Workout causing to lose too much weight?

[chrischarles]

Hi there - I've just started to work out seriously again for the last 3 months, with the goal in mind to really BULK up my upper body.

Age: 34
Height: 6'0"
Weight: 170 lbs

When I started, I was almost 190 lbs, with LOTS of body fat, and whereas I and others are already seeing the results, I am concerned about the high amount of weight loss and what I feel is not enough muscle gain. It might be me being impatient, but I can???t help feeling that I am doing something wrong, preventing me from seeing the true potential gains.

I am working out 4 to 5 days a week for about 60 minutes each session, doing high-to-low reps (10-8-6) while increasing weight, plus another 20 to 30 mins of cardio at end of weight session (not sure how good this is, but topic for another thread). During the sessions, I do ALL of my target muscle exercises, just alternating the ORDER in which I do them from day to day.

At 170 lbs, even thought the bulk is starting to show, I am concerned about the dramatic weight loss (have not been this weight since high-school), when I am trying to bulk up, and therefore shouldn't my weight be in fact, increasing?

I've read in several various other posts in this forum and that in reality, I should be going 2 to 3 days per week to the gym, but I find when I do that, my strength capabilities are diminished instead of in fact watching my lift capabilities grow with time (I have seen about a 20% increase in weight capabilities since I started).

Some people suggest a FULL 24 - 48 hours to rest for the muscle group that you have completed working out, but I find that I can target ALL the groups in my goal within the 60 - 90 minutes that I allocate myself.
Is working out the same groups for 4 to 5 days straight (if I am able to take it) really that bad for bulking up?

As for the cardio - where I'm trying to also strengthen my heart and increase my heart rate, is this COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE if I am really trying to BULK up (20 - 30 mins on elliptical at 3/4 of MAX resistance)?


I appreciate ANY feedback if you think I???m doing something wrong here as a ???newbie???.

Thanks

 

[FMJ]

Hi CC.
Welcome to IM.
Let me first say congrats on losing 30 pounds. The process of losing or gaining weight doesn't happen in the gym. It's a dietary aspect of training. If you want to gain weight, you have to feed your body all the calories it needs to perform biological funtions (BMR) and then account for your training and add in 500 more calories for weight gain. In short, eat more than you burn by breathing, walking, training, etc.
As for your training, yes, you do need to properly rest between workouts. Yes, it's bad to work the same bodyparts every day of the week. You'll certainly reach a point (if not already) of overtraining which means, no muscle gain at all.
Best advise I can give at this point, Post your training and dietary habits so that the members here can evaluate. Also check out the sticky threads in this forum as well as the Diet & Training forum.
Lets start there and we can better help after you supply us the other info.

 

[chrischarles]

Hi FMJ - thanks for the insightful info

To asnwer a couple of your questions - Here is my daily calorie intake

I rotate on different types of Chili recipes that I've found:

360 Calories
15.5 grams of fat
30.5 grams of protein
25.4 grams of carbs

and various types of Burrito recipes that I've also found:

367 Calories
9 grams of fat
30 grams of protein
41g grams of carbs

FIVE (5) times per day.
This is the limit of my nutritional intake, excluding the shakes.

I WAS only taking 1 shake per day (right after my workout) but people are telling me with my current status, I should be taking a shake in the morning, PRE-workout and also POST-workout. Do you think that's too much protein? is there even such a thing as drinking too much protein shake?

My routine consisted of basically doing ALL upper body excersices for about 60 - 75 mins, 4 to 5 times a week. This was a mix of cable, machine and free weights targeting the delts, pecs, biceps, forearms, and triceps.

Add to this doing my abs EVERY night (Mon - Thur) before going to bed.

As you said, I've been told that it's not a good thing to do all these muscle groups EACH day, but better to focus on one or two groups, and come back to them, maybe 24 - 48 hours later. So basically, once per week.

 

[FMJ]

Wow... Umm... okay.. well for starters... you're 6' tall, 170lbs.
I haven't run the numbers but I'm guessing that you need something like 3000 calories a day to even begin to see weight gain.
You'll also have to eat in more proper ratio's. Something like 40-50% carbs, 30-40% protein and 12-25% fat.
You'll want to try to maintain a clean diet so you don't gain much fat while bulking up, though I wouldn't be too worried about that at the moment.
The training routine is all wrong and you're gonna hear that from every person reading this thread. You're primarilly hitting very small muscle groups. Mostly isolation exercises. these do very little for the body in terms of muscle gains.
You'll need to start doing some good leg and back training. These are the two largest muscle groups you have and both are being completely neglected. It's in your very best interest to start getting pullups, deadlifts, squats, bent rows and similar compound movements into your routine. These are the lifts that will not only make your legs and back stronger but they will make all of your muscles grow stronger and bigger than just doing curls and tri's. Again, I will refer you to the sticky threads. There's a ton of important info that will open your eyes to why you haven't been gaining weight. It's all in there, you simply need to read it.
Good luck man.

 

[sassy69]

Yea .. I was going to say, let's step back from the training because DIET is what is fueling everything you are trying to do. If you're not eating for your goals, you're not going to achieve your goals.

If you're eating about 360 cals x 5/day = 1800 cals. Hun, I'm 5'7" and I CUT on that for BB competition. YOU NEED TO EAT MORE! If you want to gain muscle mass, I'd be upping the protein AND carbs - to build muscle mass and also to fuel building more muscle. To compare I have 35 g of protein as a MIN in at least 6 meals / day.

 

[CowPimp]

Sounds like your cleaned up your eating habits, and potentially decreased energy intake. Simultaneously you started exercise quite a bit, and increased energy expenditure. Therefore, you will lose weight. It's really that simple. Thank the second law of thermodynamics for that one.

If you want to gain muscle mass, well, you have to eat enough calories to support muscle growth. Thankfully, as a beginner, you can probably just eat at maintenance and recomposition pretty substantially. Even in a caloric deficit the stimulus is so novel that you may experience some muscle hypertrophy. This hypertrophy will not be maximized in a caloric deficit though.

Basically, it sounds like you need to eat more. If I ate like you are, which looks to be around 1800ish calories per day, I would waste away at an unprecedented rate. I have consume more than double that just to maintain my weight.

 

[Merkaba]

Of course we see no allocation of calories.
This one sounds typical, and easy to fix...

 

[Phineas]

Also, note with posting your diet that simply posting "fat" or "carbs" (even just saying protein) can be vague, as we don't know what kinds or from what foods.

For instance, 4 large eggs has 20g fat. About 8 of those grams are saturated, but 8 is monounsaturated, with the remaining 4 being polyunsaturated. In addition to all the other health benefits, that racks up to a good dose of healthy fat.

However, if I were to look at 20g fat from another source that I don't specifically list those grams could be primarily or entirely saturated and trans fats. Not all fats were created equal

Likewise with carbs, take protein bars, for instance -- they often list "carbs" at somewhere around 30g. Someone might look at that and go "all right! I'm carbing up before my workout". However, in reality those carbs are probably completely simple sugars from flavouring (not a healthy choice).

Even protein goes the same with this. While it's good if you can get your minimum 1g/lb what if 80% of that is from shakes and bars? I know people who eat like this, and, while whey powders are a useful supplement, there are, after all, a SUPPLEMENT.

In short, be very detailed when posting your diet stats. I do think eating nothing but chili and burritos isn't the smartest idea, especially with muscle building in mind. But, the least you could do is tell us what's in it, exactly.