I weight 221 pounds and I’m having ice cream for breakfast. My diet is sweet. I’m pretty much going against a lot of the common wisdom out there, trying to find the diet/exercise plan that works best for me. I really hope I can do well with this, because it would be great to prove that one can lose weight without giving up the food they love.
BTW, the ice cream I’m eating is Edy’s Slow Churned, Rich and Creamy, Vanilla Bean. It has 100Cal per 1/2 cup serving, which is much less than most other ice creams. It’s also more tasty I think and goes really well with a spoonful of Kim’s dad’s jam.
So How Much Weight Can You Gain Lifting Weights?
Not much. Probably none. Technically, I’ve read that one could gain about 9lbs (4kg) of muscle weight from “intense” weight training. Who knows what “intense” means, but it doesn’t even matter unless you are already in crazy shape. Because the amount of calories you would burn in that “intense” workout will offset any muscle weight gains for all but the fittest people.
This page also tries to debunk this myth and also talks about how many calories that added muscle actually burns (emphasis mine):
Another common misconception is that if you lift weights and add muscle mass you will lose weight when sitting due to a higher metabolism.
Scientific studies of muscle metabolism have conclusively shown that skeletal muscle burns about 13 calories per kilogram of body weight over a 24 hour period. If a man weighs 70 Kg (154 Lbs), has about 28 Kg of skeletal muscle will burn about 22% of the calories his body uses through the day. Adding 4 pounds of muscle bulk thru weightlifting, during a high intensity 6 month lifting program, would result in burning 24 more calories per day. One bite of an Oreo® cookie contains about 24 calories.
A corollary to this is that you may gain weight due to lifting weights, even while loosing fat weight. This is one of the greatest exercise myths. The myth is based in fact: muscle is more dense and weighs more than fat. The same weight of muscle take up nearly half the volume as the same weight of fat.
The problem with this is that not very many people will be able to add the volume of muscle mass relative to fat lost to gain weight. Remember, the average man will add only 4 Kg of muscle mass in a rigorous training program.
This does not mean that weight training should be avoided. Weight training will result in higher lean body mass. This translates into more efficient fat metabolism for energy. Cellular membranes are more permeable to glucose, reducing the need for excess insulin in the blood. This results in a reduced susceptibility to diabetes.
So let me introduce this rule of thumb:
You won’t gain any net weight through your workouts unless you don’t have any fat weight to lose.
Us fatbloggers for the most part have a lot of fat to lose. So don’t even worry about this one.
My Real Question
I’m still interested in finding some specific numbers, since part of my goal now is to be able to bench 210lbs as well as weight 210lbs. (I’ve already lifted 200lbs once. It was a lot easier than I thought for me to build up my bench press… so far.) For giggles, I posted something at Yahoo! Answers. (link)
How much weight will I gain lifting weights?
I’ve heard one can gain about 9lbs (4kg) of weight through “intense” weight training. Does anyone have more specific numbers like this.
Ideally, I’m looking for something like:
“Increasing your max bench press weight from 150 to 200 will add _______ pounds to your weight.”Thanks everyone.