Maintaining a lean body with lean muscle

[FuryofFists]

I hear people just want to bulk up, and have big huge muscles. But, I'm not those types, I want to have lean muscle with more abdominal definition kind of like Bruce Lee himself. Right now, I'm waiting until I reach a solid weight by running, and doing large amounts of cardio. Most of the time I eat lots of diet, and healthy foods including protein shakes, lean meats, and large amounts of fruits & vegetables. I also eat from this gourmet chinese resturant, which has healthy dishes like: diet chicken and shrimp vegetable with steamed rice, along with chicken rice soup, and a tall glass of water.

I just need help on carbs from fruit snacks, and some drinks like tea--but I don't drink these things.

[jianblaze]

All that cardio and running is just going to make your muscles wither away, and guess what you'll be left with? Fat! Not a good thing. You see, cardio is catabolic. Meaning it literally eats away at your muscle tissue. Basically there's two types of tissues. Muscle, or fat. You need to build muscle if you want that shredded look. Some people are blessed with thin skin. It's mainly genetics. I believe Bruce Lee had very thin skin. If you're not a skinny rail thin, shredded person, then all that running isn't going to give you that look. You're going to need weights! And trust me, it's not going to make you look huge. If it was that easy don't you think we'd all be 220 lb 6 percent bodyfat, natural freaks? I'd advise you read Tim's articles on weighttraining and dieting.

[Tim Wescott]

jianblaze is totally correct..........for each pound of muscle you add to your body,you burn an additional 50-75 calories per day, just to maintain that extra pound of muscle...............on the flip side,for each additional pound of fat you add to your body,you only burn 3 calories to maintain.

Just makes sense to add in weight training to your regimen,whether you are trying to get huge or not.

[ntrllftr]

Beleive it or not I eat a can of ravioli (Ski laughs at me about that but ...) first thing when I wake up, even for my contest prep diet.
Like others said you need calories once in a while to burn fat. During a long session of cardio the body turns catabolic and shuts down the fat burning process and eats muscle as jianblaze said.

"I just need help on carbs from fruit snacks, and some drinks"


There are many protein drinks out there with high carbs in them. Maybe try one of those in a day for a couple of weeks and see what happens?
Just my suggestion.
Good luck!