A better fat %

I focus on eating clean and strength training, with some cardio thrown in. I had the experience of being at a good weight, but too high of a body fat percentage.....when I really concentrated on my diet and weight training, my body fat percentage dropped dramatically. Good luck! Eat lots of protein....

At what point in the weight loss process should a person start weight training? I have always been afraid of building too much muscle too soon and becoming a "husky" girl.

At what point in the weight loss process should a person start weight training? I have always been afraid of building too much muscle too soon and becoming a "husky" girl.

Girls don't bulk like men, esp in a caloric deficit. You want to lift weights now to maintain muscle mass while dieting. You lose both fat and muscle when dieting...if you lose a lot of muscle you are left at a lower metabolism and higher body fat percentage, both of which are undesirable. Trust me when I say the best bodies are made in the weight room, not the cardio machine.

Trust me, your fears are unfounded. It takes YEARS of hard training and proper diet to build muscle. The "fear" of bulking up is absolutely ridiculous and I don't say this to insult you.

You say this but I have arms like arnie

Really? where are you hiding them?

(Assuming that is you in the picture)

You don't need to join a gym to do weights.. many of the best strength exercises you can do easily at home using your own body weight.. Also sports shops sell dumbells really cheap..

I only go to the gym if I feel the need for a personal trainer or extra motivation.. I'm using the Bar Method as my strength training and it's great! Just uses your own body weight to strengthen and tone muscle.. absolutely no bulking, it actually lengthens your muscles to make you look leaner.

The only way to lengthen your muscle is to grow longer bones. So unless you plan on growing a couple inches, it won't happen. I wish people stop saying you can have long lean muscles through exercise. It's entirely up to your genetics.

Ok maybe bad terminology there on my part.. I do find that when I build my muscle I get a different shape depending on the type of training I have been doing.. compare a yoga trainers arms to a fitness instructor.. the muscle definition is softer..

If I use heavy weights on my arms & shoulders I tend to get solid round definition (it's just how I'm built) but using stretching strength training on my arms has made that same muscle mass leaner.

As much as I would love to grow a few more inches!! (5ft 1")

At what point in the weight loss process should a person start weight training? I have always been afraid of building too much muscle too soon and becoming a "husky" girl.

The dynamics of resistance training assist in the fat/weight loss process, whether or not any muscle is gained. In fact, most people will not gain enough muscle to make a significant difference in metabolism.

So you should start weight training on day 1. If you have a high body fat % and are just starting out, then lifting lighter weights (e.g. 12-15 RM range or even 12-20 RM) is fine. Just make sure you choose a weight that you can't lift any more than 12-15 or 12-20 reps and progressively increase it when it becomes easier. After a few months, you can reevaluate your progress and then consider including some heavier work as well.

Gaining muscle size is more related to volume (total number of sets) rather than intensity.

Ok maybe bad terminology there on my part.. I do find that when I build my muscle I get a different shape depending on the type of training I have been doing.. compare a yoga trainers arms to a fitness instructor.. the muscle definition is softer..

If I use heavy weights on my arms & shoulders I tend to get solid round definition (it's just how I'm built) but using stretching strength training on my arms has made that same muscle mass leaner.

As much as I would love to grow a few more inches!! (5ft 1")

It's not "leaner" mass--it's "less" mass. When you do the types of exercises it sounds like you are describing, you tend to use movements that keep the limbs more extended. In those positions, they cannot generate enough force to "push" heavier weights--therefore the muscles are smaller, not longer.

If sounds as though you know your body and have found what works to give you the results and appearance that you want, so that is great.

Eh, I wouldn't consider the Yogis and Olympic Gymnasts to be "weak" or "can't generate enough force to 'push' heavier weights." Most of them can actually do things like bench 2x+ body weight without having ever touched a set of weights before and training only on bodyweight.

There are two differences I've seen that account for the difference between someone who builds muscle from picking heavy things up and putting them down and someone who builds muscle from picking themselves up and putting themselves down.

1. More emphasis on stretching.
2. A more holistic approach to building muscle.

While weight lifters may or may not stretch after their workout (they should, and it's always talked about, but whether any given person actually does it more hit or miss, and often not for very long). The bodyweight people also tend to be doing other things (gymnastics, Yoga, etc), where flexibility is also desired. As such, they stretch far more than weight lifters. Stretching, of course, extends the muscles and tendons to the point they resist. These athletes train their body to keep a larger range of motion than most weight lifters, making the muscle distribution look different.

On the second point, the general culture around weight lifting is often "isolation, isolation, isolation," unless you're lucky enough to find those that believe the only weight equipment you ever need is a dumbbell and the only three exercises you ever need are the bench press, deadlift, and pull up. The "isolationists" tend to focus only on the large muscles (tricepts, biceps, quads, lats, etc) and, therefore, all the little supporting muscles, such as around the joints, don't get as much attention. Not only does this result in injury in many cases, but it also screws with the distribution of built muscle and you end up with the "Popeye" look (big muscles around the bones, tiny joints). This is especially true when weight machines are involved (they tend to take nearly all the work away from your balancing muscles, it's why you can lift more with a machine than with free weights).

To the OP - No, you won't "bulk up". You're female. Your body doesn't make enough testosterone to do that. From your profile pic, I'd say your so-called "Arnie arms" are more from fat or excess skin (picture is hard to tell) than muscle. I'm willing to be that if you worked on gaining muscle overall and worked on your body fat percentage, they would become more proportional.

Also, how did you measure your body fat percentage? The method does matter. I know the gym I used to go to uses the electrical resistance method, where you put your hands on metal bars and it runs a small current through your hands and measures the resistance and calculates it that way. This method can have varying degrees of accuracy, due to the resistance differences based on the moisture content of your skin and the water level in your body.

I'd recommend cross-referencing with another test (in truth, all of the typical "home" ones have varying degrees of accuracy), such as measuring various parts of your body ( http://www.healthcentral.com/cholesterol/home-body-fat-test-2774-143.html ), and don't get too hung up on the numbers themselves. What you'll be looking for is a trend over time.

For strength training, here are some suggestions to get you started:

Yoga
You Are Your Own Gym
Convict Conditioning
Never Gymless
100 Pushups ( hundredpushups.com ) and its sister sites (200 Squats, 150 Dips, etc)