Am I going to look manly?????

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  • robdel302
    robdel302 Posts: 292 Member
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    Okay, 140 pounds of lean mass "might" be accurate. If you start strength training, eat right, and keep a small deficit you will lose mostly fat. But by the time you are done losing, even with doing everything right, you will have lost some of your muscle mass too.
    I wouldn't set my goal to be 120 pounds. Set your goal to look a certain way, or even to fit in certain clothes.
    You won't look manly, you don't have the testosterone for that.

    QFT, the amount of work it takes to put on A LOT of muscle is not something done by accident. Focus on how you want to look, not what the scale says. Once your bodyfat drops low and you're fairly lean your weight wont move much but you'll see a lot of results in the mirror.
  • BeachGingerOnTheRocks
    BeachGingerOnTheRocks Posts: 3,927 Member
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    If you have a goal weight set at 120 pounds, that is fine.

    At your height and weight, it is unlikely your lean body mass is 140. Even if it is 140, you plan to lose 70 or more pounds, and you will lose lean body mass no matter what you do. There is no way to prevent it unless you're taking steroids or eating a specific diet and lifting like you're getting ready for a competition.

    Strength training, lifting as heavy as you can with progressive loading, will help you retain more lean mass that you have. When you get down to 140 pounds and have 110-115 pounds of lean mass, you will look great. You'll look toned, be strong, and happy that you lifted.

    Now, let's say you don't strength train, and let's think about that same 140 pounds of lean body mass. You will lose fat and lean mass throughout the process. When you get down to goal weight, of the 70 pounds you lose, more than half of that could very likely be lean body mass. You would end up weighing 130 pounds with about 90 pounds of lean mass. You would look deflated.

    So, the choices are: 1) lift, not lose as much lean mass; or 2) don't lift and find that over half of your weight loss is lean mass.

    That's just reality.
  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
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    unless you grow a beard while you're lifting, you wont look manly....
  • ilovesparkle
    ilovesparkle Posts: 127 Member
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    Nope.

    I started out being hesitant about lifting and weight training, but it helps. A LOT.

    Plus, never in my life has someone said they wish they had my thighs. Until I started weight training.
  • EatClean_WashUrNuts
    EatClean_WashUrNuts Posts: 1,590 Member
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    Are you shaving your beard daily?
  • IpuffyheartHeelsinthegym
    IpuffyheartHeelsinthegym Posts: 5,573 Member
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    Yes. You will look manly like my profile picture.
  • djeffreys10
    djeffreys10 Posts: 2,312 Member
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    I am betting you do not have the correct bf%. It is highly unlikely you have 140 lbs of lbm.
  • PrincessMissDee
    PrincessMissDee Posts: 183 Member
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    The simple answer is NO, you won't look manly. You're not genetically programmed to.
  • Opie1980
    Opie1980 Posts: 9 Member
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    Women lack that all important hormone that makes a man a man. Do not worry about looking manly when losing your weight and do your strength training.
  • ironanimal
    ironanimal Posts: 5,922 Member
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    If you start to notice a bulge in your underwear, back down on the roids.
  • Lessthanpenguins
    Lessthanpenguins Posts: 30 Member
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    Muscle does not weigh more than fat. A pound of fat and a pound of muscle weigh 16 ounces each The difference is that a pound of fat takes up five times the amount of space as a pound of muscle.
    Okay, I just have to say, this is the most stupid thing I've ever heard. If you use that logic, than there is no such thing as weight. a pound of rocks and a pound of feathers weigh the same, yet we definitely know that feathers weigh less than rocks, right? because it will take much more MASS of feathers to make that pound than it will take rocks. Thus, the same is true for fat and muscle.

    Mass is the measurement of the amount of matter someting contains.

    WEIGHT on the other hand is the measurement of the pull of gravity on an object.

    That is why on the moon, your MASS stays the same, but your WEIGHT drops. There is less gravity. Stop trying to confuse people and learn basic physics.
  • Calliope610
    Calliope610 Posts: 3,775 Member
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    I am betting you do not have the correct bf%. It is highly unlikely you have 140 lbs of lbm.

    According to the info on OP's profile, she is at 107lbs LBM.
  • peleroja
    peleroja Posts: 3,979 Member
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    I would be shocked if your lean body mass was actually that high. How are you checking your body fat percentage? I'm your height, and while I am pretty small framed I'm not tiny or anything. I'm currently 120 pounds and my lean body mass is about 95 pounds, if I calculate it from the 21% body fat I get when I measure with both the caliphers and my scale. 140 on a 5'4" woman seems VERY high.
  • sixisCHANGEDjk
    sixisCHANGEDjk Posts: 243
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    Check this out:

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/909937-women-and-weight-training-pic-heavy
  • HeidiMightyRawr
    HeidiMightyRawr Posts: 3,343 Member
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    You will not look manly! That's it, no if's or buts. The huge female bodybuilders who have muscles most men could only dream of, I guarantee you, they get a little extra hormonal "help" Without that, you don't have the hormones for it.

    You can build significant muscle if you aim for that, and work damn hard over a number of years. It doesn't happen accidently, and you still won't look like a man (naturally)

    Also, if you think you look too big at 140 (ie: too much fat still) then go lower. Nobody is saying you have to be at 140, different people look better at different weights. It depends on your height, frame, how much muscle you have.......
  • Coffeeholic8
    Coffeeholic8 Posts: 271 Member
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    My lifting partner is a woman. We've been lifting together for 7 - 8 months and when we started she weighed 121 pounds, she now weighs 123 pounds and looks slimmer than before. She is of course much more toned with some great definition than before she started lifting but does she look bulky or manly? Hell no, if anything she looks even more feminine than she did 7 or 8 months ago. She lifts heavy, for instance her current best squat (1RM) is 255lbs and she benches 150lbs. She also does the leg press machine at 440lbs and has fantastic toned legs as a result.

    Strange thing is I get women coming up to me and commenting on Debbie's physique, especially her arms, and how they would love to look like that or have her arms. They ask what she does to get those arms and that physique and when I tell them she lifts really heavy stuff up and down they look horrified, shake their head and say they don't want to do that because they don't want to get bulky/look like Arnie. This despite the fact the evidence that they won't get bulky by doing it is standing just across, or has just left, the gym. Also funny is the fact they will come up to me and ask about Debbie but won't approach her, with a couple of exceptions
  • crista_b
    crista_b Posts: 1,192 Member
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    @HeidiMightyRawr, you look great in your profile pic! I hope to have a back like that someday! :drinker:
  • HeidiMightyRawr
    HeidiMightyRawr Posts: 3,343 Member
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    @HeidiMightyRawr, you look great in your profile pic! I hope to have a back like that someday! :drinker:

    Thank you :smile: Rows/chin ups/lat pulls/deadlifts etc do great things for a back.
  • crista_b
    crista_b Posts: 1,192 Member
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    @HeidiMightyRawr, you look great in your profile pic! I hope to have a back like that someday! :drinker:

    Thank you :smile: Rows/chin ups/lat pulls/deadlifts etc do great things for a back.
    Just started NROL4W last Monday so I'm doing all of those except chin ups. I don't have anywhere near the strength required for them yet.

    I'm not really enjoying deadlifts like most people have, but I've been liking all the other lifts in the program so hopefully I'll learn to like deadlifts too.
  • waldo56
    waldo56 Posts: 1,861 Member
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    Muscle does not weigh more than fat. A pound of fat and a pound of muscle weigh 16 ounces each The difference is that a pound of fat takes up five times the amount of space as a pound of muscle.

    You might want to go ahead and actually look up that number as opposed to regurgitating something you heard.

    Muscle tissue has a density of 1.06 g/ml
    Adiopose tissue (fat) has a density of 0.9 g/ml
    Water has a density of 1.00 g/ml

    While muscle is more dense than fat, it is only slightly more dense (17.8%), certainly not "5 times the amount of space".

    Water is a good approximation for the size of both. A pound of each is about a pint. 8 pounds of each is about a gallon.

    Bigger thing is that muscle tends to be disbursed over a much larger and more aesthetically pleasing area than fat, which gathers in clumps.

    Yes I know this is oft repeated to devastated women who see the scale go up or slide sideways when they start lifting, but that effect has to do with water retention in the muscles and little else. When you actually build real muscle, it is obvious, nothing like well the scale isn't going down but inches are, I must be building muscle. Gain 5 lbs of muscle and your thighs will be 1" bigger around. Each. That's kinda obvious.

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