Three month plateau has got to go!

Hey there, can really relate to your post on both the plateau and the bit about strength training. The only part I have recently been successful with is breaking the myth about getting bigger with strength training. (I am on a month long plateau but have not been eating perfect/clean and am about 5# away from goal so it's crazy hard).

Anyway, I did cardio cardio cardio for years because I too thought I got big with weight lifting. I did some, but not often enough and more importantly not intense enough. We used to be told cardio burned fat and that's all I needed to hear to pound on the elliptical and then when I didn't lose, eat less and pound harder, and then when I still didn't lose, I'd give up carbs and pound harder, and then when I lost and gained it back I declared myself weight loss resistant....blah blah blah ....I hope you get the picture.

For me, (I am not a nutritionist, trainer, or professional...just your average 44 yr old struggling to lose a few more)....I had to be (figuratively) beaten into submission to pick up the weights and GO HARD....not necessarily long, (45 minutes 2x a week really is enough, although 3 might be better, I manage 2). I don't do "light weights" lots of reps any more....actually the opposite....Jillian MIchaels says pick up the heaviest weight you can lift ONCE....once you find that weight, take 75% and lift is AS MANY TIMES AS YOU CAN in 60 seconds. Take a 15 second rest....do it again for 30-45 seconds (chances are you wont make it...and THAT IS GOOD). Alternate upper and lower body....for example, I'll do something like this:

biceps
lunges (I figure skated for years and have always been thick in the thighs....these are miracle workers in thinning them back out)
triceps
lunges
shoulder press
lunges
seated row
squats (
another upper (or lower if you can do it)
squats ......you get it~

I that got me through a plateau and dropped 8# but better is I dropped 2-3% body fat and the shape of my body is much nicer....(if I may say so myself). Intense strength is the only thing that will produce whatever hormone it is that kicks metabolism in overdrive. Cardio will burn calories but doesn't create that hormone. Also the old thing about building muscle to burn fat is sooo true.

I'm a believer now, but had to learn the hard way....best wishes;)

There was a period (yrs. ago) where it got too bulky too...so I really can relate. Im not totally sure what I was doing wrong then .... as at the time I was doing (I think) what I was supposed to......it sucked. It was a time in my life where I at a lot more processed and artificial type foods....(lean cuisines and all the "sugar free/fat free" stuff that now every one rails against..... The short spurts of super intense seem to be amazing (for me) when nothing else seemed to work anymore....best wishes;)

Okay, so it's going the wrong direction now....I increased my cals by a couple hundred and have been working out even more frequently and now I've gained 4 pounds! What the what? HELP!!!

Uh Oh!

probably water weight from adding extra cals till your body adjusts to it and from exercising more frequently as you mentioned. why not keep what you were doing and just add the extra cals? not more exercise, counter productive i think.

I've lost 50 lbs since last Summer and now I'm completely stuck. I try to avoid too much weight training because I tend to get big really fast, but I do some light training with my Leslie Sansone workouts. When i was in middle school before I started dancing I did weight training for 1 year and got up to 200 lbs as an 8th grader.
Per my doctor's recommendation last July I cut my calories to 1200 and have tried to remain faithful to it. Now I'm wondering if it's too few and I'm shooting myself in the foot. I've done my TDEE and my BMR and all that good stuff but it seems when I eat that way I start putting on lbs again. I have a great deal of muscle in my legs (I bench pressed 500 lbs when I was a teenager) and I think that may screw up my numbers, too.
If anyone has any suggestions for me, PLEASE let me know. I'm extremely frustrated.

Did you lift competitively? There are only four or five women recorded having benched that weight... so I'm sort of beyond impressed if you did this, and bummed if you never got recognition for it.

If you were "huge" from doing all this lifting, know it had to have come from a large surplus to support and build enough muscle to lift that weight.

As others have said--based on, recently, you changing up your routine... give it roughly 6 weeks for your body to adjust. Adding in lifting will probably be GREAT for you--if you trained that much when you were younger, your muscles will probably acclimate much faster than others.