OMG lifting heavy made me so bulky!!

stupid question and i'm sure it's different for everyone butt.... what is "heavy" in Kg?

female 5ft8 147lbs new to strength training...

thanks

Heavy is relative and very specific to the person. It's not based on the actual weight (I work in KG too) but more so the rep. A guy could be bench pressing 140kg and people could say "wow that's a heavy weight" but if he is doing it for 15 reps, it's not heavy for him.

When I first started lifting, I remember the bar (20kg) in bench press feeling heavy, now when I lift 40kg, that just feels light to me. It really does depend on the reps and the person.

I usually don't go above 8 reps (and prefer <6 reps) At the moment, I'm following 5x5.

Ok...the reason he says you NEED to do cardio, it that if you rely on diet alone, you will have to eat VERY LITTLE calories to get that lean. This is counter productive to maintaining your muscle mass, and does not give you enough food to supply the nutrients you need to be healthy. It's better to eat more and burn off with cardio than not eat. Even if you burn off calories..you don't burn off the nutrients of the food you ate...just the energy storage in fat. Starving will force your body to lose fat..but also force you to lose muscle, and deprive your body of essential vitamins in sufficient quantities.

I'm far from starving, and firmly believe in eating enough. I eat 2300 a day, and on exercise days (4-5 times a week) this works out at around 1800-1900 NET. Strength burns calories too, even if it's not as much in that particular session.
- Around 140g protein, 250g carbs, 70g fat.
- I also get around 20-30g fibre, and try and get 5 fruit & veg a day.

I'm fairly active in daily life with walking everywhere, but not excessively so. This combined with regular strength training activity allows me to still lose weight (albeit slowly) at the amount I'm on. I don't support 1200 calorie diets at all, unless you're tiny, and completely sedentary.

Yes I got that. I'm talking about if you want to get really lean..like shredded lean. Think 12 - 15% body fat(or less). You have to diet and calorie restrict to get there. That is why fitness/figure competitors have their "off season" bodies and their competition bodies. It's not healthy to maintain that lean a body mass...and the diet that is required to maintain it is not healthy.

Good point, I didn't think of competing I'm sure it's extremely hard to get down to that level, I couldn't do it.
What is your opinion on a lean fat %, but one that is maintainable year round for a woman who may not want to compete, such as 15-18%? Surely this could be achieved with just a small deficit. (My lowest was 16-17% I think, but I didn't have as much muscle, hence going on a bulk.) At that level of body fat, a woman should be able to see definition and be quite cut, as long as they have the muscle to show. That would still be classed as very lean IMO, but not so much so that it becomes impossible to maintain.