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Hello all! I've been a long time lurker and long time fitness "junkie". I'm a woman and Love working out and playing sports.
I was talking the other day to a new friend while at a dinner party. She knew I've been purposely staying away from eating out, but this party was a mutual friends birthday so I went and ate the most healthiest thing I could find on the menu. She struck up a conversation with me asking what kind of diet I was doing? I told her I'm not on any named diet and tracking what I'm eating by cutting out/monitoring. X'ing out all the junk I ate before. I also told her I was in the gym 5-6 days a week for about an hour. Little cardio/mainly weights. (My goal is losing weight)
Her response was like many other over-weight ladies when I mention this.. "Oh, I can't lift weights because I'll get bigger". This is the #1 response!!! This new friend started telling me how she used to work in the gym when she was younger to let me know she knew what she was talking about. I didn't respond after to be polite.
Why do so many woman give this false answer? My thinking is they don't know? But how don't woman not know that muscle and fat are two separate parts of the body. Muscle will always be muscle and fat will always be fat!! Muscle is dense tissue and fat is large tissue. An over weight women has fat over her muscle period. The only way to get bigger is to eat at a surplus and most of the time it's not muscle gains.
I want to respond so badly in a polite way when over weight woman tell me they get bigger from lifting. I want to respond because I do love to help people who want to listen. I get asked a lot, "what am I'm doing?" Especially since I'm staying away from dinners with friends, How can I respond the next time without sounding rude? Don't respond at all? After all no one can help you except you and I feel like most people don't really listen anyway and do what they feel works for them. So is it even worth it?
True!!! I agree the hardest part is pushing away from the dinner table and sometimes losing friends a long the way?
I do switch it up from high reps, low weight to has heavy as I can go to failure. Maybe I should stay away from saying, Lifting heavy? I do tend to say that when asked because that's what I mainly like to do. Lift heavy as I can without losing form and lower reps. I like it as it's the most challenging part for me.
Not sure why it's a myth. I mean, women won't add the bulk as fast or to the extent a man would. Particularly for a non-lifter though, they are going to get bigger. So you add, what, 5 pounds of muscle. Big deal. Just speaking from the vanity perspective, most people look better with some muscle. That is take the same fat person and add some muscle and they'll look better. They might be 5 pounds heavier (and hence bigger) but they still look better.
Many overweight women and men already have a lot of muscle from hauling around extra weight. I think it depends on the body type of whether it is worthwhile. Sometimes trimming down is the best place to start. I would say it is not work the conversation though.
Because it's not false. Lift weights (especially low reps, high weight) and your muscles DO get bigger, and more sharply-defined as well. Granted, women lifters never approach the muscle mass men can get (unless they're juicing) - but for some reason a lot of women dislike the look of female arms and legs with well-defined musculature and non-flat muscles. They don't want to be fit, they want to be skinny-fat. They want to look like Callista Flockhart, not like the women competing in weightlifting or the Crossfit Games.
Just get out and move. Overweight people aren't worth talking to about fitness unless they're genuinely interested to make a commitment. Fitness and being at a normal weight is a lifelong choice. I wouldn't talk to an overwt women about weight lifting or exercise any more than I'd talk to a smoker telling me how people should go about smoking cessation. You're just wasting your time.
But if they're truly interested, impress on them that it doesn't happen overnight and takes months/years to accomplish and starts with getting out and moving while reducing calories.
They can talk about being bulky etc all they want, but until they stop eating and get out and move, they're wasting your time.
Change the subject and talk about the weather or the price of gas.
Relay your own person experience. Maybe explain high reps, low wt is a great way to burn cals, tone muscle.
The hard part of the discussion is telling them to push themselves away from the dinner table.......that's likely the problem, right?
But even lifting heavy won't do that much for women unless they're also doing steroids. I can't stand seeing women in the gym using 1, 2, and 5 pound weights! Usually while they're looking every direction around the gym because they're expending 1% effort a thousand times and are bored to death. ugh
Good watch: advance to 5:41 if you don't want to see the science.
Nutrition, steady state cardio/moving, strength/progressive overload.
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