I can't eat anymore


(Troy Mitchell) #1

So looking at some of the calculators out there I should be eating about 3500 calories since I am strength training. Because of high fats I am consuming, I top out at around 2000 give or take 200 calories. I literally am full all day. I have plenty of fat to burn (5’11" 350 lbs). And I keep my protein at around 150g. Will I still build muscle?


#2

Unless you are competing for a competition I would worry more about losing body fat than I would anything else. Body physique is going to take care of itself with the more fat you lose. The more weight you lose the more definition you will see. Trying to consume 3500 calories is just going to slow down the weight loss.


(Windmill Tilter) #3

Absolutely! You will still build muscle even in a deficit provided you eat enough protein, and you already are. Hypertrophy won’t be optimal, but it will be respectable. If you want to maximize hypertrophy; prepare to increase your bodyfat as well.

The skinnier you get, the more relevant your caloric deficit will be. If you are down around 8% bodyfat, and you’re prepping for a competition, the inability to eat sufficient calories would significantly inhibit hypertrophy. If you are 40% bodyfat, you get a bit more leeway because you have substantial bodyfat stores that the body won’t be shy about drawing on.

Track your workouts very closely with respect to weight on the bar, and reps per set. You’ll want to see small, though consistent progress from week to week. As long as you’re increasing weight, reps, or sets, you’re building muscle. When you plateau in performance many months from now, reevaluate your diet and programming. Measure your waist and booty, and step on a scale once per month or so. This will give you a better sense of your progress than measuring weight alone. Some months your weight may stay the same, but the inches may have dropped. That’s a month that you built some serious muscle!

Just as an aside, there are few things that scramble satiety signals more than weightlifting. This varies significantly from individual to individual. You seem like you’re one of the lucky folks whose hunger is not significantly increased from weightlifting. This will give you a huge advantage!

It may not stay that way forever though. Keep an eye on the scale and tape once a month. If both stop moving downwards altogether for a month, it might be time to reduce workout frequency (e.g. from 3 days a week to 2 days a week) to see if that get things moving in the right direction again. The one thing you should never change is eating to satiety. This needs to be done every single day if you don’t want your body to start fighting back against your long term weight loss (Pro Tip: you will lose that war). Balancing fat loss with muscle gain will be a moving target as you drop down to your goal.

Keep up the good work!