Workouts during days off.

[Mrbear3087]

So I work apartment maintenance 40 hours plus weeks.  Though I've noticed that on my days off when I workout,  it seems like I don't lose weight but rather seems to make it like a normal work day.   I run about 15 to 20 miles a week and strength train for about 45 minutes 6 days a week.  I also go hiking on mountains nearby on my days off for about 2-3 hours.   I've tried to push myself during my days off but I end up usually going to far and end up to sore to workout during my work week.   

Ive tried to eat lighter durning my days off but I end feeling to tired for the gym.  I work with about 2400 calories a day.  Minus Saturday and Sunday.  But not by much.  Like maybe 1600 calories.  My macros run during the week about 200 grams of protein,  180 carbs, 50 fat,  and 30 grams of sugar.  

Any tips or info on how I can help the weekends be better without over exerting myself would be great.  Thanks

[Dominique]

Welcome to the community, @Mrbear3087!

I would suggest you weigh yourself daily, but look at weekly averages instead of day to day fluctuations. If your weigh-ins make it to your Fitbit account (whether automatically by syncing from a smartscale like the Fitbit Aria/Aria2 or by entering them manually), the weekly averages are calculated for you:

You don’t have to be in a caloric deficit every single day the week in order to lose weight. It’s enough if you are in a suitable deficit at the weekly level. Since you have an active job, it’s OK to rest during the weekends and eat more too (since this is when we tend to go out, socialize etc.).

Based on the description of what you are doing activity-wise (job, gym, hiking etc.), it would appear to me your lack of weightloss is not caused by insufficient activity: I would rather look at the eating side of the equation.

[Mrbear3087]

I've been thinking of adding more foods to my day to day eating though I just go off of things I read and watch to eat healthy.  I usually eat the same thing everyday.  Oats and egg whites with a protein shake.  Rice And chicken and a protein bar for lunch and bag of stir fry vegetables with a another piece of chicken.  I don't really v drink anything but water and almond milk with my protein shake. 

[bikerhiker · Accepted solution]

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@Mrbear3087 wrote:

So I work apartment maintenance 40 hours plus weeks.  Though I've noticed that on my days off when I workout,  it seems like I don't lose weight but rather seems to make it like a normal work day.   I run about 15 to 20 miles a week and strength train for about 45 minutes 6 days a week.  I also go hiking on mountains nearby on my days off for about 2-3 hours.   I've tried to push myself during my days off but I end up usually going to far and end up to sore to workout during my work week.   

Ive tried to eat lighter durning my days off but I end feeling to tired for the gym.  I work with about 2400 calories a day.  Minus Saturday and Sunday.  But not by much.  Like maybe 1600 calories.  My macros run during the week about 200 grams of protein,  180 carbs, 50 fat,  and 30 grams of sugar.  

Any tips or info on how I can help the weekends be better without over exerting myself would be great.  Thanks

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From what you are telling me, it seems like you are creating an environment where your body believes that you are in a threat.  You have conditions where the body is constantly working out, leaving little room for rest.  Working out only creates the potential for fitness.  ONLY REST will realize that potential, helps raise your metabolism so you can do harder workouts the next time around and help foster both muscle and bone growth.  You are currently not allowing your body to do this because you believe in the concept of Calories In Calories Out.  But your body does not work this way.  

When a human body is subjected to a threat or a famine like condition where it is not allowed to rest and recoup from any hard conditions, given less calories in the process, then the body will then interpret that it needs to conserve fat to preserve life.  So what you have created is a situation where your body is on a life and death situation.  When you feel sore, you didn't let the body to repair itself after a workout and that will cascade the body into conservation mode.  Meaning that, your body now operates at minimal levels and your workout can become harder and harder to achieve until of course you break down and get sick or injured.

You need to create a condition where you create a caloric deficit enough to reduce your weight, provide ample rest days so your body can heal itself and realize your fitness potential while providing an appropriate diet for your activities.

People do not realize that a high level of fitness is what is required to burn a high amount of calories.  For example, Michael Phelps can burn 460 calories in 30min of high intensity swimming, but for a mere mortal swimmer, 160-200 calories is probably all they could burn in the same 30min.  And if that swimmer swims so much that he/she feels so tired, then that same 30min swim will yield the same calorie burn as a walker walking for 30min!  Therefore you can not realize your full fitness potential if you don't allow the body to get some needed rests.

[Daves_Not_Here]

Hi @Mrbear3087 - I can't tell from your post what problem you are trying to solve - excessive weight or fatigue.

If fatigue, then I don't have much to add to what @bikerhiker already said.  Even Olympic athletes, ultra-marathoners, and Tour de France cyclists regularly rest for recovery.  You seem to have a high-level of activity 7 days a week with no recovery.  Not to be dramatic, but my opinion is this is a formula for exhaustion, illness and injury.

[seapreme]

Consider using free weights for about 20 minutes, 3 times a week. It always works for me..

[seapreme]

my previous answer was for bikerhiker

[Mrbear3087]

Its more of  a weight loss issue.  I workout 6 days a week but I don't feel fatigue.  General soreness from strength training.  Usually legs monday,  Tuesday arms and Weds chest and core.  I give my muscles about 3 days of rest.  Each then repeat till Saturday then rest all together Sundays running is the only thing I do everyday but i usually run higher miles in the beginning of the week and lower by the end.   Though I think I've focused too much on the weight number.  This last 3 weeks i've stayed the same numbers  about 231-236. But I've noticed more recently my clothes feel a lot smaller.  So im hoping this is a good sign.  But I think I need to add some more carbs in my diet.  I'm sure I have plenty of protein.   Plus I only drink water and almond milk.  What's your intake???  

[bikerhiker]

My take is a good diet is more important than killing yourself with demanding workouts.  I have done crazy workouts when I was younger and could only achieve down to 142lbs.  Now that I have changed my diet to incorporate high fiber grain like steel cut oats for the morning with Quinoa for lunch and dinner as my base carbs intake, I feel more fuller, have more energy and I can eat pretty much I like and still loose a bit of weight.  My exercise routine is 3x week 30 min each with 1 day of weights.  So a total of 4.  You want to create a situation where your metabolic rate is helping you burn a higher proportion of fat on top of carbs.  If you don’t change this equation, then you will have to torture yourself to loose weight.  There are smarter ways than this.

[Dominique]

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@Mrbear3087 wrote:

Its more of  a weight loss issue.  

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@Mrbear3087: how tall and how old are you? Given your size and your activity level, you should be losing weight on a 2500 calorie intake. That’s about what I was eating for the past three months and I lost a total of 6.2 kg (13.6 lb) in 13 weeks. I’m much smaller than you (5’ 8.5" / currently 128 lb) and presumably older too (57).

I think you’re doing too strenuous activities you cannot fully recover from, even if you’re saying you don’t feel fatigue. If your average weekly weight hasn’t changed week to week, it means you’re eating at maintenance. For weightloss to occur, you need a deficit.

[Mukluk4]

So a couple things:

1. I personally think you need to eat more (within 10% of your total caloric burn).  Recovery is about rest AND fuel.

2. You are pounding the plates 6 days a week and hurting your gains by long mileage runs.  Determine what your goal is strength or weight and build your workouts around that.  If you are trying to lose weight, keep the mileage up but drop to 3 days a week lifting.  If you want to get bigger, keep the 6 days a week and swap intervals in for the long miles.

I'm 42, 6'1, 270ish.  I only focus train 3 days a week (lift and intervals).  The other days are for the kids and doing physical activities that I enjoy (basketball and football).   The 270 is just a number, most people I know wouldn't believe it if I told them that's what I weigh.  I also wouldn't give up the ability to pick up the back end of a small car to be 195 anyway

I used to do what you are doing now, but it takes a toll on the body and something as simple as a cold can knock you on your **ahem**.  So I cut back and refocused (went from a 150K steps/week average to a reasonable 95k steps/week.

[Mrbear3087]

I currently weight 233 and I'm 6: 2. I'm trying to master my intake.  With the workouts and my job it suggested I eat around 3000. Did it for a month but noticed my stomach started to get bigger.  So dropped to about 2300. Give or take a couple 100.but I think I'll probably try to relax the over working out.  Maybe a 3 day rest 2 day then rest.  Or even lower.  Especially on the running.  Try to go back down to about 10 miles a week vs 16 miles.   I did rest Saturday,  workout sun and Mon.  Rested Tuesday the workout yesterday.  I did notice not on my weight loss but I could workout longer with feeling as strained.  So I'm thinking you guys are right that I am over killing myself and not letting myself rest enough.  I'm gonna try this for the next month hopefully get a better improvement for weight loss.   Also I am trying to lose mainly lose.  But I want to work my arms while I Lose fat.  I have mainly fat in my stomach and alittle bit in my legs.  My arms are relatively thin as well as my calves.  

[Mukluk4]

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@Mrbear3087 wrote:

Also I am trying to lose mainly lose.  But I want to work my arms while I Lose fat.  I have mainly fat in my stomach and alittle bit in my legs.  My arms are relatively thin as well as my calves.  

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Your body isn't going to multi-task very well.  So what will happen is neither will happen the way you wish and you'll give up.  

If you are at a caloric deficit of more than 10% your arms/calves won't get any bigger, defined maybe, but not bigger and you definitely won't gain strength, just efficiency.

If you are trying to lose the gut, the best thing you can do is reduce the weight room time to 3 days a week (and focus on NOT losing strength) but keep that cardio up.

Either way you wish to go.  I'd start tracking BF% over weight as that's a better indicator of success in your workouts.

[bikerhiker]

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@Mrbear3087 wrote:

I currently weight 233 and I'm 6: 2. I'm trying to master my intake.  With the workouts and my job it suggested I eat around 3000. Did it for a month but noticed my stomach started to get bigger.  So dropped to about 2300. Give or take a couple 100.but I think I'll probably try to relax the over working out.  Maybe a 3 day rest 2 day then rest.  Or even lower.  Especially on the running.  Try to go back down to about 10 miles a week vs 16 miles.   I did rest Saturday,  workout sun and Mon.  Rested Tuesday the workout yesterday.  I did notice not on my weight loss but I could workout longer with feeling as strained.  So I'm thinking you guys are right that I am over killing myself and not letting myself rest enough.  I'm gonna try this for the next month hopefully get a better improvement for weight loss.   Also I am trying to lose mainly lose.  But I want to work my arms while I Lose fat.  I have mainly fat in my stomach and alittle bit in my legs.  My arms are relatively thin as well as my calves.  

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Abdominal fat is not easy to loose as diet high in sodium can cause bloating and diet low in fibre can cause constipation and irregular bowel movement.  Which means, your belly being a little larger than usual may not necessarily be attributed to just visceral and subcutaneous fat alone.  In essence, you need to develop a training routine where you can raise your fitness level.  When you raise your fitness level, you can burn more calories in less time and more of that will be fat in a higher proportion.  Which is why you noticed it was easier to do the workload after a day's rest.  The idea is to challenge your body so it doesn't easily adapt, until you find the equilibrium point where you can manage your exercise load while keeping yourself well rested and healthy.  This takes time.  I coached athletes in the past and almost every runner wants to run to loose belly fat FAST.  Most of them ended badly injured.  If you push yourself too hard, you'll go into a situation where your immune system is weak and you will experience Osteoporosis (porous bone).  Osteoporosis is a bone disease which occurs when the body looses too much bone, makes too little bone or both.  This condition exists when the body is not allowed to rest and minerals deficit like Vitamin D & K and calcium aren't provided to promote bone growth.  The worst part is it is undetectable.  The only way you can detect this is after you experience the aftermath like bone fracture, stress fractures or the bone literally snapped.  I've seen this happen often with athletes who pushed themselves to the brink with a caloric deficit; usually lacking in the minerals and nutrients necessary in promoting and maintaining bone mass and growth.  When you weight yourself, you are weighing "YOU" plus your muscle mass and bone mass.  What happens is that people usually are fixated in loosing weight, that they don't care how it is lost.  Then usually the muscle mass goes first (if the person does not weight training/ or weight training without any rests) and then bone mass, while leaving fat relatively untouched.

It takes time for increased fitness level.  Everyone is different.  We are not all the same make.  Some of us takes less time to loose belly fat; whereas others may take longer time.  Do not compare yourself with others and find yourself frustrated because you can not achieve what others could do in a shorter period of time.

[Dominique]

@Mukluk4 wrote:

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Your body isn't going to multi-task very well.  

It’s not so much the inability to multi-task than performing multiple tasks that have contradictory requirements: if @Mrbear3087 wants his waistline to shrink, he needs to be in a caloric deficit and lose weight; on the other hand, for optimal gain of muscle mass, he’d need to be in a caloric surplus. Since one can’t be in a deficit and in a surplus at the same time, one has to decide what the top priority is for the time being. If the current priority is to get a smaller and flatter belly, focus on weight loss: you can realistically lose 8 to 10 percent of your starting weight in about three months. From a starting weight of 235 lb, this would bring him down to 211-216 lb. I can guarantee he’ll see the difference, both when looking at the mirror and when putting clothes on. Focusing on weightloss doesn’t mean resistance training has to be neglected: continue lifting weights, but understand its main purpose will be to maintain existing muscle mass rather than adding new one. As to cardio training, I would focus solely on low-intensity forms of it (e.g. walking instead of running), as it’s far less taxing, so you can do more of it, and more often (e.g. everyday), without needing to recover from it.

The reason why I was asking about @Mrbear3087’s age was to double-check calories burned (energy expenditure) as reported by his Fitbit. He can use an online calculator such as this one and compare what he gets for various activity levels to what Fitbit says he’s burning.

[bikerhiker]

@Mukluk4

Inducing muscle failure by overloading workouts works only to encourage muscle growth which will allow more fat to burn.  But this workout needs to be at more than 70% exercise effort.  Only at 100% exercise effort, and NOT LESS, is when you signal the body to adapt to a more difficult workout by encouraging muscle growth.  The key here is; which muscle group burns more calories.  It is actually Type 2 muscle fibres; for 1 lb of Type 2 muscle fibres can burn 300 more calories/day as opposed to Type 1 fibres which burns the least amount of calories.  But you need rest to realize new muscle growth which the OP didn't include in the training regime.  Some people need more workouts to create a muscle cascade failure; which is why it is very individualistic.  What the OP needs to realize is when is that failure point and then the OP takes a rest to let the body regenerate.  

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[elderwanda]

Fun bit of trivia I've learned from this thread: 

One @Mukluk4 weighs as much as two @Dominiques.    You could use him for your overhead press warm-ups.     

[Mukluk4]

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@elderwanda wrote:

Fun bit of trivia I've learned from this thread: 

One @Mukluk4 weighs as much as two @Dominiques.    You could use him for your overhead press warm-ups.     

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I bet he's either squirmy or ticklish so it wouldn't be as easy as it seems.

But it is valid example that weight it just a number in the overall judgement of what is healthy.  While I wouldn't say that I am as overall fit as Dom is, we train/workout for different reasons, but I'd be there's probably a few things that I might be better at than him.

[Dominique]

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@bikerhiker wrote:

Inducing muscle failure by overloading workouts works only to encourage muscle growth which will allow more fat to burn.  But this workout needs to be at more than 70% exercise effort.  Only at 100% exercise effort, and NOT LESS, is when you signal the body to adapt to a more difficult workout by encouraging muscle growth.  

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While going to total muscle failure will indeed cause maximum disruption, and thus an adaptive response that will lead to muscle growth, the idea that it is the only way to achieve muscle growth, or even the optimum way to do it, is incorrect. This is because there are trade-offs linked to muscle failure: with total failure, fatigue increases exponentially (compared to training a few reps shy of failure), which means longer recovery times. The higher fatigue means you are likely going to be able to do less work per session, and train less often, both of which will translate in less total volume (and total volume is the most important factor for achieving muscle hypertropy). Furthermore, training to failure increases the risk of injury, especially for people who are not advanced lifters and still don’t have a perfect technique, as form usually gets sloppier as you get closer to failure. Therefore training close to failure (1 to 3 reps in reserve, or RIR) most of the time (taking a set to failure every now and then is OK) is a better stategy for maximising volumes while minimising the risk of injury.

My mesocycles are usually 4-5 weeks long and designed in such a way weeks 1 and 2 have sets taken 3 reps from failure, week 3 has them taken 2 reps of failure and week 4 (overreaching week) has them taken 1 rep from failure (week 5 is for deload). This allows for progression (proximity to failure is one element of progressive overload) and I’ve found it to be a sustainable approach in the longer term. Training to failure all the time would be a sure recipe for burn-out in my case.

[bikerhiker]

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@Dominique wrote:

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@bikerhiker wrote:

Inducing muscle failure by overloading workouts works only to encourage muscle growth which will allow more fat to burn.  But this workout needs to be at more than 70% exercise effort.  Only at 100% exercise effort, and NOT LESS, is when you signal the body to adapt to a more difficult workout by encouraging muscle growth.  

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While going to total muscle failure will indeed cause maximum disruption, and thus an adaptive response that will lead to muscle growth, the idea that it is the only way to achieve muscle growth, or even the optimum way to do it, is incorrect. This is because there are trade-offs linked to muscle failure: with total failure, fatigue increases exponentially (compared to training a few reps shy of failure), which means longer recovery times. The higher fatigue means you are likely going to be able to do less work per session, and train less often, both of which will translate in less total volume (and total volume is the most important factor for achieving muscle hypertropy). Furthermore, training to failure increases the risk of injury, especially for people who are not advanced lifters and still don’t have a perfect technique, as form usually gets sloppier as you get closer to failure. Therefore training close to failure (1 to 3 reps in reserve, or RIR) most of the time (taking a set to failure every now and then is OK) is a better stategy for maximising volumes while minimising the risk of injury.

My mesocycles are usually 4-5 weeks long and designed in such a way weeks 1 and 2 have sets taken 3 reps from failure, week 3 has them taken 2 reps of failure and week 4 (overreaching week) has them taken 1 rep from failure (week 5 is for deload). This allows for progression (proximity to failure is one element of progressive overload) and I’ve found it to be a sustainable approach in the longer term. Training to failure all the time would be a sure recipe for burn-out in my case.

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Actually, Mitochondrial Biogenesis and the mechanism that led to the regeneration of the Mitochondria in the muscles was not yet understood and predicted until the latest medical research came out whereby the only reliable predictor of Mitochondria regeneration is through acute muscle failure. Previously, it was understood that fasting and long slow cardio were predictors of increased Mitochondria, but not so reliable.  So if you challenge this latest research from the Institute of National Health, a United States government body, I like you to point out any national research where you think is incorrect or can counter the Institute of National Health research.

Having said that, acute muscle failure training is not ideal for beginners of any sports. This research came to light because professional athletes wanted a “legal” way to improve their existing performance and they found that by training for short periods of time not only promote better performance, the side effect is that there is an increased quantity in Mitochondria in their muscles, which helps burn fat at rest.  

Also the research pointed out that you only need to do this at least once a week for beginners and at the most 3 times a week for advanced athletes or weight lifters.  Any more than that, the rate of return diminishes due to risk of injuries and the long recovery period.

This method is used by professional athletes.  Most people don’t exceed 70% of their maximum effort just like most people never ever make more than a million dollars in their lifetime, doubts even it is possible.  Inducing 100% muscle failure requires a mental effort to bypass the safety condition imposed by the mind. If you have seen a movie “The pursuit of happyness”, you see that with Chris Gardner that everyone can follow his footsteps.  But how many did?Ultimately the mind dictates how far you can go in your training and that’s the only limitation people have to overcome.

But I suspect you are confusing the difference between muscle growth and Mitochondrial Biogenesis.  Just because you have increased muscle growth does not necessarily lead to increased level of Mitochondria Biogenesis.  This explains why some people believe additional muscles burn fat, but it is not the muscles that burn fat, but the high level of Mitochondria in the muscles that do.