Heavy Lifting - Women - starting tomorrow

1. A calorie surplus is used to bulk. This can create muscle and the muscle would be more in your favor with strength training. As you can see, you cannot 'bulk up' and lose weight. Muscle needs extra fuel to grow.
2. A calorie deficit is used to cut. With strength training you'll loose a larger ratio of flab/fat compared to LBM. Remember, LBM isn't only just muscle, it's other things as well. Fat takes up more space then muscle...moral of the story...try to get rid of the fat first.

Since you are on a deficit, you will not get larger in your arms. In fact, even if you were on a calorie surplus, with strength training, you'd likely still get smaller since by volume, muscle weighs more then fat (a lb of muscle is denser then a lb of fat). It physically and mathematically doesn't make any sense that you would get larger in your arms on a calorie deficit. You can't lose weight and gain mass in muscle when muscle would be physically smaller then fat and the same amount by volume would weigh more. If you are on a deficit and losing weight, you are getting smaller. If you are maintaining your muscle during this deficit, you would still get smaller.

I carry weight in my arms (if that's what you mean). So I'm probably the worse person to give you sample pics since there are many with very slim ones...but since I started lifting they've only gotten firmer and smaller.

When I wasn't lifting at 130lbs:

Lifting at 130lbs (right):

You're eating at a calorie deficit, right? You can expect to lose fat and maintain muscle you already have. This should make your muscles appear more defined but not actually bigger.

Exactly this.

I think starting out with the smaller weights is safer and just as effective- using the small weights til your body adjusts to it, will still create muscle- and it is very surprising how quickly once your gain muscle you will burn calories - I use a aerobic/cardio and strength training video - Leslie Sansome incorporates all three and it is just amazing what an over all body work out can do - and you are right, it does take time for the metabolism to kick in, but once it does, oh baby!!

NO.

Light weights do nothing!!

My experience has been that smaller weights were good until form is correct, then it is time to start adding some plates.Your body adjusting becomes a plateau. I spent the first week on bare barbell and (what I call) the barbie weights (2.5 & 5, so cute . Once the trainer said my form was spot on, I added more real weight (Loving the 25s, looking forward to 35s). Only 6 weeks in and seeing nice changes already and all over. And cardio usually 2x a week, only because I enjoy it.

My experience has been that smaller weights were good until form is correct, then it is time to start adding some plates.Your body adjusting becomes a plateau. I spent the first week on bare barbell and (what I call) the barbie weights (2.5 & 5, so cute . Once the trainer said my form was spot on, I added more real weight (Loving the 25s, looking forward to 35s). Only 6 weeks in and seeing nice changes already and all over. And cardio usually 2x a week, only because I enjoy it.

^ Very important point here.. nothing wrong with lifting light so that you can learn and understand form! No one wants to hear that anyone here hurt themselves after reading incomplete replies or simple No's!

I changed from lifting 7lb dumbbells at home for rows, bicep curls to 17.50-20lb ones at the gym and I've already noticed a huge difference in two weeks. I think if you are new to lifting with barbells to talk with a trainer or someone at the gym.. it's hard to know what lbs to use at first especially for barbells.

Heavy lifting is an anaerobic activity and doesn't burn as much calorie as aerobic activities. Ask your trainer about aerobic and anaerobic activities. If you are looking to lose weight, don't be too anxious about jumping in to heavy weights. That will have to wait for a while.

This post is very very very misleading. In the short term the part about the higher calorie burns is absolutely correct. I love hiking and doing things outdoors. I use to go on 20km hikes etc. It was a phenomenal calorie burn. To get a large calorie burn in a shorter period of time, run. That's what I was doing for a while. The deficit will be higher (if you don't eat your calories back) but you'll lose a lower ratio of fat then you would strength training. My weight came off fantastically (even though I could get the same results with strength training just watching my deficit). Weight being mostly water and muscle I'd say. I got to 5'7 and 120lbs. I still had a muffin top.

The way that works is you lose a lower percentage of fat and a higher percentage of muscle then if you were strength training. That's kinda ****ty since the slimmer me lost more muscle then fat and so my metabolism significantly lowered if I wasn't constatly running around. I had to keep doing the hiking every day to get a sensible burn and I have arthritis so it was hard on the joints. I got tired of keeping up those large calorie burns just to be able to eat something because I dieted my muscle mass away (which helps you burn more calories). Running helps you burn calories at that moment when you're running. If you stop for a moment, you have to eat significantly less.

Lifting help you retain LBM and so you lose more fat then anything else. Since you have more LBM, you'll burn more sitting on your *kitten* doing nothing compared to the cardio bunny. Also, I firmed up quite quickly doing strength training. Don't get me wrong, cardio is great for the heart and I plan on getting right back out there to do my long hikes when the summer comes because I enjoy it. But I plan on keeping up the weights. But yeah, the post above is kind of misleading. I do both, if you want to get slimmer and firmer faster, the math physics and experience I've had with strength training works a lot better then cardio did. If you want to lose scale pounds (much of that being water) and not inches as fast and don't mind losing muscle along with it, cardio is the way to go. I highly recommend doing both. Be a beast, do it all.