Accidental arm bulking

AshLawsonPearson

Help! I have self-proclaimed Accidental Arm Bulking!

For a little background-- for the past 4 years, I have maintained a diet of 900-1200 calories Monday through Thursday, and "not dieting" on weekends. I've run a few 1/2 marathons and 2 full marathons, and have been a Cardio Queen. 4 years ago, I weighed 142 lbs, and at the beginning of June, I weighed 121 lbs (I'm 5 ft tall).

The reason that I stumbled across this group is that if I LOOKED at a day of food over 1200 calories, I instantly gained weight-- a few pounds. The math wasn't adding up.... It didn't make any sense to me how I was eating under my BMR, working out like crazy and eating Progresso Light soups for every meal and not getting smaller!

I ***literally*** gained 10 lbs in 11 days (no, not water weight, legit I-need-2-sizes-bigger-it's-been-a-month kind of gain), and it finally shook me that this was NOT normal and something was wrong.

I'm slowly but surely getting enlightened to what I've done to my metabolism!


My TDEE is about 1800, and I've increased my cals from 1200 to 1389. I've been following a weight lifting program & I've already gained a good bit of strength in 3.5 weeks! I 'broke up with my scale' until the end of August, so I don't know what those numbers are doing, but my clothes are *slowly* starting to fit better (or fit at all!). The problem is that my arms are getting huge-- but not in a body building/muscular kind of way! I know that the muscles are getting bigger, but when can I expect them to start looking toned and not bulky?!

Jennbecca33

Hi AshLawsonPear and welcome to EM2WL...so glad you found your way here!

It sounds like you have a long history of restricting your calories and pairing that with a high activity level. You would be a great candidate for a full reset if you feel prepared to do it and understand mentally what that entails. Your body has been receiving minimal calories for a long time and so your metabolism is probably quite suppressed...hence why you gained that 10 pounds so easily. Increasing your calories is a great first step. At 121 pounds, you are already at a healthy weight for your height. I would suggest doing a full reset and then continuing to eat at maintenance and lifting heavy weights so you can focus on body recomposition, which will help tone and tighten those areas you are concerned with.

You said your TDEE is around 1800. Where did you calculate that number? It seems a little low to me with your activity level. We normally suggest using the Scooby website here (http://scoobysworkshop.com/accurate-calorie-calculator/). You want to make sure to choose the correct activity level based on the number of hours of exercise you do per week and also taking into consideration your daily activities (ex: are you on your feet all day? Do you sit at a desk?) You said you have started a weight lifting program, which is great, but are you still doing a lot of cardio as well?

With a full reset, you will want to SLOWLY increase your calories all the way up to your TDEE and stay there for a minimum of 8-12 weeks until your body stabilizes. Here is a great link posted by Kiki on what to expect when increasing your calories:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/521728-upping-cals-what-to-expect-why-you-need-patience

Now, as for your arms getting bigger? It's not actually muscle if you have been eating at a deficit. It's probably just water stores in your muscles making you feel as though your arms are bigger, especially since you just started that weight lifting program 3 weeks ago. That feeling should deflate, but I do not believe you have gained muscle in your arms. To gain actual muscle weight, you would have to be eating at a surplus, or over your TDEE!!

I hope this helps! Please post back here with any other questions you may have. Also feel free to check out the EM2WL website at em2wl.com for additional support! Feel free to add me on MFP as well!

heybales

Just so you can always do the math for any weight changes you see, because you have it wrong actually right now, and going forward you are likely to freak yourself out.

Take what you claim was not water weight but legit 11 lbs in 10 days. I'm assuming that means you think it was fat.
If that was really fat, here we go.

11 lbs x 3500 = 38500 excess calories eaten / 10 days = 3850 calories daily eaten over your true maintenance.

Did you even eat 3850 calories daily for 10 days? Let alone 3850 OVER your true TDEE?

The tightness of your clothes is not the indicator if it was fat or water weight, the speed of the change is, and the reality of what is possible or not.

So no you didn't gain real weight as in fat. May be real.

But is the increased blood volume from exercise during summer an increase in real weight? Such that you'd like some blood letting to drop it?
Hopefully not.

You can have increases of weight for legit good reasons, and weight you don't want to lose, though you likely gained some stress water too.