my question, I need to bore those of you willing to read it, with a story.
I am 39 years old. Before the time period mentioned in this thread, I had not lifted regularly since my late teens, a little more than 20 years ago. On January 2nd, 2013, I was an obese 306lbs. I had had enough of how I looked, felt, etc. and decided to do something about it. Simply by calorie cutting and monitoring, and adding some moderate cardio as time went by, I dropped 91lbs by early November. On November 18th, 2013, I decided to pick up the iron again, and haven't put it down since. I knew the way I was eating would not work. I was consuming too few calories to gain any real muscle and I certainly wasn't eating clean. I upped my daily caloric intake from 1600 to 2500, and began really watching the quality of what I ate. I still have about 70lbs that I ought to lose but my goals have changed too. The last few months of lifting have been kind to me and my muscular development is coming along faster than I dared hope. Still, there is an issue, and the point of this thread.
At 5'5" and 215lbs, I still had aways to go on my original weight loss mission. My main concern now is,eating enough calories to repair and grow muscle while not blowing my hard-earned weight loss progress. I have read articles that suggest I should be consuming 3,000 calories a day, or more. My concern is that, at that many calories, no matter how clean, I will gain fat as well. No big deal if I weighed 140lbs and simply wanted to grow, but this is not the case.
I am 39 years old. Before the time period mentioned in this thread, I had not lifted regularly since my late teens, a little more than 20 years ago. On January 2nd, 2013, I was an obese 306lbs. I had had enough of how I looked, felt, etc. and decided to do something about it. Simply by calorie cutting and monitoring, and adding some moderate cardio as time went by, I dropped 91lbs by early November. On November 18th, 2013, I decided to pick up the iron again, and haven't put it down since. I knew the way I was eating would not work. I was consuming too few calories to gain any real muscle and I certainly wasn't eating clean. I upped my daily caloric intake from 1600 to 2500, and began really watching the quality of what I ate. I still have about 70lbs that I ought to lose but my goals have changed too. The last few months of lifting have been kind to me and my muscular development is coming along faster than I dared hope. Still, there is an issue, and the point of this thread.
At 5'5" and 215lbs, I still had aways to go on my original weight loss mission. My main concern now is,eating enough calories to repair and grow muscle while not blowing my hard-earned weight loss progress. I have read articles that suggest I should be consuming 3,000 calories a day, or more. My concern is that, at that many calories, no matter how clean, I will gain fat as well. No big deal if I weighed 140lbs and simply wanted to grow, but this is not the case.