Building Muscle While Losing Fat

Bigger Stronger Leaner Beginners
1

Hi there,
I am 32 years old, 6 feet and weigh 194lb (Approx 88 Kg). My heaviest weight was 205 and my lowest was 179. My goal is to lose fat around my waist and build muscles. I am following a DeFranco workout routine (4x a week) as follow:

Monday (heavy upper body) Barbell press (120lb), Dumbell press (80lb), Fly and shoulder press.
Wed (legs) Squat (200lb), lunge, upper back and abs.
Fri (repitition upper body) Pushups, fly, biceps and triceps.
Sat. I start the cycle back (heavy upper body).

I try to do cardio on non-workout days (20-30 Sprint on a treadmil or eliptical). I have been following this program for six weeks and so far I can�??t see much results and I am wondering if I am doing something wrong in my workout routine. One other area of confusion for me is my diet. I tend to go into extreme either by cutting carbs or to eat much of it. Overall I avoid sugars and deserts but not sure if i should be eating carbs or not or how much protein I should be eating…

Here is a sample of my diet:
Breakfast: one slice Rye bread with peanut butter, 2 small yougart (fat free) a fruit and 2 scoops of protein shake (27 gram protein per scoop) with milk, Green plus, fish oil and flax seed.
Lunch: salad with some sort of protein (chicken, cold cuts)
Pre workout: A protein bar (30 gr protein)
Diner: a low fat frozen diner (chicken or beef or fish with rice)
snack before bed (fruits) ( I tend to eat lots of fruits throughout the day as sugar, not sure if thats too much sugar or not)
In addition I take Purple K Creatine (4 pills on workout day and 2 on non-workout days)

Can anybody please tell me what I am doing wrong as I am pretty confused and have been reading endless articles on the internet that added to my confusion�?� My goal seems to be realistic which is to lose belly fat and get better muscle definition, however I am not sure what I am missing…
I will appreciate your comments
Cheers

2

I’m in a similar position to you. For the past year I’ve been trying to lose fat and gain muscle. To a certain extent I’ve been successful, but I’ve realised I’ve done it the hard way. I think it’s much better to concentrate on one goal. I’ve decided to focus on losing the excess fat before I switch to gaining muscle. This means I can give both 100%, rather than going round in circles trying to do both.

My advice, based on my experience, would be to put all your efforts into fat loss, then go mad for the bulk. Good luck.

3

At 6’ and 88kg you aren’t fat. You just don’t have enough muscle.

I’m guesstimating your diet only has about 120gm of protein/day, which isn’t enough (like, about half what you could consume).

In 6 weeks you aren’t going to ‘see’ a whole lot of progress, but it is there. Are you lifting more? That’s all you need to know right now. Don’t be sucked in by the hype.

Up the protein and level out your carbs to whatever they need to be to maintain weight (or even put on weight very slowly). Fruit and veg won’t make you fat. Flour and sugar will.

When you’ve built some muscle, try dropping the carbs a little and see if you lose some fat.

4

i agree with appro just focus on one goal you will get better results.

5

Cut down to a good bf% and then slowly increase your calories.

Fatloss & “Muscles” gain is going to take you 10x longer then cutting, maintaining, bulking.

You can bulk and stay lean; just gotta get lean first.

6

My advice:

Dont eat fruit at night, if you’re hungry before bed eat low fat cottage cheese

Try and stay away from frozen dinners, they have alotta sodium