Don't Laugh, I'm Serious!

[Fat J]

Hey, everyone. What are your thoughts on performing squats, deadlifts and lunges if the booty and hip area is too ample? Seriously, I have a big butt, hips and thighs and I generally have to buy jeans in the 37-38" range to fit them, even though my waist is 35-36". Should I still do these lifts? I don't need anymore muscle back there, only the lose the "bad stuff"!

[Lost Dog]

Do them. Big time.

You'll lose fat faster than you can grow any muscle that could make things more "ample."

Plus, your lower body is much more than 50% of your mass. You work the muscle down there, your forcing your body to expend calories just to repair them. The whole afterburn/EPOC thing.

Every major muscle group in your body should be worked (really worked...) 2-3 times per week to maximize fat loss.

[Fat J]

O.K., but if Sir Mix-a-lot writes a song about me, I coming after you.

[Lost Dog]

Deal.

What's your diet like? Assuming you're in a deficit, it's highly unlikely that you could ever grow more muscle (size-wise) than you could lose in fat volume. So, if you're being accurate in your ass-essment, you're butt should get smaller, not larger.

Once you lose plenty, your butt could get bigger. But, by then you'll be pleased with it. When I was 232, my butt was big. It got smaller, smaller, smaller, then I was lean. Then, it got bigger. Big good, not big bad.

[Fat J]

Nutrition is the hard part for me. I've always worked my butt off in the gym (then why am I in this predicament?!) but I like to eat. That's probably why I look more like a ex-linebacker instead of an ex-db. (I played a couple of years of small college football) The nutrition part of NROL and the "energy flux" idea has baffled me a bit. Years of thinking I had too reduce my RMR level by 250-500 cal., perform 4-6 days of moderate cardio per week and hit one muscle a day has been replaced with eating for maintenance, performing 3 HIIT sessions per week and hitting every muscle 3 times per week. I'm still in transition/disbelief mode! I took advantage of a free nutritional assessment from the fitness director at my gym and he had me at 2400 cal. (RMR) and performing the "before" workout routine. Now, with NROL, Lou has me eating an additional 1,000 cal. I hope this works!

[VanceMac]

I am not sure about Lou's math unless you are burning a LOT of calories each day during exercise. At 6'1", 210, my maintenance, without exercise, is about 2450, so that number may be about right. But, to lose a pound a week, you need to be at a 500 calorie deficit below your maintenance. For two pounds a week, you need to be at 1000 below your maintenance. So, in order to lose a pound a week, you would need to have a NET calories (after any exercise or metabolism increase burn) of 1,900. So, you if you eat an additional 1000 calories above maintenace, at 3,400, you would need to increase your metabolism burn by 1,500 calories a day. Now, assuming you can burn 600 a day doing cardio and lifting, is the increased metabolism from eating and afterburn going to make up the 900 calorie difference? I don't think so. Even Lou agrees that the metabolism increase from muscle tone is not as much as people have said.

I have lost 55 pounds in the last five months. What I did was start with my maintenance for "sedentary", which was 2,700 when I was 265. Then I subtracted 1000 for a weight loss of two pounds a week, so a NET calorie goal of 1700. Then each day I added my calories in from food, subtracted my calories out from exercise and tried to hit my 1700 goal. I made sure not to go too much under or too much over. I used a program called CalorieKing to keep track, which is like Fitday on steroids, a lot better.

About a month ago, I started hitting the weights, and wanted to slow down the pace of the weight loss, so I began ramping my calories back up slowly (your metabolism will slow down somewhat), and now I am at 2000 a day NET (which means I eat around 2300 a day average). I am still losing a bit since I am still at a deficit.

I would not recommend the 1000 a day deficit since it does impact your metabolism a bit more, but 500 is a very healthy target and you will still lose a pound a week. It is very difficult to guage the impact of "afterburn" and metabolism increase from eating, so if you choose 500, then you might actually be at a 600 or 700 deficit if you are lifting.

I do agree entirely with Alwyn and Lou, though, that the HIIT is a better way to go than steady state aerobics. I played basketball, which I consider an HIIT, and I think that had a bigger impact than my steady state.

To show that this all works, here is my before and after, before I really started lifting (and about 10 heavier than I am now):

[Jason B]

Muscle takes up much less space than fat for the same weight. Think about it. A more muscular body is a smaller one.