Transitioning from fat loss to muscle building

kimcalica

I’ve lost a significant amount of weight.. (130 lbs) and my workouts consist of a variety of aerobic dance, barre, yoga trapeaze, body weight, piyo, yoga, leg and wrist weights, and dumbbell and machine lifting. My sessions can last 2 or more hours. Mostly I work out in my home gym, but I also go to the fitness center and there I think I lift heavier weights. I’ve been building my stamina for about 7 years. My ultimate goal is to feel energetic and have a lot of stamina for an active lifestyle.
My deal is, all this time, I’ve had the fat loss mentality, and haven’t really put on much muscle. (I do keep my weights pretty light as I am generally more focused on calorie burn)
I have seen a lot of definition occur in the time I’ve been eating at a deficit. With as long and hard as I work, I should probably be stronger. I think it’s time to start putting on some real muscle.
I’m just very nervous about eating more especially after such a long time in this frame of mind.
Any advice on this subject?

capaul42

Find a good strength program and follow it. That's really the best advice I have. I follow strong curves since it falls in well with my goals. My partner did stronglifts for a while when he had time. He saw quite a lot of progress with it.

kimcalica

capaul42 wrote: »

Find a good strength program and follow it. That's really the best advice I have. I follow strong curves since it falls in well with my goals. My partner did stronglifts for a while when he had time. He saw quite a lot of progress with it.

Where do I find these programs?

HDBKLM

As a starting point you could put 'strength training', 'body weight training', etc. into YouTube. Lots of good stuff on there that's free and can be done in your living room. You can experiment a bit until you find one that you get some enjoyment out of, then use that as a starting point?

BeccaLoves2lift

kimcalica wrote: »

capaul42 wrote: »

Find a good strength program and follow it. That's really the best advice I have. I follow strong curves since it falls in well with my goals. My partner did stronglifts for a while when he had time. He saw quite a lot of progress with it.

Where do I find these programs?

Stronglifts is a free online program, just Google it. Strong Curves has the PDFs of the workouts free online but there is a book that is really the "meat" of the program. You can get the book from Amazon, I recommend the actual book not the Kindle version.

middlehaitch

here are a couple of threads that will help you define what you want to do moving forward.

The first is a list of programmes that cover bodyweight, dumbbell, and barbell routines. Read through the routines and choose one that suits you at this point in time.
I started with bodyweight and then Dumbbells moving to barbell when I was ready.

The second is all about recomposition. This covers how to gain strength, definition, and muscle while maintaining weight and losing body fat. It is a slow but gratifying process for many, including me.

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10332083/which-lifting-program-is-the-best-for-you/p1

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10177803/recomposition-maintaining-weight-while-losing-fat/p1

Cheers, h.