I normally eat about 2000-2300 calories a day, but ate a bunch of not so healthy foods

I normally eat about 2000-2300 calories a day, but ate a bunch of not so healthy foods.

So I gained about 40 pounds throughout this year, I'm knocking down my calorie intake to 1400 and changing the way I'm eating as well.

My question is what would happen if I did that and cycled and did pretty much cardio, would I lose muscle or have to eat more ? Is lifting necessary in my case?

Bump

If you're remaking your diet all you'll need to worry about is shitting weird stool for a little while since there's going to be a change in diet.
You can work out, but by no means are you required to do it if you're aim is to lose weight. Though this goes without saying that working out will help you lose fat and gain muscle at the same time.

You would get tired of the harsh life style and eat fast food every weekend to keep your mood up. I guess you would not loose any muscles and gain another 20 pounds

Incorporate the caloric demands of your cardio endeavors into your calorie calculations. If you burn 500 calories cycling increase your 1400 target to 1900. Try to keep your protein intake high to avoid loss of muscle.

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First off, it's obvious you haven't read the sticky, so do that.

Second, if you're an adult male and were gaining weight, you were eating way more than 2000-2300 calories a day to gain 40 pounds in a year. How 'healthy' the food is doesn't matter. Weight gain is a matter of calories-in, calories out.

But cardio and diet is a good idea. Lifting would also be a good idea. If you haven't lifted before, you probably don't have a lot of muscle to lose in the first place, but in that case, you can probably manage noob gainz even while losing weight and have a better body comp to work with once you decide you want to get Veeky Forums.

If you don't use it, you lose it user. I'm in the exact same boat as you, blimped up 50lbs since exactly one year ago. Barely got back on the cut train a week ago but I've been lifting for two months. Even if you don't think it'll help, just do it.

I've been up and down these fifty lbs three fucking times because shit happens and I'm a little bitch. The first time, I was lifting and I felt great, and I did cardio as well. Second time, I wasn't lifting but I was working 70hrs a week construction in the hot sun + cardio. I slimmed down much more but I could see how weak I was, and I ended up getting injured last fall when I picked up lifting. Today? I'm lifting 20lbs heavier on all my lifts than ever before and I want to at least maintain them so I can gain mass correctly once I've cut to my target weight.

Tl;dr just fucking lift dude. You'll feel a lot better than if you don't. I know.

Doesn't protein make you fat though?

I will!

> Doesn't protein make you fat though?