healthy bmi before workout?
Options
BrokeBirkin
Posts: 73 Member
First let me say I'm using the bmi because I'm not active so there really isn't anything to skew it right now. I'm 5'3 and 162 and am doing my journey at a slower pace so I don't burn out. Because of my body type when I work out I tend to bulk up pretty quickly ( even cardio) and I want to slim down as much as I can. Of course I'm trying be more active in my day to day life, but I was thinking I should stick with diet until I'm in a healthy weight (about 140) before I really start hitting the gym. Especially since my body doesn't do well with high intensity cardio. Do you think it would help slim my body down?
0
Replies
-
BrokeBirkin wrote: »First let me say I'm using the bmi because I'm not active so there really isn't anything to skew it right now. I'm 5'3 and 162 and am doing my journey at a slower pace so I don't burn out. Because of my body type when I work out I tend to bulk up pretty quickly ( even cardio) and I want to slim down as much as I can. Of course I'm trying be more active in my day to day life, but I was thinking I should stick with diet until I'm in a healthy weight (about 140) before I really start hitting the gym. Especially since my body doesn't do well with high intensity cardio. Do you think it would help slim my body down?
Bulk up? You mean when you workout your muscles retain water for repair. That is just temporary though, nothing to worry about. What you want is fat loss, don't let water retention make you avoid things that will help with fat loss. Sure, working out your muscles is going to make them swell and buldge from extra water which will increase your weight and girths temporarily...but it will also help improve your fitness and establish a caloric deficit while eating a sustainable comfortable amount of food.5 -
Well the problem is I'm curvy with chub and when I workout I don't seem to slim it just tones (if that makes sense) so I look the same size just muscly. You are saying that will go away? Is there any indication for how long? Sorry I've never heard about this before.0
-
If you are eating below maintenance you can't actually add muscle, only water that makes you swell initially.
For me I typically gain 4-5lbs the first few weeks of a new work out but then it falls off and I appear slimmer and more toned.0 -
So it takes many many months to years and a lot of hard work and eating above (or at least at) your maintenance level to put on an amount of muscle that will be visible.
What you are seeing is just when you work out a muscle (especially if its not used to that activity level) it will swell with water and that water retention will stick around for quite some time to enable muscle repair and the transport of glycogen to the muscle.
Getting "muscly" isn't actually putting on muscle, its just that the muscle you have is swelling like a balloon pumped full of water. That is temporary. If you stop working out after a few days they will deflate back to the same size they've always been. While you have that muscle swell you will weigh more (because of the extra water retention) and your muscles will appear larger and feel harder (because they are full of water not because they have more muscle tissue).
You aren't going to put on any muscle mass while at caloric deficit, in fact if you are overly aggressive with your diet it is more likely that you will lose muscle. The best you can hope for is to retain the muscle you have.
Wouldn't worry about water retention and muscle swell, won't matter in terms of your fitness or actual fat loss.6 -
Thanks for telling me about this! It really put my mind at ease. I'm still going to wait a bit before truly working out, but probably not as long3
-
Working out will give you the best results, particularly strength training, as it will help you preserve the muscle you do have.
It's pretty much an impossibility you're bulking, far more likely to be losing muscle as you lose weight. How much depends on a few things such as aforementioned strength training, deficit size and protein intake.2 -
No offense OP but I really don't understand this fear I see on here often mostly from women that one is going to accidentally build up so much additional muscle mass as to be aesthetically displeasing.
True muscle growth, ie addition of muscle tissue, is very very hard to do especially for women and it's not going to happen at all unless you are lifting heavy and often and at caloric surplus and you've been at it for a long time and even then not really a given.
Doing some dumbell or barbell work 3 times a week for like 30 min at a time isn't going to put an ounce of muscle on you. You can preserve the muscle you have, you can strengthen the muscle you have...but not build it.
As a guy, last time I lost weight (profile pictures for that journey) I lifted 4 days a week for about 55 min at a time hard...like crush my soul hard....and after 6 months of that I put on zero muscle because I was at a caloric deficit. I built strength and endurance and I kept my muscle so it was worth it...but yeah no gain. Started at 137 lean mass, ended at 137 lean mass.6 -
I know it's silly for women to think they are going to bulk up into these masculine bodies without trying, my fear was keeping my CURRENT body size but with muscle instead of fat. It just didn't seem silly to me since I'm already this size if that makes any sense. lol0
-
Fat is a lot less dense than muscle. Even if you were to drop 40 pounds of fat and gain an insane 40 pounds of muscle you would still be considerably smaller physically.
Women that look really lean but fit (ie flat stomach) most likely lifted weights and built up some muscle to get there. It might sound weird but gaining weight with muscle can actually make you look thinner.5 -
BrokeBirkin wrote: »Well the problem is I'm curvy with chub and when I workout I don't seem to slim it just tones (if that makes sense) so I look the same size just muscly. You are saying that will go away? Is there any indication for how long? Sorry I've never heard about this before.
OP, "how long" varies from person to person. When I started lifting, I had a three pound gain over the first calendar month, a three pound loss the next month, and then after that started losing weight. That was all at the same calorie level. Shape/physique-wise, I looked much better after the second month even though I was at the same weight as when I started lifting. Just stick it out and you'll be fine.1 -
That is one thing to be prepared for, if you are new to lifting be prepared for the scale to go up at first due to the added water retention.0
-
How long the water stays with you depends on the intensity of the workouts and how they progress. You retain water when you do something more intense than you are used to, and it stays until the muscles have adapted, usually I few days. Every time you increase intensity, the water will come back and stay a few days. But it will never be more than a few pounds and will not stop your weight loss. It's just part of natural fluctuation. It doesn't only happen with strength training - I've had it from hiking and biking too, about 6lb weight increase that lasted 3 or 4 days.
It's not worth trying to avoid this. It is part of how your body works. What you need to do is concentrate on losing fat and ignore the water, it will always come and go.0 -
Silly fear? You guys don't know what we hear all the time.
Well, no later than yesterday I was working with 4 kgs dumbbells (just to show how small the weights were) and one trainer asked me if I wanted to lose weight. I said NO. I knew where he was going with that. That didn't stop him though. He said my fat will turn into muscles and I will look like a man.
So wrong!
and what's worse for me, not even logical. I mean if fat turned into muscles why would one look any less feminine than before (same visual just different material right?). Second, as a man he is pretty muscular and also rail thin. Why does he think females will automatically get bulky rather than thin and with muscles? Third... Has he ever seen a gymnast? Don't tell me those girls are not packing muscles and they aren't bulky at all...
But guys you hear things like that often and you think there might be a kernel of truth to that. Usually very difficult to convince trainers to have you work heavy weights and not spend your whole time doing cardio and abs.
6 -
Like @Aaron_K123 said, muscle is denser than fat, so an equivalent number of pounds of muscle will occupy far less space than the same amount of fat. So you will absolutely not stay the same volume (size) you are now as you lose weight, no matter how much muscle you gain (which you're not really going to do on a deficit, you'll just show your muscles easier).Of course I want to look better and feel better. I always feel tired, winded, lazy, etc. I also have horrible periods that cause terrible pain
I read this on your profile. Here's what I can tell you. Working out will help you gain stamina. I guarantee that you will feel less tired, winded, and lazy if you consistently engage in physical activity of some sort. It doesn't have to be in a gym. You do not have to run on a treadmill or lift weights. High intensity cardio is absolutely not required to reap the health benefits of getting exercise.
Things you can try:- dancing (join a bellydance class! seriously, its fun! or try Zumba out, or ballroom, or swing.. or anything)
- walking (great workout, even better if you can find somewhere interesting to walk)
- hiking (see walking, only even more awesome)
- swimming (wicks the sweat away, makes this more bearable. If you have breathing problems I suggest a cooler pool)
- go bowling
- play wii fitness or some other fitness game
If you're getting seriously winded, you may want to have your breathing checked at your doctor's or pharmacist's; you may have asthma. Untreated, it can be a serious impediment to fitness, but it's fairly easily controlled for most people.
As far as the periods go, they say that dysmenorrhea is made worse by excess fat. I can't say if this is fully true or not; I still pretty much want to curl up and die every month, but I can attest that getting some exercise has at least helped DISTRACT me from the pain. Curling up never made it go away, and neither does walking but at least I'm not just laying there obsessing about the cramps when I'm out for a walk. The increased blood flow to the uterus might be helping too, I don't know.
The body pressures on women can be slightly insane. I've known my muscles were considered "unfeminine" since my early teen years when I was informed that I had the "legs of a linebacker" and "shoulder muscles like Arnold." I am unfortunately still self-conscious about these traits. These kind of tossaway comments tend to hold much more weight with women (like me!) than they ought to.
Look at them trapezoids.. to a bodybuilder, this is.. absolutely nothing. Ridiculous to be worried about. To tenth-grade me, it was humiliation in the extreme. However, to 38-year-old me, its nice to see them re-emerge from under all the fat.
4 -
And I was so proud on my little arm muscles - are you telling me that's just water? Noooooo
Mine look kinda similar to yours @tomteboda and I love it. I'm not lifting, but use the free weights during HIIT/circuit training.
I can't understand why women are afraid of muscly arms, I love the look of that.2 -
-
@tomteboda Wow those arms! I've had my breathing checked out and even an EKG and all that done because I do get winded easily and pass out more often than I guess is normal. Everything appeared perfectly healthy. He said it's most likely a condition (I forget the name) where when my body or mind is too stressed my veins pumping blood will actually shrink so that I'm not getting enough oxygen to my body. I do get stressed very easily and when I was younger I would always get sleepy when I was stressed and could easily sleep 12 hours a day. As far as period go I haven't gotten it checked yet but I've been told it sounds like endometriosis.1
-
Your genetic predisposition is your genetic predisposition--whether you start working out now or wait until you've lost your weight, the end result will be pretty much the same, but you'll probably get there sooner if you start working out now.
Growing up I was never thrilled with my musculature either--I wanted long and lean like a dancer; alas I build bulkier muscles, too. At my age I've decided to embrace it as I would rather be bad**kitten* and built than flabby.1 -
Derpy_Hooves wrote: »And I was so proud on my little arm muscles - are you telling me that's just water? Noooooo
Your muscles are getting stronger and more developed as you work them. It doesn't follow that they're getting significantly heavier. The difference you see on the scale is mostly water. The difference you see in the mirror is strength.0 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »No offense OP but I really don't understand this fear I see on here often mostly from women that one is going to accidentally build up so much additional muscle mass as to be aesthetically displeasing.
Many many years ago I was told by several people that my thighs were really muscular. In my early 20's I went to the gym and did the circuit machines and some cardio. The comments always stuck in my head and I thought I had better be careful to not have bulky thighs. It certainly is irrational but there is usually a reason behind this fear.
Of course now in my 40's I just wish I had those muscular thighs again!
@BrokeBirkin Don't wait to work out! Lift weights while you are losing the weight. Preserve the muscle you have. When you are done losing weight will have a smoking hot body!2
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 391.4K Introduce Yourself
- 43.5K Getting Started
- 259.7K Health and Weight Loss
- 175.6K Food and Nutrition
- 47.3K Recipes
- 232.3K Fitness and Exercise
- 389 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.4K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.5K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 152.7K Motivation and Support
- 7.8K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.2K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.2K MyFitnessPal Information
- 22 News and Announcements
- 918 Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.3K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions