Reassurance!

leanna1120

Hello All,
I'm a 38 year mother of 2 looking to lose about 25ish pounds. I'm typically a cardio girl but am burnt out running and looking to get stronger while losing weight. Will you please share any personal weight loss experience while lifting? Thank you!!!

DaniH826

I haven't a had great deal of weight loss experience with lifting, to tell you the truth. But, as a former smoker who quit before I started lifting (roughly 8 months ago), I haven't gained any weight, which I'm supremely happy about.

My current focus is fitness and getting a grip on my diet. Which to me isn't (anymore) about counting calories but finding that balance of 80% healthy and 20% whatever else. My current focus is really on finding balance, period.

The scale hasn't budged a whole lot for me except for some minor fluctuations, but a lot of that has to do with suffering a recent personal loss and recovering from that still, because there was a general downward trend, until that happened, and I'm still struggling to recover.

There are a lot of ladies here who have lost a good deal of weight, fat, and deconditioning by picking up barbells and getting stronger. But I will tell you that weight training will mess with the numbers on your scale because of water retention, glycogen deposits and so forth, so the focus has to be on fat loss and overall fitness, or you'll become unnecessarily frustrated. Fat loss with weightlifting is completely different from weight loss with cardio.

I've lost weight with straight-up cardio before. Only to put it back on because I failed to develop a love for said cardio, and quit doing it. I'm completely in love with weight training, however, so I reckon this time around things are going to be different. I really enjoy challenging myself and watching my inner fit person develop. The pursuit of fitness is becoming an unexpectedly enjoyable journey for me, rather than something I have to do in order to make the almighty scale budge downwards.

I don't know if that helps you any, but there you go. :flowerforyou:

bumblebums

I think the main "vanity" benefit of lifting is body recomposition, not weight loss. You can talk about fat loss, too, and that might be more accurate. The reason people criticize the BMI scale is that it it sometimes puts very lean strength athletes in the overweight category--sure, they might weigh more than average, but they will look good for it.

There is also some metabolic magic that happens when you start lifting that allows you to eat more and not gain fat. It's discussed a bit in the New Rules of Lifting for Women book--even though lifting does not burn as many calories per workout, it seems to be very energetically intensive. My own theory is that recovery and muscle rebuilding is a lot more intensive for strength training than for cardio.

I didn't count calories when I started losing weight (using the standard cardio+food exclusion diet that many noobs follow). But I am pretty sure I eat more now than I did when I weighed 20 lb more, and I have been maintaining my current weight for several months now.

Finally, it's great if you do not love cardio. Cardio definitely works, you just have to do a lot more of it, and that will only happen if you like it. I have a friend who lost 70 lb by running--each of her runs is in the 10-mile range. I simply do not have the musculoskeletal integrity to run that much, and I never enjoyed running enough to do it for more than 30 min at a time. I'm naturally more of a sprinter/jumper, so lifting weights agrees with me. Lately, the only cardio I've done is walking my dog--when I can convince her to leave the 2-block radius of my apartment bldg. Grr.

Now, is there a way to get one's Labrador into strength training?

pintobean

I am no expert but, I came across this article today and it helps reinforce what these ladies are trying to say...
http://breakingmuscle.com/womens-fitness/144lbs-why-female-athletes-should-toss-the-scale-and-get-a-new-perspective


Lifting heavy is good

leanna1120

Wow....love the feedback. The article was great....that woman looks fantastic!! As I'm thinking about it maybe I should adjust my goals in terms of size and measurements instead of pounds lost. In the past, when I've dabbled with weights I have seen changes in my body but I was really focused on the scale. I want to be leaner, but stronger, and also be able to perform better as an athlete. I see so much about people getting to "goal weight" through cardio and then starting to lift and tone.

cpiton

I haven't lost much scale weight since I started lifting, but I dropped from a 10/12 in jeans to a 4/6. And I fill them out better, too.
I Heavy squats.

:bigsmile:

kitkat4141

I lost close to 60 pounds while weight lifting, minimizing calorie intake, doing cardio. The loss was extremely slow and it took almost one year to drop the weight. My trainers wanted me to preserve the muscle I had while losing as much fat as possible. It worked well for me but I had to rely on other metrics such as body fat percentage measurements and the tape measure to keep me going when the scale would not budge.

inkysmurf

Hello

I have been lifting for only 6 weeks and went from a lot of cardio a few months ago, to re-assessing why I was burning myself out so much. I did a lot of research, on the hows, whys, wheres, pros etc of this. Before just taking the plunge

In 6 weeks my weigh has went up by 4lbs but all my clothes fit more comfortably, (from 133 to 137 ) , I am still the same clothes size UK 8 (US 4?) I am 5ft 6 &1/2 -

I still am the obsessed scale lady , and I have weighted myself twice a day for the last 6 years of so...(crazy yep!) -

Its a hard mental switch to make when you see the scale go up, and one I struggle with, but my arms are starting to look good, I feel good, I feel strong and slowly the years of weigh less, be lighter chanting in my head are starting to fade... its still hard.

Lots of times I have felt like having a whhhaaahhhhhhh why, why, why is the scale going up (despite the fact I KNOW why - I am lifting heavy things, my body is doing what it needs to do, repair, build, fuel me for the next heavy lifting session).

However I would not swop one pound of the weight I have gained to be anywhere else on my journey right now.

I am stronger, I feel stronger - I am like a superwoman some mornings...

I have a pair of trousers that were tight on me 2 months ago - when I was around 5lbs lighter - they fit nicely now...

In moments of stupid panic (normally after weighing in) I pop them on and this mentally helps my mind shift - these fit now, even though I am "heavier".

So be prepared mentally, but also be prepared for the kick *kitten* physical benefits!