Thread: Advice Needed
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Old Wed, Aug-07-02, 16:02
Natrushka Natrushka is offline
Senior Member
Posts: 11,512
 
Plan: IF +LC
Stats: 287/165/165 Female 66"
BF:
Progress: 100%
Default Overtraining and protein

Seam, I did a little search and pulled up some info on overtraining, you can read it here - from personal experience I can tell you that if you are indeed dealing with this then when you take some time off you should notice a drop in fat.

It's a good idea to take a week off from working out every 3 months or so. No cardio, no lifting. Let the body have a 'time-out' and then get back at it. You'll find your workouts more intense and that you're stronger after such a break. A couple of indicators that you have been overtraining include:
  • raised resting heart rate
  • lack of progress (including increases in stregth and endurance and stalls in body fat loss and lean muscle gains)
  • loss of motivation

Calorie wise you should be consuming between 10-12x your current body weight a day in calories. This number will satisfy your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) and keep your body from thinking "diet" or "starvation" - for a while. Eventually it catches on, which is why a rest is a good idea. Dan has some good advice on calories in this post. Protein wise, the intensity of your workouts indicate you should aim for at least 1g of protein per lb of current body weight. High intensity, anaerobic exercise can be muscle wasting - keeping protein ratios up will help to counter this. There are a few more tips on how to preserve lean mass in this post.

All in all, some time off and ensuring adequate calories (and protein) should set you back on track. The notion that we need to cut calories to further lose fat is hard to break - but it's this very idea that makes people overweight. Think of your body as a machine; it needs to be fueled to function

HTH
Nat
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