I fear gaining muscle/weight because my frame size isn’t small. Any other women have the same issue?

j4hcdrf9wh

21F and I am slightly underweight at 5'9" and 117lbs. I don’t really care so much about the number but more so how I feel, which is lacking in strength. My issue though is that although most would assume I’m thin because of my weight, I don’t look that way necessarily. Naturally I have wide hips. My hip bone (from the side) sticks out and is very easy to feel. I know that if I became anorexic thin my measurements there probably wouldn’t really become much smaller. I just have a large hip bone. My measurements are 36.5in at the hip and I’m underweight. I know women who aren’t underweight and have much smaller hip sizes. It genuinely bothers me as I don’t want to put on muscle/some fat and then my hips look even bigger.

I guess, my issue is that I feel large. Not necessarily fat but my frame is just large. It doesn’t matter how thin I get I never actually appear small and I know gaining muscle will only make me look larger.

lisakatz2

Strength training will not increase your hip width. Those are fat deposits and genetically determined. Some women carry weight in their buttocks, or thighs, or stomach, some on their hips. Strength training will actually improve your appearance by balancing out your figure. Work on the back and shoulders in particular.

Retroguy2000

5'9" and 117 pounds might be quite underweight? Certainly on BMI, which I know is flawed.

Some muscle would likely improve your body composition, as lisa above said. A focus on shoulders and back like she said, would help make your waist look smaller in comparison, and improve your posture too (if that's applicable). I'd suggest a full body lifting approach, with a focus on exercises like lateral raises, face pulls, and lat pulldowns/prayers or seated cable rows. Or if you lack gym access but have weights at home, describe what you have and I can suggest alternatives. To actually gain muscle while being so lean already, you will need a calorie surplus of (I'd suggest at least 200 daily) over maintenance, and increased protein ofc.

A couple of the frequent women posters here may also be able to help.

@AnnPT77
@claireychn074

claireychn074

Time for a little reality check - both @AnnPT77 and I are significantly older than you (I’m 50) so this is feedback from a lifetime of experience.

I’m 5’3, c123 pounds and my hips are 37.5 (ie bigger than yours). Do they look big? I have no idea. I know my thighs are larger than usual because the sport I do builds them.

Why is it so important that you get smaller hips? Will it make you healthier in the long term? Will you be happy if you attain the magical size hips? Will it help you to get the job you want, the life you want, to support those you care about?

I suspect nearly every single woman out there has beat themselves up for not meeting an arbitrary beauty standard, and that’s how marketing draws us in and makes us spend money on stuff we don’t need. There’s an old saying which is comparison is the thief of joy. Say you magically got smaller hips - what then? Will you hate your waist? Your legs? Your face?

Don’t get me wrong, I still catch myself wanting to be different (slimmer, tanned, better hair) but then I shake myself. I just try to be the very best version of ME that I can. In my case, that means strong legs, keeping my body fat to a healthy amount (but defo not too low) and looking after myself.

How about you be a bit kinder to yourself, fuel your body (you’ll need it for a lot longer than I need mine), and look for happiness outside of your hips?
ETA: my leg muscles (and everywhere else) took YEARS to build. I train for c 8hours a week for my sport and I train hard. I eat c2300-2500 calories every single day. You won’t put muscle on overnight - it’s hard work, so don’t be afraid of building muscle on your hips or anywhere else.

AnnPT77

Hello, and welcome!

One reassuring and I hope encouraging thing I can say: When a person starts strength training, strength increases precede muscle-mass gains, and can be quite quick. That would be a good thing, right?

That happens because our bodies tend to first work on better recruiting and using the muscle fibers we already have, rather than adding new muscle fibers. That can increase strength quickly at first.

After that, muscle mass gain is slow, requiring persistence over months to years. An implication of that is that you won't get big or gain muscle mass or body size overnight. It will be very slow if it happens at all, and slower in terms of added pounds for women than men, typically. You can start strength training, see when you achieve a look you like, then stop progressive strength training (which would slowly add even more mass) and turn to a strength/muscle-mass maintenance lifting routine to stay at the look you like.

One caveat: You might see a little scale jump right at first, from a bit of extra water retention needed for muscle repair. It's usually not very visible, since it's spread over a lot of area, but you might notice a tiny difference in body parts that have worked the hardest. It's not fat, and it will balance out eventually, so there's no reason to let it freak you out if it happens.

Retro is correct, that strength and muscle gains happen best in a small calorie surplus. It can also happen for at least young and genetically fortunate people, at constant body weight and weight maintenance calories. It will still require a good progressive strength training program faithfully performed, and good overall nutrition (especially but not exclusively ample protein). Those last two, program and nutrition, are always essential for good progress. But it will be even slower at weight maintenance calories than with the small calorie surplus. People who gain muscle at constant weight are typically going to get smaller overall, not bigger, because a pound of muscle takes up less space than a pound of body fat.

So: Start weight lifting, or doing other strength training. Follow a good program, get good nutrition. You can increase strength, probably quite quickly and noticeably at first; and if you eventually add muscle mass it will be slow and will be something you can manage or even modify. You have some control over where mass increases by the specific exercises you choose to do, and how you structure them (such as how much weight, how many reps/sets, frequency - among other factors you can learn about).

That said, there are things in your post that I have to admit put me in "anxious granny" mode. (I'm old enough even to be your great-granny, for sure. Some of what I'm saying comes from personal experience.) Here's why I typed that:

You're underweight. You don't like your hips, which are a perfectly normal and even fairly slim measurement for your taller than average height. You feel large when it's very unlikely that you are objectively large. I know you didn't say you would actually pursue being anorexic, but the reason seems to be that you know it wouldn't decrease your hip size, i.e., it sounds like you may've at least entertained the idea of weight loss when already underweight and might have gone that way if not for the issue being skeleton.

Taken together, this is concerning to me. Even though I'm a stranger, I'd like to see you happy and thriving psychologically and physically, because that's what an anxious granny wants. I think you should give some serious thought to working on loving your body and developing positivity about your body image, possibly even considering a short stint of counseling about that. At 21, you're at a point where you choose a path into your future, so this can be a point where you choose between a path of self-criticism and self doubt, vs. a path of confidence and thriving health. That's a big deal.

The size and shape of your skeleton - such as your pelvic bones - is truly and honestly something that we each need to understand, accept, and even love about ourselves. It can't be changed. Someone who dislikes their hip width and perceives it as wide can achieve a shape they may consider more balanced by working on upper body musculature, for sure. But negative self-image and self doubt are mostly internal, tend to be not really about the body. How we look and how we think we look are not always in sync.

In general, a woman who is very thin - quite low body fat as I expect you are - will become more attractive in appearance in currently popular ways if they add some muscle. The look many call "toned" is generally considered more attractive than being very thin with not much muscle at all, things that rude people might call "skinny fat" or "skeletal". I hope you'll give that some thought.

On top of that, adding some muscle and strength at age 21 would improve a woman's future, even lengthen her happy and productive lifespan. That's because bone strength depends in part on muscle strength, and osteoporosis can reduce women's quality of life and lifespan in later years. I absolutely know this from personal experience, and not because all my personal choices were in the positive direction.

There are lots of reasons I'd encourage you to start strength training now, and I hope you'll think hard about the rest of the above, too.

I'm cheering for you to achieve success with your goals, and overall happiness, sincerely!

Retroguy2000

AnnPT77 wrote: »

Retro is correct, that strength and muscle gains happen best in a small calorie surplus. It can also happen for at least young and genetically fortunate people, at constant body weight and weight maintenance calories. It will still require a good progressive strength training program faithfully performed, and good overall nutrition (especially but not exclusively ample protein). Those last two, program and nutrition, are always essential for good progress. But it will be even slower at weight maintenance calories than with the small calorie surplus. People who gain muscle at constant weight are typically going to get smaller overall, not bigger, because a pound of muscle takes up less space than a pound of body fat.

Just a small nitpick above from an overall excellent reply. The above is good general advice, however in this case, she seems underweight, so to make progress requires fuel that the body doesn't currently have. Hence my suggestion she needs a calorie surplus with the training.

As you said, gains will take time. Plenty of time to adjust course if needed. Nobody gets "huge" or "jacked" overnight, especially natural, and female.