Can't get smaller when weight training

MY EXPERIENCE: and this is totally my experience, and goodness knows I'm not a perfect individual who perfectly meets her calorie goals every day...

If you are trying to lose weight while lifting weights, as a woman I have not found success with HUGE refeed days. My most successful periods I personally have are with only one or two days per week eating at maintenance, and the rest of the days below maintenance. Once I have, let's say, as many as two days per month where I eat well over maintenance, my weightloss while lifting completely tanks. TOTALLY my experience, though. YMMV.

How many calories below maintenance are you going?

I can only bear about a 2000 per week deficit without it affecting my performance or becoming grumpy and/or binging. If it's the off season, I can do maybe 4000 per week of deficit before I get too grumpy.

FOR ME, though, performance and overall mood/health are more important than how fast I lose the last bit of fat on me. I've gained about 20 lbs. of muscle and that made all the difference in my performance. The last thing I want to do is lose the muscle I worked so hard to put on.

If you're eating 2200 calories most days (say 5 days a week) then binging around 5000 on the others (say 2 days a week), then you're average calories consumed a day is 3000 which is likely over maintenance for you.

As for why you're feeling so hungry, are you eating enough satiating foods like protein and fat?

I stopped lifting heavy because I get bigger and bigger very quickly and even though it's muscle it just makes me feel big, not cut.

Cardio does suppress my appetite more, like it does with you.

Now that I do long incline walks on the treadmill and more Nike Training Club app (free) workouts and especially the box jump workouts on there I have maintained and built on my muscle while losing the bloat around them and I finally look slim again.

Lots of women find success with lifting and losing weight. I'm 37 now and nobody thinks I'm 37. In great shape for a mom of two and lifting heavy just doesn't work for me anymore. Please don't get mad at me, all the lovely women who lift on MFP!! Just chiming in because I'm in the same boat as the poster.

Finally! Yes that is exactly how I feel...I think it may have to do with body type - my trainers have told me I put on muscle easily (which probably means fat too...) and so I look much bulkier when lifting heavy.

That's just not true. Nobody can get bigger that quickly and have it be all muscle. Not to mention you need cals, and fat comes on a lot faster than muscle.....

As well, it takes testosterone to pack on muscle, and unless you're a female medical outlier, there is a massive lack of testosterone compared to a male.........and it's hard for guys to get "big" quickly.

Finally! Yes that is exactly how I feel...I think it may have to do with body type - my trainers have told me I put on muscle easily (which probably means fat too...) and so I look much bulkier when lifting heavy.

LOLWUT.

I'm gonna sound really rough here. Enough with the "Well I put on muscle really easy" bs. You don't, I promise. You may be able to put it on quicker than others, but that doesn't mean you bulk up and become a bodybuilder or a man within a month of lifting. How can this idea still be around? You look bulky when you have fat on top of your muscles. You look "toned" or whatever they're calling it these days when you have muscles and are cut. Unless you're on the juice, as a female your muscles are not big enough to make you look bulky unless you have been training for years upon years upon years, and even then most women cannot achieve much bulk. I thought I was bulky before when I was 20 lbs heavier lifting. I realize now it was fat.

Sorry if that sounded really harsh, but it's the truth, lifting does not make you bulky. At all. Just like running doesn't make you skinny. At all. It's mostly about what you're eating.

I stopped lifting heavy because I get bigger and bigger very quickly and even though it's muscle it just makes me feel big, not cut.

Cardio does suppress my appetite more, like it does with you.

Now that I do long incline walks on the treadmill and more Nike Training Club app (free) workouts and especially the box jump workouts on there I have maintained and built on my muscle while losing the bloat around them and I finally look slim again.

Lots of women find success with lifting and losing weight. I'm 37 now and nobody thinks I'm 37. In great shape for a mom of two and lifting heavy just doesn't work for me anymore. Please don't get mad at me, all the lovely women who lift on MFP!! Just chiming in because I'm in the same boat as the poster.

Let me add in here, that if I ate more than 2500 calories on a rare binge day I would be ill. You HAVE to be exaggerating with 5000???

At 5'5, 141 I average about 1800/day most of the time.

You're delusional. Nobody is packing on a ton of muscle if they claim to be on a deficit and think 2500 is a massive amount of food.

Initial swelling can and does put a lot of women off of lifting, but if they persevered and understood what it was, we wouldn't see half as many "lifting makes you bulky" type posts.

You're delusional. Nobody is packing on a ton of muscle if they claim to be on a deficit and think 2500 is a massive amount of food.

Initial swelling can and does put a lot of women off of lifting, but if they persevered and understood what it was, we wouldn't see half as many "lifting makes you bulky" type posts.

This is what I'm curious about - what is this 'initial swelling' you speak of?

Glycogen and water being driven into the muscles for energy and repair.

Glycogen and water being driven into the muscles for energy and repair.

I'll look up more about this, but in your experience, does this happen every time you lift a heavier amount of weight? I'm on a structured training plan since we have a strength coach in the vball dept. Therefore, I'm lifting more and more every workout, which I assume tears the muscles each time? Or is initial swelling just when you very first start lifting? In which case, I'm not swelling since I've been lifting for wow about 8 years now - the first 4 in high school and not demanding, but the last 1.5 yrs have been heavy and from a legitimate strength coach.

Strictly speaking from my experience, the first week back after any time off results in a much greater amount of swelling than the following weeks, but there is always some swelling following a training session.

I'll see if I can get someone more knowledgable than I to better answer your question. I've no experience of training others so I don't know what the norm would be.

Glycogen and water being driven into the muscles for energy and repair.

I'll look up more about this, but in your experience, does this happen every time you lift a heavier amount of weight? I'm on a structured training plan since we have a strength coach in the vball dept. Therefore, I'm lifting more and more every workout, which I assume tears the muscles each time? Or is initial swelling just when you very first start lifting? In which case, I'm not swelling since I've been lifting for wow about 8 years now - the first 4 in high school and not demanding, but the last 1.5 yrs have been heavy and from a legitimate strength coach.

My personal experience and observation (treat it as such and not a statement of fact) is that you will tend to see an initial spike in fluid weight when you begin a resistance training program and you may see slight bumps if you make significant increases in training volume. If you are in a deficit this can play games with your head and cause the scale to do wonky things.

I also see this in trainees who take a long break from training and then jump right back in.

This has been my experience as well, though I'm not an expert like SideSteel I'm not really anything but a lazy novice who has lifted in the past. I've just gotten back into a lifting routine after being a slacker for almost a year, and yes, I "gained" approximately 3 pounds after lifting for the first time and at least right now I still feel puffy and bulky (which is a little freaky if you don't know what's happening). It's a weight gain, but not really an increase in fat or muscle.

Regarding your desire to look into the initial swelling bit, think of it this way: any time you damage tissue, it swells. It swells because the distressed tissue releases chemicals called cytokines and these cytokines make the blood vessels that feed the tissue more leaky. If the blood vessels are leaky, the fluid and nutrients in your blood leak into your muscle tissue faster (normally it's a slow leak, now it's a bigger one thanks to the cytokines). The fluid brings all the good stuff that your body needs for repairs, (and when talking infection/damage it brings in white blood cells too).

Weight lifting is thought to cause micro-tears in your muscle as you create stress. This is the soreness that you feel after a new workout. The micro-tears are damage and the distressed muscle tissue releases the cytokines to bring in nutrients for repairs.

That's the science behind it in layman's terms :P Give or take a bit of exactness.

LOLWUT.

I'm gonna sound really rough here. Enough with the "Well I put on muscle really easy" bs. You don't, I promise. You may be able to put it on quicker than others, but that doesn't mean you bulk up and become a bodybuilder or a man within a month of lifting. How can this idea still be around? You look bulky when you have fat on top of your muscles. You look "toned" or whatever they're calling it these days when you have muscles and are cut. Unless you're on the juice, as a female your muscles are not big enough to make you look bulky unless you have been training for years upon years upon years, and even then most women cannot achieve much bulk. I thought I was bulky before when I was 20 lbs heavier lifting. I realize now it was fat.

Sorry if that sounded really harsh, but it's the truth, lifting does not make you bulky. At all. Just like running doesn't make you skinny. At all. It's mostly about what you're eating.

I totally get that. Maybe I've worded it in the wrong way. My point is that lifting makes me insatiably hungry, whereas cardio such as spinning, running, etc. seems to suppress my appetite more. Thus, in an indirect way - for me at least - running makes me skinny and lifting makes me bulky/fat. Well to be fair to myself, I don't think anyone would refer to me as bulky or fat. I'm just very conscious of my weight. I went from 28% BF to 20% BF two summers ago by changing my eating habits and running a lot. I lost 4 lbs of muscle as well though . I may be back up to 24-25 with some more LBM.

Have you had you BF% checked recently? I'd say quit obsessing about your scale weight and focus on BF% It sounds like you would really like to stop lifting and just do cardio, that you like the way your body looks with just cardio. But I'm sure a strength program is required for VB. Is the only real problem you "feel hungry" all the time? If so, I'd say just toughen up. If you ignore a growling stomach for a while it quits growling. If you have other issues like blood sugar gets to low, you pass out, you get dizzy, etc., then that is a different problem. Personally, I love weight training and wish I had started when I was your age. There is zero wrong with looking like a powerful, strong woman. If you need to reduce your BF% to allow the definition of those wonderful muscles to show, then you need to toughen up. Good luck you!