How do I get my butt back??

awesome thx! am I making it worse by running a lot?

Yes. You might want to drop back the cardio to no more than 2 hrs. a week. Cardio is catabolic (i.e. it tears down the body). One hopes that fat is what is torn down but, in women, because of the influence of estrogen (estrogen "loves" fat and is "meh" about muscle), often what is torn down is muscle. You will need to eat at a slight SURPLUS--especially protein--and work, work, work the muscles that you want to enlarge (gluts) with weight training. Weight training is anabolic (i.e. it builds up the body) when you give your body enough good food to build that muscle.

weight lifting is moreso catabolic.

No, in all the reading I have done, weight lifting is considered to be anabolic. You could use it to burn fat but the whole point of lifting weights is to build muscle---and that is anabolic.

I'm not sure what your reading, but in my EXPERIENCE, and what I have READ weightlifting is inherently catabolic. The term catabolic means 'break down'. When you go into the gym you lift weights, you are tearing the muscle fibres down with added resistance i.e. 'break down'. The term anabolic means 'build up'. You build muscle outside the gym, in your nutrition and sleep.

Another note the point of weightlifting is not to build muscle, it is to move a certain amount of weight - hence 'weight lifting'.
Bodybuilding is the sport of building muscle.

Semantic confusion. Yes, lifting weights does "tear the muscle down" but then the body builds it back better and stronger. That's the whole point. Who would lift weights if they got smaller, flabby, weaker muscles?

Hence why muscle builds outside the gym when you are not weightlifting. weight lifting is simply the catalyst to stimulate neural pathways and growth hormone release. But you could stimulate with all the growth hormones (natural) you want, but with out the food that follows the weightlifting, you're not building anything, you simply tear down the muscle over and over again. Therefore weightlifting = catabolic.

awesome thx! am I making it worse by running a lot?

not really, but your muscle glycogen will be depleted from running and will therefore seem your *kitten* look less plump.

When I do a squat , I try to squeeze my butt cheeks at the top but feel like I'm not getting much of a squeeze. Also when I try to do a glute bridge I cannot seem to make my cheeks squeeze at the top. What am I doing wrong???

how do I strengthen my bum cheeks? I read somewhere that sitting alot during the day can cause your glutes to become weak, any tips to make them strong? or just moooore squats ?