Stronglifts 5x5

Give it a go at maintenance. If you find you need more calories then go up by 500. Just be aware that it is hard to gain strength and lose body fat at the same time. You need calories to fuel your lifting otherwise your gains will be quite slow or non existent. Remember, your diet and rest are just as important to a strength training regimen as the actual lifting itself. Do not be afraid to eat, and know that you can always decrease or increase your daily caloric intake as needed. Another thing is if you are going to strength train, put away your scales and go by the way your clothing fits or the way you appear in the mirror. as you can become leaner with no change to your weight at all. SL 5x5 is an effective program for a beginning strength trainer. Given time when the weights begin to get heavy, you will feel your appetite increasing as the sessions get harder. This is when it becomes most important to watch the macros of your diet. For me, when I was not watching my macros, I would find myself as hungry as a teen age football player.

With SL5x5 you can get great results for your body re-composition. It is a power lifting program where when done right, you will gain weight. from lean muscle. Good luck with your journey.

do not eat at maintenance if you have weight to lose.

I've been lifting for 7 months and have lost about 7-8% BF...which equates to a net loss of 13lbs..I say net as I gain some over holidays and some over vacation.

I currently eat 1800 calories a day...my TDEE is 2100...which is higher than it was before I started lifting and I will be upping my calories again at the end of the month.

If you are lifting to maintain muscle mass and are at TDEE-20% you will find you don't progress in the weight on the bar perhaps as much as you want but that's fine too...I chose weight loss over barbell weight a long time ago and will get those strength gains when I am at goal weight.

Stef, congratulations on your success and I hope you have many more years of it ahead of you.

However, I would respectfully disagree with beginning on less than maintenance as she can adjust her caloric intake accordingly once she has gotten used to lifting. Especially when not knowing anything else about her level of fitness. If she is totally out of shape she will need fuel for the barbell as the weight on SL5x5 can increase faster than people sometimes realize. For some beginning ladies, jut a 45 pound barbell can seem quite heavy. If she was to begin on too much of a caloric deficit it could lead to her burning out before she even really begins a life style of strength training. OP, you should give yourself a least about 6 weeks at maintenance and then begin playing around with increasing or decreasing your calories. This amount of time is not going to make or break you as it is so short. As long as you are at maintenance, you will begin seeing and feeling results in your body and you will notice a difference in the way your clothing fits. Do not be surprised in the least if after a bit of time if you actually increase your intake while still losing fat.