azalais7 Member

It depends on how much you're lifting. Muscle grows in response to stress, for lack of a better word, and must have continual--and increasing--stress in order for that to happen. If you don't keep pushing yourself by upping your weights, you won't gain.

Not quite. If you're eating at maintenance and lifting you will gain some muscle. If you're eating over maintenance, you will gain more muscle and some fat (goes with the territory of bulking). If you're eating at TDEE -15%, which is not a huge deficit, you can theoretically burn fat AND gain some muscle, but not as much…

Yep, at least to net above BMR. And maybe a bit more, as I think you said earlier; generally speaking, only netting at or slightly above BMR is something that should happen at most a couple of days a week, not a daily thing.

Honestly, you might be overtraining, not giving your body time to recover sufficiently. This can stall out even pro athletes. I would do two things--reduce your gym cardio sessions to at most two a week (given that you take those dog walks), and dump the Body Pump classes in favor of heavy lifting.

NROL4W adds in brief (15-20 minutes) HIIT sessions in Stage 3, I believe, following the B workout (which means that if you're lifting three times a week, you'd be doing HIIT 1-2 times a week). They recommend doing this on the same day following the weight workout. I've actually added HIIT to my Stage 1 workouts, because I…

Yep, most likely muscle gain. FWIW, 136 with muscles may well be close to an ideal weight for you. That's certainly well within normal BMI.

I would say you need to be patient, first off--an inch a week is pretty fast, and there are multiple factors that can affect the tape as well as the scale (water retention, for one).

If you don't have time to read NROLFW, the Jamie Eason program someone mentioned upthread is a good one, and it's free: http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/jamie-eason-livefit-trainer.html

And just to clarify, to bulk up you would need to eat *above* maintenance. You already mentioned that you're planning on slowly increasing your calories, which is a very good plan. If you really enjoy your current cardio, which doesn't look too excessive, keep it up. But you might consider cutting it back a bit otherwise…

Regardless of whether you want to lose or maintain, I highly recommend New Rules of Weightlifting for Women by Lou Schuler. You'll find the answers to these questions and more there.

I've lost a grand total of one pound since July 2, but an inch off my waist, an inch and a half off my hips, and two off my bust--not thrilled about that last one, but oh well! ;-) I think I'm beginning to see more definition--need to take pics again.

Strength and endurance are two different things, both important. But if you want to increase strength specifically, the most efficient way to do that is with heavier weights, fewer reps, and resting between sets.

Weight shifting 1-3 pounds during the week is completely normal--it's most likely water retention. I suspect this isn't the answer you want, as you seem fixated on that number, but I'd say stop worrying about it. Do you feel good? Do you look the way you want? Do your clothes fit well? All better measures.

^^And this. Conventional wisdom says 1 g per pound of lean body mass to build muscle. That can sound like a lot--I should be getting something like 140 g/day, but my basic goal is to get over 100. Usually it's right about there, sometimes I actually reach 140. But muscle is definitely building. If you're not a big…

I think part of the difference between the camps comes down to the EM2WL emphasis on strength training over cardio (not necessarily NO cardio, but more on the high-intensity interval training side). If you are trying to add muscle (which will raise your overall BMR more over time than cardio does, as muscle takes more…

How low carb do you need to be? I've recently discovered cashew cookie larabars, which have 23 carbs (all from dates, no added sugar) and 6 grams of protein. That's a higher carb count than I would usually go far (I aim for >100 carbs a day), so I don't eat them all the time, but it does hit the spot. Also, it might make a…

The poster above me gives great advice. I would only add that if you feel you need more calories but aren't sure how you'll eat more volume, go for density--assuming that fat isn't a problem with PCOS, choose full-fat dairy, if dairy is okay for you, etc.

^^Yep. Everyone is different, so I won't make generalizations, but FOR ME, I would be uncomfortable in a relationship which didn't include free and frank verbal sharing of feelings for one another. That your BF is suddenly proclaiming his love for you now in the midst of seeking companionship from other women is a red…

I love Kashi Go Lean Honey Almond Flax. 9 g protein!

^^This. Or whatever book you choose, if you do choose a book. Might as well make sure the trainer understands your goals and can tailor instruction to what you actually plan to do.

I also recommend NROL4W. This site has excellent videos for just about any weight exercise, and it will even evaluate the different related exercises: http://www.bodybuilding.com/exercises/

I'm in Stage One of NROL4W, lifting 3x/week as well. I do only very light cardio (e.g. walking the dogs) most days, though I've added in a brief, 15-minute interval session after my weights on those three days. All told, I figure I still fit in the moderate, 3-5 hours/week range of activity. The key thing is that you want…

It's unlikely to be all muscle--my understanding is that the most muscle you can gain is about .25/lb per week, so if you hit that rate (and that's hard to hit), you might have gained 2 pounds of muscle (sorry). HOWEVER, when you train, you also retain glycogen in the muscles, which is sort of equivalent to water weight,…

The most accurate way to measure body fat percentage is with calipers. However, if that's not feasible, this calculator is one of the better ones: http://www.gymgoal.com/dtool_fat.html

Not sure how it works if you don't have a google account, but I had to sign in to my account before it would let me download.

Ah, okay--so is this basically like a cutting phase, then? That was the impression I got from the study abstract.

I'm a bit confused by this, too--the sheet directs me to eat about 250 calories less if I'm doing heavy lifting than if I'm doing mostly cardio or no exercise at all. Can that be right?

I'm still in! I wasn't able to lift all last week as I was out of town at a conference, but getting back into the routine tomorrow.

While I think the posters who have said you should change your habits are absolutely right, the types of foods you eat ARE a habit in and of themselves, and frankly I think a more significant one than watching TV in bed (though there's great reasons not to do that, too). I think someone else mentioned that they try to eat…

Eat 1925, unless you exercise so much on a given day that you would end up netting below 1461 (then eat at least enough to net above that). The easiest way to see your net calories, assuming you log all your exercise, is to look at the top of your "My Home" page.