Okay, I took the advise from many of you and started weight training. I even hired a personal trainer and am lifting lighter weights and high reps (23-35). I am doing cardio 4 days a week pretty intensley. I have been doing weights 2 weeks now, 4 sessions. He had me do ALOT of ab work too, crunches, iso ab exercise, etc. So this is my question:

WHY ARE MY PANTS TIGHTER THAN BEFORE??

WHY IS THE WAIST TIGHTER? I WAS FINALLY ABLE TO ZIP AND BUTTON THEM BEFORE BUT NOW THEY ARE TIGHTER AFTER WORKING OUT LIKE THIS!!

My traininer told me that muscle is builing on top of the fat. He said the fat loss has not caught up with the muscle but it will if I am patient. He keeps advocating doing weights and building a "fat burning machinery" body. Is there any one out there that has had the same experience? I am so darn fruserated. I just really am/

Peace
Kat

Your trainer could be right - often the fat burning needs to catch up to the muscle building, however, muscle building doesn't happen overnight. 2 weeks is not, IMHO, long enough for that kind of growth.

The questions that comes to mind from reading your post are:

Have you increased your calories along with your intense activities?

Are you getting enough rest?

Weight gain in the presence of intense activity can be a sign that you have created too much of a caloric deficit between what you burn and what you're eating. Too much of a deficit causes stress and can lead to the exact opposite of what you'd expect to happen.

Insufficient rest and recovery can also lead to this happening. They are both precursors to overtraining.

Just out of curiousity, has your trainer explained to you why he has you lifting light weights for many reps?

-Nat

Hi Nat,

Actually I am eating about 900-1300 cal a day depending on how busy I am. So you are saying the if the caloric deficit is way high, i won't lose? I have not changed anything and am only eating about 20 grms of carbs a day. Any advice? I have always responded to weights quickly. Do you think this is the pr9oblem??

I'd say it's a problem.

You cannot expect your body to respond to intense demands if you're not fueling it. When activity level increases dramatically you need to compensate by increasing fuel to meet that demand - especially if you're taking muscle growth.

I'm not saying the caloric deficit is too low - guys like Lyle MacDonald and Scott Connelly are saying it's too low, i'm just repeating what I've read!

I'd look into finding a good calculator for RMR and learning a little bit about how much fuel I really needed to eat to lose weight.

This is a great place to start:

http://www.weight-loss-i.com/metabolism.htm

Best,
Nat

Thanks Nat!! I skimmed through your journal and wow, you look great. When you started the intense weight lifiting, did you notice the fat getting harder first? Did you ever notice in the beginning a little snuuger fit with your jean?

thanks
Kat

Also, my boss is also training and said the same thing. aFter doing alot of ab work, she noticed her waist tighter in the beginning.

that's your muscles waking up and saying "hello"
i dono the scientific explanation
but i've done alot of weight lifting in my time
you'll notice that you'll start becoming more aware of your muscles and they will be bigger.

it's normal
they will generally stay that size and gradually get bigger while you lift,

one thing though is you might notice that a while after a workout they do shrink a bit closer to before size.

atleast this has been my experience

Kat what I noticed most of all was that when I was about to lose fat it would get mushy and jiggly - as sign it was being broken up and getting ready to vacate the premises.

Noticing tighter muscles makes perfect sense, it is the goal of lifting, after all. You want to replace fat and muscle with tight, dense muscle. This would certainly mean things would feel less soft.

-Nat

Wow Nat, it's interesting that you said that it gets jiggly and mushy. That's exactly what my tummy looks and feels like. I have been doing so much ab work that it seems it's hard on the bottom and now this stuff on top is mushy and jiggly.

So you are saying that the fat is being broken up? Did you read that somewhere? That's quite interesting. Hopefully it will vacate!~!

Also, has anyone taken a supplement with HCA, or hydrocitric acid? Does it work?

Kat

HCA does work - but you don't want to be taking it while LCing, it can interfere with ketosis. It helps mainly with carbohydrate metabolism, so it's pretty useless to us LCers. www.supplementwatch.com can give you more info on this particular one - there's also information in the Nutrition / Supplements forum.

As for the fat getting jiggly and mushy, yes, I've read it on numerous bodybuilding boards and off the hussman site. Here's the direct quote:



-Nat

Fat cells never go away. (OK, lyposuction will remove fat cells). When you burn fat, the cells get smaller, but they never go away.

You sound like an echo Rode

http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthre...ion#post1357020

You may not lose the fat cells, but you do lose the fat.