@kagenonikki It’s 100% correct. I track every meal and snack and I weigh out my meals with a good scale. The only time I estimate is at resteraunts and usually they have nutrition facts or i guesstimate but always on the higher end. I also don’t eat out that often (like 2 or 3 times a month)
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Does body recomposition actually work?
- Thread starter _marc97
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- female fitness
@_marc97 I'm gonna chime in as someone who likes fitness but had a huge setback where I didn't go to the gym for a year and a half due to the pandemic. I weigh more now than I want to, gained weight during that downtime, lost some muscle, struggling with it still for various reasons. BUT, the last time I was at this weight several years ago before I found my exercise of choice, I looked completely different. It takes years to change your body, imo, so I think it's more about managing expectations than being stringent. Maybe it's also my personal approach to health and fitness, but years of chipping away at it and adding different types of movement changed me so much that even a f*cking pandemic where I sat inside and ate more than I should have didn't significantly alter how my body looks.
You're already at quite a low weight, so honestly, you might not see more muscle unless you're actively gaining weight. I do think lifting is probably the most direct way to build muscle (I want to hire a trainer someday because my focus is poor, so climbing/yoga is a better activity set for me). But the bottom line I'm trying to highlight here is that continuing to exercise over time, even if you're not training your hardest constantly, is probably your best bet and it'd be better to measure the differences in your progress over a span of many months or even years than to expect big changes in just a couple months. It's not the most exciting answer but for me, realizing this made me feel a lot more relaxed and happy about continuing to pursue fitness.
You're already at quite a low weight, so honestly, you might not see more muscle unless you're actively gaining weight. I do think lifting is probably the most direct way to build muscle (I want to hire a trainer someday because my focus is poor, so climbing/yoga is a better activity set for me). But the bottom line I'm trying to highlight here is that continuing to exercise over time, even if you're not training your hardest constantly, is probably your best bet and it'd be better to measure the differences in your progress over a span of many months or even years than to expect big changes in just a couple months. It's not the most exciting answer but for me, realizing this made me feel a lot more relaxed and happy about continuing to pursue fitness.
hazeleyesis
New member
@_marc97 As many of said, recomp is super slow and for people who don't have much weight to lose but want to add muscle over time without drastically cutting calories.
I've been working out (regularly) for about 2 years at maintenance calories (around 1800-2000 a day) and am finally seeing small changes in my body. Flatter stomach, a little muscle definition. It's not dramatic but I'm going to keep it up so I can still enjoy food, (some) wine and regular (but not compulsive) workouts.
I've been working out (regularly) for about 2 years at maintenance calories (around 1800-2000 a day) and am finally seeing small changes in my body. Flatter stomach, a little muscle definition. It's not dramatic but I'm going to keep it up so I can still enjoy food, (some) wine and regular (but not compulsive) workouts.
@hazeleyesis How tall are you? Weight? Are you female? I am 5'2" 123 pounds. I would like to lose some more fat but I am so hungry that my usually deficit of 1700-1800 I am so hungry at. So I am sticking to 2,000 calories and going to see what happens. I do the dexa scan a few times a year so I can track progress
@_marc97 I'm surprised at most of the comments agreeing it works. Though maybe I shouldn't be surprised, as many people here seem afraid of gaining weight. You're 5' 109lb so you probably don't have much fat to lose - that makes recomp very hard. You'd probably progress much quicker if you start bulking slowly (start with maybe ~200 calories extra). That way you'll actually build muscle on your stomach and you might even get a more toned look without needing to cut.
@_marc97 Yes, recomposition works. But it is an outcome rather than a complete action plan with a set of rules. The idea behind recomposition is to change drastically in body composition compared to any changes in scale weight. And recomposition does not have to be strictly equicaloric. Say, a person is on the lower end of the healthy BMI spectrum and over a year of strength training implementing progressive overload and eating approximately at maintenance (more like a tad bit above, person is not super strict at tracking, which is a very common scenario) and ends up with a scale weight 5-8 lbs heavier than they started out with, but lost 5-8 lbs of fat mass and gained 10-16 lbs of muscle mass (numbers are purely hypothetical and just to illustrate the point) in the process, I'd consider that a pretty successful recomp. Inversely, if a person starts out at the higher end of a healthy BMI and loses 5-8 lbs in total (because over their first year of progressive resistance training they ate either at maintainance or in a deliberate, small deficit), while they lost 10-16 lbs of fat and gained 5-8 lbs of muscle (this is probably a bit more realistic, numbers wise), they've recompositioned.
Beginners are usually in a good place for (equicaloric) recomp so long as they have relatively too little muscle mass and relatively too much body fat. That is because fat is an energy storage and you create demand for muscle by training with close proximity to failure in the gym. Fat and muscle are two distinct biologial tissues, the energy freed from fat oxidation can be used for muscle protein synthesis. As we progress and lose fat and build muscle, the rate of this process slows. (Think of any (bio)chemical reaction. In the beginning, when you have a lot of substrate and no product, product will form rapidly and the reaction slows until equillibrium. Then, to get the process going again, you either have to add more substrate or remove some product.) This is why a recomp at maintenance for the same net amount of progress is a 1-year project for a beginner, but a 10-year project for an advanced trainee if they refuse to change in weight for a while by increasing calories. They have so much less absolute fat to be used for that process.
That being said, your nutrition is likely holding you back. If not the only 1500 (are you extremely sedentary outside of your 2-3x/week?), then it's going to be the only 75g of protein, I would increase that to 1g/lbs of bw, to be on the safe side. Also, how are your workouts? Structured? Implimenting progressive overload in a linear fashion?
Beginners are usually in a good place for (equicaloric) recomp so long as they have relatively too little muscle mass and relatively too much body fat. That is because fat is an energy storage and you create demand for muscle by training with close proximity to failure in the gym. Fat and muscle are two distinct biologial tissues, the energy freed from fat oxidation can be used for muscle protein synthesis. As we progress and lose fat and build muscle, the rate of this process slows. (Think of any (bio)chemical reaction. In the beginning, when you have a lot of substrate and no product, product will form rapidly and the reaction slows until equillibrium. Then, to get the process going again, you either have to add more substrate or remove some product.) This is why a recomp at maintenance for the same net amount of progress is a 1-year project for a beginner, but a 10-year project for an advanced trainee if they refuse to change in weight for a while by increasing calories. They have so much less absolute fat to be used for that process.
That being said, your nutrition is likely holding you back. If not the only 1500 (are you extremely sedentary outside of your 2-3x/week?), then it's going to be the only 75g of protein, I would increase that to 1g/lbs of bw, to be on the safe side. Also, how are your workouts? Structured? Implimenting progressive overload in a linear fashion?
@ronit I feel like some days out of the week I’m pretty sedentary but at least 4 days out of the week I walk around 5 miles a day a day outside of lifting.
I also do the same workouts every single week. I have two dedicated lower body days and one dedicated upper body day. I increase my weight every week and am getting stronger. I usually also do a one rep max for most of my lifts just to push myself and get myself more comfortable to keep increasing weight.
I know everyone keeps saying to increase calories but I also read weightlifting doesn’t burn much and that I’ll gain fat if I eat more
I also do the same workouts every single week. I have two dedicated lower body days and one dedicated upper body day. I increase my weight every week and am getting stronger. I usually also do a one rep max for most of my lifts just to push myself and get myself more comfortable to keep increasing weight.
I know everyone keeps saying to increase calories but I also read weightlifting doesn’t burn much and that I’ll gain fat if I eat more
@_marc97 Well, yes. That's kind of the point. You want some of that extra energy to go into your muscle building and recomposition efforts. If you keep protein high and training hard then fat gain can be kept minimal and muscle gain maximal. The reason people keep saying to eat more is because unless you are very tiny and very sedentary, 1500 is likely below your TDEE.
meteorstorm
New member
@_marc97 It will work but it's a slow process at least a year to get to the physique you desire. I have done recomp twice. The first time it took 2.5 years while the second time post partum it took about 8-12 months. I document it here
Your stats are similar to mine. I'm currently 4ft11 108lbs. The good thing about recomping is you can always increase weight by increasing muscle. When I finished recomp, I was 105lbs. Over the years, I have kept my size(I still wore the same clothes as when I was 95lbs), became stronger and built more muscle. That's why I'm at 108lbs.
Anyway there are many petite ladies over at r/petitefitness who are doing recomp as well.
Edit: That said though, I think we have our height working against us. I couldn't have possibly recomp with just weightlifting alone. I had to add in HIIT
Your stats are similar to mine. I'm currently 4ft11 108lbs. The good thing about recomping is you can always increase weight by increasing muscle. When I finished recomp, I was 105lbs. Over the years, I have kept my size(I still wore the same clothes as when I was 95lbs), became stronger and built more muscle. That's why I'm at 108lbs.
Anyway there are many petite ladies over at r/petitefitness who are doing recomp as well.
Edit: That said though, I think we have our height working against us. I couldn't have possibly recomp with just weightlifting alone. I had to add in HIIT
confused1984
New member
@_marc97 Barely and really only under certain ideal circumstances:
If you can only build roughly a pound per month, why would you only drop one pound of fat per month? You're better off cutting to your desired state of leanness (while lifting of course), since you can shed fat about 4 times faster. Then do a strict, slight bulk in a very modest surplus over a long period of time.
And at 5'0"/109 you don't really have any fat to lose. So if you agree you don't really need to drop fat or weight, then why recomp? Just build muscle and let weight creep up by about 1.5 pound per month or so. You also need to increase your protein intake no matter what path you choose.
- Brand spanking new lifters
- Lifters returning after time off
- People with very high body fat
If you can only build roughly a pound per month, why would you only drop one pound of fat per month? You're better off cutting to your desired state of leanness (while lifting of course), since you can shed fat about 4 times faster. Then do a strict, slight bulk in a very modest surplus over a long period of time.
And at 5'0"/109 you don't really have any fat to lose. So if you agree you don't really need to drop fat or weight, then why recomp? Just build muscle and let weight creep up by about 1.5 pound per month or so. You also need to increase your protein intake no matter what path you choose.
@_marc97 It works! Sorry to post my own thing but I broke down a month of recomp for me earlier this year in detail here. I was pretty skeptical as well before I tried it, but I think high protein intake and progressive overload in workouts is really effective if you do it right. Obviously every body is different and something else may work better for your goals, but it did work for me. Also fwiw I would have never noticed a difference if I hadn't taken pictures along the way– I remember being frustrated with the scale as well! (Damn, this post makes me realize I gotta get back on it!)
@_marc97 Body recomposition works, but it isn't going to be a fast process. Recomping is kind of like the middle man in terms of changing your body. You're not in a deficit where you're going to see noticeable changes fairly quickly, nor are you in a surplus, where you'll also see changes fairly quickly. Recomping takes time and patience as it's not an ideal spot to lose fat, nor gain muscle.
Personally, I would increase your protein intake to closer to 1g per pound of bodyweight and add an additional day of lifting. Are you following a specific program?
Personally, I would increase your protein intake to closer to 1g per pound of bodyweight and add an additional day of lifting. Are you following a specific program?
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