I'm am 41, an abound a year into remission from lymphoma. Prior to cancer, I was trying to lose some weight. During chemotherapy, I actually put on weight, and a lot of it. I went from 220 to 265 in a year. I've been working on getting fit, and I've managed to get back to 220, but I'm still around 25% body fat. I'd like to see that get closer to 15%. At the same time, I'd like to build muscle. I'm getting some gains, but I'm wondering if trying to drop the fat is hurting building muscle? Currently, my maintenance calories sit around 2800, and I'm trying to stay around 2400. My protein intake, on average is 160 grams a day.
Congratulations on being in remission!! It's definitely possible to lose fat and build muscle. I'd highly recommend having a chat with your physician to determine your specific best course of action. If they do approve of your pursuit; I'd say that you need to swap some of those calories for whole food protein calories in the area of 1 to 1.5 grams per pound of body weight. You can cycle a high carb day every week to keep your furnace burning the fat. Then back to the protein replacing those carbs/fats. You want to stay on the right side of health to stay in remission and am sure your doc will give you some guidance about it too. Keep thriving Bro!
John thanks for inspiring all of us, you can build muscle while cutting calories. Most people's problem, is they don't eat enough. I am cutting and gaining right now at the same time by zig zagging my calories on certain days to balance the fat loos AND gain muscle at the same time.
Unfortunatley this is very hard to do on the same output and same clories on a daily... make sense?
Thanks for the reply. I was just reading about the zig zagging diet in the Mass-ter Plan!
