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The added muscle is not easy to gain for anyone, especially a female. But either way, it is never a bad thing. It boosts metabolic rate for a lasting effect. Cardio is great and burns calories, but pretty much it ends when the session is over. Muscle breakdown requires a lot of energy to repair, and this will spike the metabolism for days. Truthfully, lots of woman I have worked with as a personal trainer are afraid of lifting "heavy" weights. But if you do it right and keep everything in balance, it is great for the body and mind and will NOT bulk you up. That is one of the many fitness myths out there. Full body weight training twice a week with challenging weight allowing no more than 15 reps is a god basic formula to stick with. It is not necessary to do each body part separately as many bodybuilders do. That is the huge difference between bodybuilders and people who weight train. Free wights such as dumbells and cables are more productive than machines because you are able to work core muscles and stabilizers at the same time as your major muscles. This leads to healthier body, with stronger rotator cuff, knees and lower back. Machine can't help you much with that important stuff.
Overall, ditch the scale and if anything, measure your waist, thighs or bodyfat level if you want numbers to compare.
Congrats on stopping smoking. Be patient and persistent, eat small healthy meals 4-5 times daily, minimize night time carbs, and your fitness level and body composition will continue to improve!
The added muscle is not easy to gain for anyone, especially a female. But either way, it is never a bad thing. It boosts metabolic rate for a lasting effect. Cardio is great and burns calories, but pretty much it ends when the session is over. Muscle breakdown requires a lot of energy to repair, and this will spike the metabolism for days. Truthfully, lots of woman I have worked with as a personal trainer are afraid of lifting "heavy" weights. But if you do it right and keep everything in balance, it is great for the body and mind and will NOT bulk you up. That is one of the many fitness myths out there. Full body weight training twice a week with challenging weight allowing no more than 15 reps is a god basic formula to stick with. It is not necessary to do each body part separately as many bodybuilders do. That is the huge difference between bodybuilders and people who weight train. Free wights such as dumbells and cables are more productive than machines because you are able to work core muscles and stabilizers at the same time as your major muscles. This leads to healthier body, with stronger rotator cuff, knees and lower back. Machine can't help you much with that important stuff.
Overall, ditch the scale and if anything, measure your waist, thighs or bodyfat level if you want numbers to compare.
Congrats on stopping smoking. Be patient and persistent, eat small healthy meals 4-5 times daily, minimize night time carbs, and your fitness level and body composition will continue to improve!
Outstanding post. Great. I really wish more women would understand that they will not bulk up by lifting heavy.
The added muscle is not easy to gain for anyone, especially a female. But either way, it is never a bad thing. It boosts metabolic rate for a lasting effect. Cardio is great and burns calories, but pretty much it ends when the session is over. Muscle breakdown requires a lot of energy to repair, and this will spike the metabolism for days. Truthfully, lots of woman I have worked with as a personal trainer are afraid of lifting "heavy" weights. But if you do it right and keep everything in balance, it is great for the body and mind and will NOT bulk you up. That is one of the many fitness myths out there. Full body weight training twice a week with challenging weight allowing no more than 15 reps is a god basic formula to stick with. It is not necessary to do each body part separately as many bodybuilders do. That is the huge difference between bodybuilders and people who weight train. Free wights such as dumbells and cables are more productive than machines because you are able to work core muscles and stabilizers at the same time as your major muscles. This leads to healthier body, with stronger rotator cuff, knees and lower back. Machine can't help you much with that important stuff.
Overall, ditch the scale and if anything, measure your waist, thighs or bodyfat level if you want numbers to compare.
Congrats on stopping smoking. Be patient and persistent, eat small healthy meals 4-5 times daily, minimize night time carbs, and your fitness level and body composition will continue to improve!
Can you move to NC to train me? Hee...hee.. I have a weight machine and try to use that along with pull ups and stretching. I have to admit, I'm not consistent as I would like. I find I hate being inside, so I try to do natural things that produce the same results.. or so I think.. such as getting a pile of mulch, shoveling it in a wheel barrow, and then spreading it. Boy.. that is a work out. Of course, I don't do this every day, and I get so sore.. anyway, I may do too many reps.. 25 usually and I can't see how I look when doing them, so I could be doing them incorrectly. So I like your advice and hopefully, like you said, I can stick with it.. How long should you weight train at a time? I only do about 15 minutes.. would that be long enough?
The added muscle is not easy to gain for anyone, especially a female. But either way, it is never a bad thing. It boosts metabolic rate for a lasting effect. Cardio is great and burns calories, but pretty much it ends when the session is over. Muscle breakdown requires a lot of energy to repair, and this will spike the metabolism for days. Truthfully, lots of woman I have worked with as a personal trainer are afraid of lifting "heavy" weights. But if you do it right and keep everything in balance, it is great for the body and mind and will NOT bulk you up. That is one of the many fitness myths out there. Full body weight training twice a week with challenging weight allowing no more than 15 reps is a god basic formula to stick with. It is not necessary to do each body part separately as many bodybuilders do. That is the huge difference between bodybuilders and people who weight train. Free wights such as dumbells and cables are more productive than machines because you are able to work core muscles and stabilizers at the same time as your major muscles. This leads to healthier body, with stronger rotator cuff, knees and lower back. Machine can't help you much with that important stuff.
Overall, ditch the scale and if anything, measure your waist, thighs or bodyfat level if you want numbers to compare.
Congrats on stopping smoking. Be patient and persistent, eat small healthy meals 4-5 times daily, minimize night time carbs, and your fitness level and body composition will continue to improve!
Thank you for a nice and educational reply. As a beginner, i really don't know much about what is right and how much to do.
I think i took an easy way out by just doing little bit of everything LOL. I'm not sure if this is the right thing to do. I'm not desperate to lose weight, and i understand it takes time. So, while i do little bit of this and little bit of that, and continue, i shall see some results.
Thanks again to everyone who express their opinions!
There is no set time to weight train. Certainly not more than one hour. The crucial variable is doing it intensely, relative to your current fitness level. Even 15 minutes of alternating between say; squats, pushups, lunges, and core will do a great deal to increase fitness. Tailor it to your percieved exertion. Work at about 5 out of a 1-10 scale for instance. And progression involves increasing weight or the difficulty of the exercise in some way.
Coincidently, I might actually move to NC after grad school. And I do plan on doing some personal training in addition to physical therapy. Either way if I can help anyone out with advice it makes me happy. And of course it allows me to procrastinate studying, haha.
I have also gained weight when I started weight training. I did a full body workout 3 times a week, after 1 year I had gained 10 lbs. Now I am trying to loose that weight with more cardio, and healthier diet, 1200 - 1400 calories, but so far I haven't been able to loose it, any sugestions. I'm desperate for answers. I'm also in my 40's and was wondering if it is my age and slower metoblism.
Glad to hear you are persistent. The key is, of the 10lbs that you said you gained, was it actually muscle? The only way to tell is if your body composition was measured. It is not impossible but very unlikely that a woman in her 40s would put on ten pounds of muscle in a year.
Either way, you are treading on thin ice in a couple ways according to what you say. First, tons of cardio and a very low calorie diet might actually be responsible for weight gain due to muscle loss and fat retention. 1200 calories is extremely low by the way. Second, if you stopped the weight training that is not a good idea. A better solution is to use circuit training with the weights. This means that you do one exercise after the other continously. For instance, squats, pushups, llunges, lat pulldowns, core, rest, repeat.
Or, if you are doing only cardio, focus more on interval training. An example would be doing, say four minutes of high intensity cardio, followed by 2 minutes of low intensity cardio. Repeat. The high intensity bouts should be very difficult, like say, 7-8/10 on your perceived exertion. Then, the easy two minutes is simply to recover from the hard two minutes. Total workout time won't need to be very long for this type of workout. You will get more bang for your time, and it will minimize muscle breakdown. Slow long distance cardio can break down muscle and that is no good for metabolic rate. Age and gender are factors naturally. But don't let that stop you!
There are lots of good ideas to mix it all up. Feel free to message me with questions.
I have also gained weight when I started weight training. I did a full body workout 3 times a week, after 1 year I had gained 10 lbs. Now I am trying to loose that weight with more cardio, and healthier diet, 1200 - 1400 calories, but so far I haven't been able to loose it, any sugestions. I'm desperate for answers. I'm also in my 40's and was wondering if it is my age and slower metoblism.
are you drinking tons and tons of water? Are you walking at a fast pace. Even though you weigh more, is your pants looser?
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