Q&A for: 21-Apr-08
2649. Q:
hello mike i was wondering if there was a way to lose a pound a day?
A:
There is absolutely no way to do that over significant span of time. Many or even most diets will lose you a few pounds right away by cutting calories and thereby reducing retained water weight. You can read about water weight and why it doesn't matter in my How To Lose Weight article. But after the first week or so, after the initial water weight loss ends, there is simply no reasonably healthy way of losing one pound per day. If you starve yourself to the point of eating less than 1000 calories daily AND do a LOT of cardio you could possibly lose that much weight daily but it is neither healthy, nor productive so I definitely do not recommend it. You will quickly develop health problems and even without outright health problems your body will enter 'starvation mode' and start hanging on to fat and burn muscle for energy instead. In the long run, you'll retain most of your fat, lose much of your muscle mass and depress your metabolism. That in turn means that you will be very susceptible to new fat gain -- exactly the opposite of what you were trying to achieve!
What you really want is steady prolonged FAT loss (not just weight loss) and for most people the best way to achieve that is via healthy balanced diet, heavy weight training, and cardio as I describe in my Fat Loss article.
2650. Q:
i am a 21 year old female, im 5'5 and weigh 140 pounds and im at 17.5% body fat. I want to build more muscle in my upper body without making the scale go up too much because i am doing a competition in October and i want to be at a lean 128 pounds. Im eating very clean and consuming 1800 calories a day because i do cardio twice a day, 6 days a week, and weight training for 45 minutes to an hour 5 days a week. what can i do differently to see results faster?
A:
It's tough to give very useful advice in your case since you are obviously in top shape already and I don't much about your past diet, training, and, most importantly, your tendencies. I will give a few suggestions -- see if any of them might apply...
- First off, if you need to be 128 pounds for competition in October and are 140 pounds now you should allow the last 3 months for weight loss -- period during which you are highly unlikely to build new muscle. So your muscle-building window is only 2-3 months before you need to start your cut.
- Cardio in general interferes with hypertrophy (new muscle growth), even if you consume enough calories to 'make up' for the calories burned by cardio. In other words, you'll build more muscle if you eat, say, 2000 calories and do no cardio than if you eat 2500 calories and burn 500 calories daily during cardio. So if your priority is to build muscle, then cut down the cardio. I would recommend eliminating all steady-pace cardio completely and if you are really uncomfortable without any cardio then do HIIT (search for HIIT using the search feature in the upper right if you are not sure what it is). When you enter the cut period 3 months out of the competition, then you can resume your current heavy cardio regimen
- 1800 calories is NOT a lot with a heavy cardio load, but if you mostly reduce or eliminate cardio it should be enough for you to start gaining mass. Make sure your calories are not only clean but also provide plenty of protein in every meal. Aim for AT LEAST 140 grams of protein daily and there's a good chance you'll benefit from as much as 200 grams of protein.
- Finally, for your training program, keep the sets heavy and to-failure and prioritize upper body exercises for whichever area you most want to target (i.e. upper back, chest, shoulders, etc). By 'prioritize' I mean start those exercises first in any given workout and allow more sets for those exercises at the expense of other muscle groups.
Hope that gives you some ideas. Good luck!
2651. Q:
hi mike i wanna lose my belly and hip fat.plz suggest me
A:
Please read my How To Lose Fat article. What you have is extra body fat (it's always most noticeable in the belly and hips areas) and this article will tell you the most effective way to lose it.
2652. Q:
i have small calf muscles i need ideas on how to make them grow
A:
Calves can be very stubborn to build up. Check out Q&A #1755 for some ideas.
2653. Q:
how can i tell if its water weight or muscle
A:
Water weight, although a lot of it sits in your intestines, is actually distributed throughout all the tissues in your body, including muscles, so added water weight will make your muscles larger as well. My recommendation is to simply ignore weight and appearence changes in the first week or so after changing to a new diet -- that's when the water weight changes. After that, as long as you are eating more or less the same daily your water weight will be stable and then you can gauge the new muscle development.
2654. Q:
How can i lose weight and in the same time gain muscles?
A:
If you start out overweight and are new to weight training, then with a good diet and training program (such as those given on my site) you will 'automatically' lose fat and weight and still gain muscle for some time. However as you get in better and better shape this process of simultaneous fat/weight loss and muscle gain will slow down and then stop. At that point you will need to decide which one you want first -- less fat or more muscle -- and adjust your diet accordingly (you weight training need not change at all, though you may want to do more cardio if you are focusing on fat loss).
2655. Q:
Please answer this question- I drink creatine when I work out Im fine but when I decide to go walking my calf's and back tense up to the point I cant walk I have to stop whats's happening?
A:
I'm not completely sure I understand what happens to you exactly, but a couple of things could be going on. First off, when you are on creatine you definitely should be drinking more water than usual -- you might be getting cramps due to dehydration. Another possibility is, if you mean that after working out your calves and back they tend to cramp up, then that's very common (regardless of creatine -- especially in case of calves. If that doesn't answer your question you may want to discontinue creatine use (if that makes your cramps go away) and/or consult a doctor (if the cramps continue). Good luck!
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