How to tell whether you've gained weight OR muscle...

workoutqueen628

I have hit a stand still and I think my body is trying to tell me something- maybe this is my happy weight, but i'm not satisfied with it because I have never weighed this much before. I keep telling myself that it is due to muscle, but then why do my clothes feel tighter?? Shouldn't they be looser since muscle is leaner? My workout consists mostly of cardio right now- i run about 3-4 days per week, do spinning, kickboxing, pilates, and yoga as well- since I don't really have access to weights right now (gym is far away). What causes your body to gain muscle? I thought cardio can't do this!

erickirb

It is probably not muscle as you have to have heavy resistance training and eat at a caloric surplus to gain muscle. If your goal on MFP is to loose weight then you will not be able to build muscle unless you are eating above your maintenance calories. It may be water.
You should try adding resistance training into your routine, this can shock your system into loosing again. You can do body weight exercises such as: lunges, squats, calf raises, push ups (multiple hand and leg positions), among others.

pixiestick

you may also be under-eating for the amount of cardio that you are doing. This will send your body into starvation mode and you won't lose at all (or at least very slowly).

The forum is filled with threads about not starving yourself. Look around. I had this problem for a while when I was eating 1000 cals and only eating back half of my exercise cals. I upped the cal intake and vuala! the weight started to come off regularly.