Nearing Goal-weight (Next step advice?)

[scottjameshay@gmail.com]

Hey all. I'm happy to say that I'm only a few pounds away from my goal-weight. I was 295lbs 5mo. ago and weighed in this morning at 238lbs. My goal weight was in around the 225-230 range, and I am almost at that point now. The next phase of my ultimate goal is to start maintaining that weight and build muscle. I am not really interested in losing much more weight beyond the 225-mark; I have a very broad/athletic build and the last time I was 220lbs I actually had some family start expressing concern to me that I was getting too skinny (I did start looking fairly twig-like), so I want to maintain a weight just above that.

 

My question is basically, what is the best way to go about doing that? I am in an eating cycle right now that is great for weight-loss, but once I want to stop, does that mean I start eating more food in order to stop the sliding on the scale? Do I start working out less often and more harder with weights (I currently do about 5x/week, mostly cardio)? I joined the Academy just over a week ago to start incorporating more weights into my routine for the winter months when I'll be stuck indoors.

 

I'm certainly very happy with my progress and lifestyle changes over the last 5 months, but I just have a sense that a shift in my approach is going to be needed pretty soon, and I'm unsure of how to adjust my routine in order to start focusing more on maintaining weight instead of losing it.

 

Any help/advice is appreciated

[JPrev]

Congrats on all that progress!  What does your current lifting routine look like specifically, and how long have you been doing it?  That'll help determine what to do with calories.

[scottjameshay@gmail.com]

Literally 'nil', and for 0 days I've been working with an Aerobic Fitness plan for the last 5 months, but now that winter is upon us I'm going to have to shift indoors for workouts, and I'm not going to be doing just treadmill and spin bike for 4 months. Plus I want that toned look, so I have to start incorporating weights not only for my sanity, but for the look I want as well.

[JPrev]

Then you're in a neat period of time when you'll be able to do multiple goals at once!  When you're a beginner to lifting, your strength increases predominantly due to neural and metabolic adaptations.  These can take a number of months to max out, and it's not until they're wrapped up that muscle size becomes the limiter of strength.  That also means you won't be building much muscle for at least a couple months, even if you were to eat surplus calories.

 

It's a neat period of time because you can spend the next couple months losing those last few pounds while preparing to gain muscle down the road.  "Newbie gainz" don't require a surplus to happen, so you can get them underway while still eating at a deficit.  The lifting will contribute to your overall calorie burn and help the fat loss along, which no doubt has become a slower process than what it was 5 months ago.

 

So if I were you, I'd start lifting while eating at a deficit/maintenance for a couple months.  Surplus calories won't be useful until you've completed your neural/metabolic adaptations.  Your overall weight might increase as a result of the lifting due to glycogen, but the fat should still come off while your strength improves.  You'll know it's time for a surplus when your lifts suddenly become much harder to improve - again, this will probably be 2-4 months down the road.

[scottjameshay@gmail.com]

Awesome! Thanks very much for the info. I've been tracking all my workouts/weigh-ins for the last 4 months, so it'll be interesting to start tracking things like this. I never would have known about that beginning phase of muscle gain (adaptations) for a couple months, so that's a good primer to realize that I'm not going to start phasing from belly-loss to muscle-definition right away. Very much appreciated!

[Kaylya]

If you want to ease into strength training, you could start off doing the beginner body weight circuit 2-3 times per week for a couple weeks to get some of the basic movements in. If you've joined the Academy, I believe there are some good strength plans in there. If you feel really sore for a day or two after, that's normal, and will get better if you keep up strength training regularly. For building strength, 3 full body workouts per week (with a day in between each) is best, and doing 3 days of strength work (with maybe a bit of cardio thrown in, e.g. a few minutes as a warm up or a bit after your strength session), and 2 days of cardio would be a great schedule for general fitness.

Exercise in general actually seems to be much more linked to being helpful for maintaining weight over losing it, so try not to cut back there. Weight maintenance is about keeping up most of the healthy habits you learned to lose the weight in the first place.