Switching gears, am i doing this right?

JumpinJill

Hello people. Well I have been here for about a year now and in that year I have lost 20-25 pounds. That’s pretty cool, but it took me a long time and I am not sure where the weight came from. I only dropped 1 size in jeans, well a size and half I guess. I was a size 13, now I still wear 11s. I can put on a size 9 and button them, but I got a big belly that still hangs over and makes them a little inappropriate to wear in public lol. I feel like I did not do as well I wanted to in the last year and I don’t want it to take another whole year to get to where I wanted to be. I think I am looking more for a “body transformation” then weight loss? I'm not really sure what the proper terminology is. I would like to lose body fat, but would like to put the scale away and work on the inches and not the pounds.

So I am 5’6 and current weight is 143. I have a home weight lifting program I found online that consists of 8 different dumbbell/body weight exercises for each day (4 days a week total) to be done 3 times each day. (I hope that makes sense) I don’t have access to a gym right now, but have dumbbells up to 15 pounds and don’t mind buying another size up or 2 if I need to/want to. I have also been looking up videos of each exercise as I know form is important as is making sure I do full range of motion on some of the curls and raises and so on.

I also run 3 miles mon-sat with Sunday rest day.

So I just want to make sure I have the steps right. First even though I still want to lose weight/inches I need to INCREASE my calories? Right? I increased them from 1200 to 1500. Does that sound good? I was going to see how the next two weeks went and increase again if I needed to because my scale should be staying pretty steady at 143, but I should be losing inches right?

Second I can easily increase my running distance. Should I? I keep reading from various sources that when you start adding weights too much cardio can slow your progress. So should I increase or just stay at 3 miles? 3 miles takes me 32 minutes.

I know that protein is important, but I didn’t log much in the last year because when I buy food I usually eat the same thing every day for a week. I will be logging again starting today to get used to how much and what I need to eat to get that protein in. I also started my above weight program today. I have a food scale and weigh my food and meats.

So any tips, advice, am I going in the right/wrong direction? I also have kettleballs and the “you are your own gym” book, but I keep reading that it is important to do one program at a time and focus on consistency so I just picked the 4 day a week program to start with. So just looking for more advice, how tos, or information on my calorie limits.

Thank you for taking the time to read all this!