I heard if you work out while on a calorie deficit that you would lose muscle mass oppose to rebuilding it. On the otherhand, I heard it would slow down muscle loss. Which is true?

resistance training will help you retain muscle mass when you're in a calorie deficit. Without it, you will probably lose a lot of muscle, with it, muscle loss should be minimal assuming your not in too big of a deficit.

My calorie deficit is 1000 so is it wise or should i up it?

why in god's name are you at at 1,000 calorie deficit?

To shed fat you need only drop calories by 5-10% under your maintenance intake.
Any further calorie deficit will come from exercise.

a 1,000 calorie deficit is likely over 30% restriction...you are probably burning more muscle than fat because the body thinks its starving, and excess muscle is not advantagous...stored fat is.

Eh, I was fishy about it too and I've been only doing it roughly 2 weeks...that's what my Bally trainer told me. Go figure. Supposedly he also said I need 2980 calories all together. I want to know how accurate is that? I'm 209 5'9" I'll have pictures up soon..

aint no beach body but does it look like i need that many calories?

It is good that you ask questions and want to take an educated approach towards achieving your goals....but be warned; it can drive you crazy!

First of all, it's VERY easy to underestimate the amount of calories you take in. Even experienced people versed in nutrition often underestimate their intake. In other words, you think your at 1k deficit, but you're probably not.

You wrote: I heard if you work out while on a calorie deficit that you would lose muscle mass oppose to rebuilding it.

To answer your question: that is FALSE

While under calorie deficit (dieting) it's common to see lean muscle loss accounting for as much as 30% of the weight lost! The body copes with the caloric deficit by leaning-out and dropping muscle. But understand this: if you skip a meal and workout, your body is NOT eating-up it's own muscle (catabolism) in an effort to fuel it's energy needs; that whole concept is vastly over-blown!

The bottom line is that we weight-train in an effort to put a load on the muscles and let the body know we can't afford to shed muscle in an effort to compensate for the lack of calories coming in. It's like the body trying to switch to 'economy-mode' and you're demanding power. So are we trying to build muscle? Sure, we're trying to add some....but more then anything we're trying to avoid muscle loss and forcing the body to revert to just burning fat.

As far as your caloric needs...if tested, you'd probably come out with a BMR of about 2,340....that's what you need every day just for basic functions. Add some exercise and yeah, about 2,900 calories per day is your requirements. Throw down a 20% deficit and it would suggest a moderate diet would involve eating about 2,350 calories per day. Problem is: most people THINK they're eating 2,350 and they're actually eating about 3,000 and wondering why they aren't seeing results. Trust me on this; you have no idea the bounds of my OCD and what I've endured to get where I am now.

If I were you, I'd shoot for about 1,800 calories per day.....you won't be burning muscle or running too lean; plenty of diets will call for that or less given your numbers. If you exercise and can project how many calories you burned, figure you can eat-back (consume additonal calories per day) about 25% the total amount of calories you burned. Example: you ride the bike for 1.5 hours and burn 1,000 calories....so you can eat an extra 250 calories that day.

Ya know that idea that you take ONE day and eat anything you want? Yeah, well forget about that. Take ONE day and eat 2,900 calories and call that day a caloric wash (or breakeven).

Make no mistake: right now your body is at 209 and like a thermostat it's kinda set there and doesn't want to budge. If you burn more calories then you eat, your body will tell you its hungry in an effort to manipulate you to eat & replace those calories: homeostasis!

Ya know those dieticians who say "you shouldn't be hungry when you're dieting"....yeah, well...that's all bullsh!t: you're not eating enough to support your caloric needs and your body is burning its precious-precious fat storage to subsidize your caloric deficit: your gonna be hungry and your gonna stay hungry until you eat enough (or more) food to balance the equation.

So understand: this is a battle, a fight and something that won't be fun. For every minute of feeling lean, light and making progress...they'll be hundreds of hours of feeling hungry and as if things aren't happening: seeing weight-loss progress is like trying to watch hair grow. It's a long process. You'll have weekends or days when you eat too much and feel like you failed. You'll have times when hunger will leave you grouchy and upset. You'll be tempted by miracle fat-loss pills and stupid diets; don't fall for it. And I'm writing this because I've seen other threads you've posted, so it's a general thing.

The only thing I can promise is that it will get easier with each passing month and it will become a way of life. Soon you will get as much edible pleasure from eating 6 ounces of low-fat yogurt with a bit of topping as you would from gorging on 2,000 calories of junk food. Junk food will eventually taste gross, clothes sizes will shrink, shirts that fit snug suddenly won't be a hateful feeling and you will never regret your decision to get fit. Eventually the tables turn and you won't remember the hours of pain and discomfort in the gym or the many times you passed on having extra slices of pizza, but you will enjoy not feeling embarrassed about your body.

Blah blah blah, blah blah blah...a few more inspirational weird paragraphs and.....we're there!

-BSL

Thank you so much. I read every bit of that. I lost weight before and I was really obese and I lost that.

Now I know a little more and the reason I'm desperate for answers is so I can fix up my strategy immediately. According to the BMR calculator and with the exercising i've been doing lately my calorie intakes is about 3660. That seems TOO HIGH of a number for me and I've been eating roughly 2000 calories. So I plan on eating 2500 calories everyday not subtracting the calories I burn from the gym. Does that sound like a good idea?

It's pretty clear...