Female starting strength training with lots of fat to lose?

Giftoftheflab

Hi all - I’ve just joined MFP about 10 days ago, determined to get myself back in shape. I’m 46, female, 174cm, 250lbs, 40% body fat. At my fittest I was around 170lbs (but I was 15 years younger then, and hadn’t had any children!). At that point I did 10/12 reps of smaller weights, but always dumbbells and weight machines - I've never lifted a barbell.

I am trying to lose fat whilst not losing muscle, and am very keen to begin 5x5 StrongLifts or similar. But I am a little confused about how achievable it is to remain in a calorie deficit and retain muscle. I don’t know whether it would be better to try to lose weight first and then begin training. The books I have read seem to be aimed at people with a lot less weight/fat to lose.

So my questions are: has anyone any experience of beginning lifting heavy weights with a lot of fat to lose? Does anyone have any reading recommendations on the subject? And if anyone has any general advice on the subject, I’d really appreciate it.

Thank you very much in advance.

livingleanlivingclean

Resistance training, along with sufficient protein, definitely helps you retain muscle in a deficit. Start now! You may experience some newbie gains too.

To lose the fat, make sure you're sticking to your calorie deficit. This mostly happens with diet, and controlling your intake. Exercise can help "earn" you more calories, but sadly resistance training will not likely burn that much - this doesn't mean you should avoid it!

H_Ock12

I started Strong Lifts while I was in the process of losing 50lbs. For me (I was not new to lifting), my progress was slower in upping weights while running a deficit and also running. The program did leave me with a solid base as I lost and I was easily able to transition to muscle building programs at maintenance and then a bulk.

I would recommend starting as soon as possible!

Chieflrg

Train now.

Buy Starting Strength 3rd addition book and run the Novice LP.

The book has the best info and the program is better than any other for a beginner by far.

malibu927

Lift now. Otherwise you'll be losing muscle.

nowine4me

Start now!! You may not build tons of muscle, but you’ll get stronger and will see progress.

YosemiteSlamAK

Strength training tends to not burn a great deal of calories on its own. With almost all exercise our eating habits play the major role. Lean muscle will help you burn additional calories 24/7, so adding weight training can help you lose fat & build muscle. You will see slower drops on the scales the heavier your lifting routine gets, but you should see toner arms & legs.
The biggest pitfall of any exercise routine is trying to lose it all at once aka overdoing it, which typically shows itself in DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness). When we lift weights we get microscopic tears in our muscles, which repairs itself and builds up the muscle tissue. Basically the same process your body does to heal a cut on your skin. For this process to work effectively it needs protein to repair the muscle and time to heal. That's why many experts recommend not working out a muscle group more than two or three times a week. If you get a little sore working out, that is normal. If you can't lift your arms or it hurts to blink, you may have done too much! If you are still sore in the muscles you are going to be working chances are you could be doing more harm than good. Causes of this could be too much weight, too many reps, too many sets, bad form or not enough rest. Working a muscle too soon can mean loss of control, improper range of motion, injury to stabilizing muscles, or injuries requiring casts/surgical repair.
Using a barbell tends to be a little easier than using dumbbells. There is less to balance and both arms are lifting the same weight. This puts less work on our stabilizing muscles and allows to a certain degree our dominate arm to compensate for our non dominate arm.