Hi, Jen, I hope you don't mind if I pop in here with a question.

My participation in BFL has been a little irregular. I work out with weights 2-3 times a week and do cardio 3 times a week (and a couple of Pilates sessions, too), but I don't always lift pyramid style and I usually substitute a long, moderate cardio session for the HIIT once or twice a week. (The HIIT KILLS me--it saps my energy and makes me very hungry for the rest of the day).

In all of these things, I'm working very hard and I rarely miss a session. It's been about 5 months of dedicated weight training. I'm making progress in some ways--definitely getting stronger, better recovery re heartrate, and down a little body fat. But I haven't found the best way to eat in order to optimize the workouts. If I add too many carbs, I gain weight (I think most of it is water weight, but my clothes fit worse.) If I try to limit carbs to pre-maintenance levels, my lifting isn't as good. And no matter what I do, after a heavy workout--even a strenuous cardio--I'm famished!

I'd LOVE some advice--sometimes this feels like infinite regress, at least as far as scale weight is concerned. And yeah, I guess my clothes fit somewhat better than they did, but I gotta say I'm not seeing a dramatic difference from the exercise--most of the improvement came when I initially dropped some weight on Atkins alone (before I started working out).

TIA! And BTW, I'm a 54 year old female.