Undereating causing bulk?

If you're eating at a deficit you won't (and can't) gain mass. It's likely water retention even after more than a few weeks.

If you're eating at a deficit you won't (and can't) gain mass. It's likely water retention even after more than a few weeks.

Definitely water since you wouldn't get an inch in a couple of weeks. Newb gains don't even come into play since you've been lifting for over a year now.

This!

Hi guys,

I'm new...been reading the boards for a while but decided to sign up and join. I'm 5'1", 100 lbs, eat very clean. I've been strength training for about a year (previously only did cardio/was skinny fat). It was working well and I really liked the effects. Within the last 2 months I've upped my training--3 x weights a week (lots of leg work), plus cardio 4 days a week (not intense cardio, I do the 10,000 steps a day program). My thighs have all of a sudden gained an inch... I waited a few weeks to see if it was water retention but it's not going away. I've been doing squats/lunges/deadlifts etc for a year now and never had a problem, now all of a sudden I'm getting bigger. Also eat between 1200-1400 calories a day, so was wondering if I'm not eating enough?

Any advice would be great! Thanks!

Water retention in your muscles sticks around as long as your muscles feel they need to store glycogen and repair which they will continue to do so as long as you are lifting. You aren't gaining mass at 1200-1400 calories. If anything doing intense lifting while eating that little is going to break your muscle down. If you are eating 1200-1400 calories NET after eating back from exercise then you might be okay at that being only 100 pounds and 5'1

thanks for the reply. what would you recommend I do? I stopped lifting a week ago to try to get it to shrink back down, should I stick to cardio only for now? Or should I keep lifting and up my calories?

If your goal is simply to lose weight and you don't care about appearance or your health then low calorie with cardio is fine. If you wish to improve your aesthetic appearance, improve your health, improve your fitness then I would recommend continuing to lift and supplementing your workouts by eating more food.

If your aiming for that standard body-image of fit and beautiful (ie flat toned stomach) that takes lifting and that takes actually eating quite a lot.

I don't really want to guess at how many calories that should be as that is for you to determine but one thing I'm sure of is with your activity level its going to be above 1200-1400 calories.

If you are only 100 pounds you are not overweight and at this point if your goal is to look better and more fit then you might want to focus more on lifting and eating to fuel that.