Hello everyone. I am new.

AngieT0731
AngieT0731 Posts: 7 Member
in Goal: Maintaining Weight
I want to maintain my weight while gaining butt muscle and losing back fat .. is it possible?

Replies

  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    This thread might help you pick a good training plan - the speed and effectiveness of muscle growth is hugely influenced by the quality of your training.
    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10332083/which-lifting-program-is-the-best-for-you/p1

    PS - it can be a good idead to track body measurements with a tape measure and progress photos too. Changes can be subtle and hard to spot when you see yourself in the mirror everyday but being pretty lean already helps.
  • AngieT0731
    AngieT0731 Posts: 7 Member
    Thanks for the link! I‘ve started to look at some of them and found they are very helpful. As gyms in my area are still closed, an instruction for home workout really helps me. I am also thinking to get a women’s guide to building a better butt and body :) I think I need a comprehensive guidance like this as I know very little about it. I did some exercises yesterday looking at YouTube and I overslept and was late for work this morning as I was so exhausted. 5 To 6-hour sleep is usually enough for me but I slept 9 hours last night :| Anyway, thank you for the info and your advice! I will track body measurements and pictures. I like this app as I can save a picture everyday, but I wish I could also track body measurements here as well. Seeing some changes will definitely motivate me :)
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    You're welcome.

    Luckily you can track body measurements on here.....
    On your laptop from Home the Check-In tab where you would track your weight and you will see a link "Track Additional Measurements"

    Then over time you can use the Reports function to track your progress.
  • bdelaney33
    bdelaney33 Posts: 150 Member
    Have you thought about a personal trainer? sounds like you have pretty specific goals; might be worth it at the beginning.
  • AngieT0731
    AngieT0731 Posts: 7 Member
    sijomial wrote: »
    You're welcome.

    Luckily you can track body measurements on here.....
    On your laptop from Home the Check-In tab where you would track your weight and you will see a link "Track Additional Measurements"

    Then over time you can use the Reports function to track your progress.

    Thank you very much! I could add my size for neck, waist and hips on my laptop. I didn’t know people care about neck :) But this is good so I am keep track everything I need in one place!
  • AngieT0731
    AngieT0731 Posts: 7 Member
    bdelaney33 wrote: »
    Have you thought about a personal trainer? sounds like you have pretty specific goals; might be worth it at the beginning.

    I’d like to definitely try a personal trainer if I don’t see any changes after a month ;) I have completely changed my diet taking a plenty of protein and started to work out for about 10 days ago, but gaining muscle seems to be very hard and the science behind it seems much more complicated than I thought :o let me see how it goes! Thanks ;)
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,204 Member
    AngieT0731 wrote: »
    bdelaney33 wrote: »
    Have you thought about a personal trainer? sounds like you have pretty specific goals; might be worth it at the beginning.

    I’d like to definitely try a personal trainer if I don’t see any changes after a month ;) I have completely changed my diet taking a plenty of protein and started to work out for about 10 days ago, but gaining muscle seems to be very hard and the science behind it seems much more complicated than I thought :o let me see how it goes! Thanks ;)

    Mostly, it's that gaining muscle is very slow, even if you're doing everything perfectly.

    Generally speaking, a woman under perfect conditions (but without performance enhancing drugs) would be doing well to gain a quarter pound of new muscle mass per week. Perfect conditions include a well-designed progressive strength training program faithfully performed, good nutrition (especially protein), relative youth, good genetics for gain, and a calorie surplus. So, many of us can realistically expect slower gain than that.

    The good news is that strength improvements (so useful!) are usually much faster than mass gains. (This is from better recruiting and using existing muscle fibers, essentially.) Appearance improvements can also be faster than mass gain, for a variety of reasons.

    So, all of this is very worth doing, and will pay off, but it's important to realize that you're making a time/effort investment that has payoffs over a longer time-scale.

    Best wishes!
  • AngieT0731
    AngieT0731 Posts: 7 Member
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    AngieT0731 wrote: »
    bdelaney33 wrote: »
    Have you thought about a personal trainer? sounds like you have pretty specific goals; might be worth it at the beginning.

    I’d like to definitely try a personal trainer if I don’t see any changes after a month ;) I have completely changed my diet taking a plenty of protein and started to work out for about 10 days ago, but gaining muscle seems to be very hard and the science behind it seems much more complicated than I thought :o let me see how it goes! Thanks ;)

    Mostly, it's that gaining muscle is very slow, even if you're doing everything perfectly.

    Generally speaking, a woman under perfect conditions (but without performance enhancing drugs) would be doing well to gain a quarter pound of new muscle mass per week. Perfect conditions include a well-designed progressive strength training program faithfully performed, good nutrition (especially protein), relative youth, good genetics for gain, and a calorie surplus. So, many of us can realistically expect slower gain than that.

    The good news is that strength improvements (so useful!) are usually much faster than mass gains. (This is from better recruiting and using existing muscle fibers, essentially.) Appearance improvements can also be faster than mass gain, for a variety of reasons.

    So, all of this is very worth doing, and will pay off, but it's important to realize that you're making a time/effort investment that has payoffs over a longer time-scale.

    Best wishes!

    That explains everything I’ve experienced since I started :) I noticed planks and squash were getting easier, my waist is a half inch smaller and I feel my butt became a little more round; but I haven’t seen any increase in muscle mass measured by my scale. It actually became lower when I had a little decrease in my weight. As I even felt I had more muscle, I thought the measurement for muscle mass wasn’t accurate. Thank you very much for your Encouragement. I will keep in mind that it will take long time but all of efforts I make will pay off eventually :)
  • steveko89
    steveko89 Posts: 2,223 Member
    Like others have mentioned, recomping can be really slow and looking for visible results in less than a week is going to leave you disappointed more often than not. Keep up the good work though, hit your marks and trust that the process is going to work long-term.
  • Diatonic12
    Diatonic12 Posts: 32,344 Member
    You've gotten some really, really good advice here. Report back.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,204 Member
    AngieT0731 wrote: »
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    AngieT0731 wrote: »
    bdelaney33 wrote: »
    Have you thought about a personal trainer? sounds like you have pretty specific goals; might be worth it at the beginning.

    I’d like to definitely try a personal trainer if I don’t see any changes after a month ;) I have completely changed my diet taking a plenty of protein and started to work out for about 10 days ago, but gaining muscle seems to be very hard and the science behind it seems much more complicated than I thought :o let me see how it goes! Thanks ;)

    Mostly, it's that gaining muscle is very slow, even if you're doing everything perfectly.

    Generally speaking, a woman under perfect conditions (but without performance enhancing drugs) would be doing well to gain a quarter pound of new muscle mass per week. Perfect conditions include a well-designed progressive strength training program faithfully performed, good nutrition (especially protein), relative youth, good genetics for gain, and a calorie surplus. So, many of us can realistically expect slower gain than that.

    The good news is that strength improvements (so useful!) are usually much faster than mass gains. (This is from better recruiting and using existing muscle fibers, essentially.) Appearance improvements can also be faster than mass gain, for a variety of reasons.

    So, all of this is very worth doing, and will pay off, but it's important to realize that you're making a time/effort investment that has payoffs over a longer time-scale.

    Best wishes!

    That explains everything I’ve experienced since I started :) I noticed planks and squash were getting easier, my waist is a half inch smaller and I feel my butt became a little more round; but I haven’t seen any increase in muscle mass measured by my scale. It actually became lower when I had a little decrease in my weight. As I even felt I had more muscle, I thought the measurement for muscle mass wasn’t accurate. Thank you very much for your Encouragement. I will keep in mind that it will take long time but all of efforts I make will pay off eventually :)

    It sounds like you're making really good short-term progress, then, based on feeling stronger/fitter and that nice bit of waist decrease.

    To the bolded: You're right. The bioelectric thingies (home scales, gym equivalents) aren't very accurate - they're easily misled by things like hydration levels. If you have a home scale that claims it measures body fat, looking at it on kind of an averaged basis over a long time period might give you a reasonable understanding of the direction of your body composition changes, but I wouldn't trust it for absolute numbers, nor would I put much stock in ups and downs over relatively small time periods.

    This is an oversimplification, but most bodyweight changes over hours to days (sometimes up to a small number of weeks) are primarily shifts in water weight and digestive contents. Changes averaged over weeks to months, maybe more about fat-level changes. Over months to years is where meaningful amounts of muscle-mass change can be part of the picture, if you're taking steps - as you are - to cause those changes to happen.

    Keep patiently doing the good stuff you're doing, and you'll reach your body comp goals in the long term, and see some other positive changes along with way!
  • AngieT0731
    AngieT0731 Posts: 7 Member
    Thank you for your encouragements, everyone :)

    To AnnPT77: Thank you for your explanation. I will try not to focus on short-term measurements. I agree with you; I think it’s a good idea to track them on average basis. I also take pictures almost everyday and found that, even though there seems very little changes on a day-to-day basis, I could see a positive result compared to the pictures from two weeks ago when I started exercising. It really motivates me as a better look may be my primary reason I started exercising.

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