Strength training for women help

You may be the same weight but measure and take pictures, strength training has helped me lose inches and sizes even when pounds weren't falling off like I wanted. Keep it up and it will happen! I plateaued as soon as I eased off strength training and now I'm back to it and am dropping weight/size again.

(First, sorry if this sound's kind of weird and rambling... it's late and I'm about falling asleep, lol.)

I wouldn't necessarily be too cautious about strength training. Unless you are taking supplements and doing higher weight/lower reps, you in all likely-hood aren't going to "bulk up" but rather gain lean muscle which will actually work to increase your metabolism because muscle basically requires more calories to function. Look at pictures of "cross-fit" women and even though they train pretty hard, they are typically not what most people would think are "bulky" in terms of muscle.

I do 50/50 strength and cardio. And it was the only time I finally lost weight. First of all, you are raising your heart rate and burning fat even when you are working with weights......it's just NOT strength. Second, you want to melt off the fat and have something good some tone under there, right? You're not going to get bulky unless you are weight training for hours a day. For moms like us, adding weights in can be helpful.

Also, for what it's worth, my personal opinion is that the "oh you only need to work out 30 minutes a day" mantra is kind of deceptive. If you want to see results, it's not really as easy as going for a 30 minute walk a few times a week, you know? Cutting calories and increasing output is how it works.

You weigh the same because you are taking in about the same amount of calories you put out. Your body burns more calories when breastfeeding, but the math is still the same...........calories in needs to be less than calories out in order to lose weight.

the past is the past, so i wouldnt think about how many calories you were eating while you were breastfeeding. start thinking in the now, i cant see your food diary to give suggestions, perhaps you could change it to public. what are your goal settings at? ie is it the recommended loose 1lb per week? also how many calories are you eating compared with target? it is important to eat most of your calories and exercise calories if you can. check out your bmr (which is the amount of calories you use per day with staying in bed all day). you need to be eating at least this much otherwise u'll go into starvation mode. as for exercise i would combine cardio with strength, this combined with a good diet you should loose. what cardio are you doing now and at what intensity?

thats great that you are eating healthy. i see you have been a member since december and no weightloss yet tracked. i would suggest upping your calories, you could change ur settings to loose 1/2lb per week which may give you an extra 200-300cals. by doing so it is providing your body with more fuel for your daily activities. remember that 1484 is how many cals you would burn if you lay in bed all day obviously you are running around after a little one so it is important to have enough nutrician to do so.
also for exercise try and mix it up. go that little bit further on your walk, perhaps even try jog a little. remember to give yourself rest days. hope this helps

I know you aren't breastfeeding now, but in case you have another baby or someone else who is reading this can benefit, here is my take...

You do burn more calories when you are breastfeeding but it doesn't mean you can just eat whatever you want. The weight "melts off" in the sense that if you are eating less calories than you use, you will lose weight. Same as when you aren't breastfeeding. If you were basing your caloric intake on 2000 calories plus 400-500 for breastfeeding then you were most likely eating too much (without knowing more about factors that would affect your BMR like weight, etc). I would guess that the 2000 calories a day would be what is recommended to maintain weight and then add on the breastfeeding calories.

What I have read is that when breastfeeding you should not under around 1800 calories. MFP has me set at 1200 calories as my daily goal, but I add 500 for breastfeeding. If I am still hungry I will eat a bit more, but many days I am not at 1700 and am not hungry with that. I feel like I am eating healthy and not starving myself, so I am not concerned about not meeting 1800 all the time, but will be aware of what my body is telling me.

That being said, you need to figure out what your BMR is. There are sites that can give you that info and how to adjust for weight loss. MFP was pretty accurate for me compared to what I found on other sites so you could always stick with the number they give you for daily calorie goals and go from there. Just remember that breastfeeding or not, in order to lose weight you need to have a calorie deficit, which means that you are taking in less than you are burning.

I'm still in the process of figuring out what my ideal workout should look like, but I do know that lifting weights helps to build muscle and therefore helps to increase your metabolism. You can do some circuit training that mixes cardio with strength training and those are really good workouts (30 day shred, to name one).

I would be cautious about eating your exercise calories. IMO, MFP gives higher numbers than what is correct so you could do yourself a disservice by eating 500 extra calories if you are actually only burning 200. Unless you are doing very strenuous, long workouts, I would try eating at the level that MFP gives you for a few weeks then adjust according to your activity level.