Lawl

Welcome Michael! YES you did post correctly- hoooray!

Sorry to hear about your recent break-up...i am impressed that you are finding the strength so quickly to make positive changes in your life. :) break up's are hard so i give you tons of props for not sitting at home sulking with my friends ben and jerry.

What is your diet plan? and work out plan?

i am assuming if the red bold print came up and told you to "SLOW DOWN"..it may be for good reasons, i am sure others will comment on this thread and give you some advice..

Welcome!

Yes, what is your current weight and you goals?

FitDay warns about any weight loss goal over 2lbs. per week, which I always ignore.

For the record, 1 to 2 lbs. a week is generally the recommended "safe" rate of loss, and I do think it's a good idea not to lose "too" fast but what you ultimately decide upon is up to you.

Keep up the good work!

Regards,
Michael

The big problem with losing more than 2 pounds a week is the muscle that you will also lose. Sounds like you have addressed this with the protein and exercise. If you find you are losing strength (unable to perform the same number of reps with the same weight that you did previously) then you might want to consider slowing the weight loss to preserve muscle.

Hi Michael! I'm 25 and I lived in San Diego for around 5 years. When I started my journey to ditch my skinny-fat body for a more muscular one (a journey I am still on) I probably started out a lot like you. Don't hesitate to ask specific questions, there are a lot of helpful people here!

Good luck! :)

Two more questions for you:
* How tall are you?
* What is your goal weight?

Since you said in your original post that you have always had a average body then (without seeing pictures) I would think you would be approaching or acheived your goal weight already? Maybe it is time to rethink your goals and strategy? After 30 days you will be nearing the end of the N00b period and gains in muscle strength and size will come slower. This is to be expected.

If you are wanting to continue your muscle development you might want to consider increasing your calories to at or near maintenance. Your weight loss will slow or stop but you can continue to lean out (decreasing body fat %) while building muscle.

Your estimates for the calories you are burning per workout are low because they don't take into account what's known as EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption), basically fancy pants for the calories you burn as your muscles are recovering from your workout. After a hard strength workout your muscles are depleted of glycogen, their primary fuel. This will raise your base metabolism by a lot and cause your body to burn up to around double the calories you first estimated for the workout. If you don't eat enough protein within a few hours after the workout, it's possible that your body is cannibalizing muscle from elsewhere in your body to feed and rebuild the muscle that was just trained, particularly if you have muscles that you haven't used in a week or so.

I'd suggest tack on another 200-300 calories a day to your eating plan, making sure to get at a minimum 1g of protein per lb of bodyweight, and eating as cleanly as possible to minimize fat gain. While you won't see the size come on as fast as you did at first, it will make a huge difference over time.

welcome to the forums Michael. We have a good group of people that are willing to help and give good, solid advice. Enjoy your stay!

I lived just outside of La Jolla when I went to school there (UCSD '08). La Mesa has a nice little Mexican shack called Buenos Dias in California, you can get a nice potato burrito there. It was a little far from La Jolla but the burrito was worth the trip.

Wrt "toning," there is really no such thing. The effect you're going for is basically overall muscle gain and fat loss. The types of workouts you should consider are full body strength workouts, which will make you grow proportionally; if you feel you are getting too muscular you could simply backpedal on the load a bit and it will all even out. Muscle only lasts if you maintain it.

On a final note, muscle is heavier than fat, so as you start building more muscle, your weight loss might slow down or even reverse, even as you continue to physically get smaller.