I’ve been working out for about 4 months now (HIIT on a spin bike and a bit of weightlifting ~20 mins.) three times a week. I’m seeing good improvement in health and physique despite having no idea what I’m doing.
My motivator was calories, but now when I work out I burn way less calories because my body is getting used to the stress, I think. What’s happening? Is my workout less useful than before? Can I not eat as much or is my body burning more fuel now?
In: 54
If you feel that you’re not burning as many calories now as you did before the main reason for that would be because you’ve reached what the body considers a sufficient amount of muscle mass. It’s really expensive to build up muscle mass (something like 6000 kcal per kilo of muscle mass), so that really helps you burn calories when starting out (about two days worth of food per month if you’re training in an optimal way).
The extra energy demand from increased muscle mass is nowhere near that, so if you’ve reached a point where you’re no longer putting on muscle mass as effectively your caloric need will drop somewhat. Losing weight also means you’re not constantly carrying that weight, which also decreases the amount of work your body is doing.
You might need to reduce caloric intake, you might need to shift caloric intake from carbs to protein (you need about 2 grams of protein per day per kilo of bodymass when trying to gain muscle mass) or you might need to lift heavier (but be careful because you need to ramp up weight slowly. Muscles adjust quickly, but tendons and joints tend to lag behind a few months).
Also. You need to weightlift in a way that engages your core and major musclegroups. A common beginners mistake is to focus on chest and biceps, while generally it’s far more important to engage core and leg muscles.
Latest Answers