need Advice and feeling confused

babybluekai

Hey! I'm 26, 5'6" 150 lbs. I've been dieting for like 20 years struggled with eating disorders and the whole mess.
I've done yoga and gone for 2 + mile walks twice daily for years now and don't really consider it exercise, its just part of my baseline existence. I recently added running to my routine and love it.
Somehow after years of yoga practice I just started to notice muscle definition in my forearm (I've been focusing on planks and slowly lowering my body to the ground for a few months now, like slow motion push ups i guess), and I fell in love with this little baby muscle. Its the first "muscle" definition I've ever been able to see on my own body.
Now I have a gym membership and am starting to try to begin lifting weights and going some weight machines, with my boyfriends help, but I still don't know what, or how to do much.

I've been forcing myself to only eat at around 1200 calories for much of my life, and i believe its whats lead to most of the binging and eating disordered behavior. In the past month of upping my exercise I've stopped counting calories and went from 145 to 150, but i actually look leaner and have some slight muscle definition, and my clothes fit better. I know however that I'm still overweight, and the old parts of my mind are telling me I simply need to eat >1200 cal.

I need help. I like learning to actually love what my body can do, and focus on building it up force rather than wrecking it.


How much am I supposed to eat? Is it possible to build muscle and lose body fat? Words like "building" "gains" and "bulking" make me nervous. I'm not nervous I'll look manly, I know its hard for a lady to bulk like that, i'm just worried i'll be FAT.

What should I work out? How often? are there free plans available out there to someone like me? I prefer the machines to free weights just because I have no concept of how to use the barbells etc.

Links/resources would be wonderful.. Thanks

(Also, I'm in therapy for eating disordered past/anxiety and I am not trying to use exercise to "cancel" food or whatever the exercise-aneroxia mentality is, I'm mentally and physically healthy finally and trying to figure out where to go from here)

PPumpItUp

A lot of people on here talk about Strong Lifts 5x5 but it uses some compound exercises and you need to make sure your form is good for squats and deadlifts. Taking a class with an instructor watching your form is a good idea as is taking a couple sessions with a personal trainer.

Total calories for the day affect if you gain fat or loose fat. Your macronutrient breakdown affects your body composition. If you are trying to gain weight you can stay closer to .8g of protein per lbs body mass. If you are on a calorie deficit you need to get closer to 1-1.2g of protein per lbs body mass. You can maintain muscle mass on lower amounts of protein but it will be harder to gain muscle mass.

Luna3386

Look for the body recomping thread. Sounds just like what you are looking for.

Stronglifts is a great program.

babybluekai

Thank you!! Looking for the body recomp thread found a mfp article on recomp that said to eat at Maintenance on lift says that's a whopping 2010. Wow. And I will try to focus on my protein more. Awesome! That's
I downloaded the StrongLifts app, I'm going to need a personal training session before I attempt those... I don't want to hurt myself

loftus4827

Yeah girl! Feed those muscles and get those gains!! Seriously, eat big, lift hard, you'll start seeing some nice changes in your body.

Katiebear_81

It's ok to take up more space. We forget that, as women, sometimes. And a lean, strong 150 lbs looks totally different than runner at 150 lbs.

I like StrongLifts. It's a good program.