Is this possible?

loopyloulou

Hi,

Ive been working hard over the past month in the gym: 40 mins low intensity cardio to burn fat + weights program, 3 times a week. Ive noticed considerable toning in my arms and legs which is great but i weighed myself this morning and ive put on 2lbs. Now this in itself im not worried about but what i wanted to know is, is it possible for you to put on 2lbs of muscle in the space of a month? If its not then i suppose i have to go back to the drawing board

Lou

Sleepy

2lbs of muscle in a month? Sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

Malteaser!

loopyloulou, I recommend you start to use a meassuring tape instead of the weighing scales!!

I started lifting weights about two months ago and since then i've put on 6lbs! (obviously not all muscle but i'm guessing a large amount of it is)I have, however lost inches from every part of my body!

I usually measure my waist, hips, thigh, calf, upper arm and bust and every one of those measurements with the exception of my bust has gone down dispite my apparant waight gain!

2lbs of muscle in a month does sound about right though!!

loopyloulou

Thanks for the replies . Malteaser:i think ill measure myself tonight.

Lou

Hanley

Deffo agree with measuring yourself.

And 2lb, especially for someone jsut getting start is well within the expect gain figure.

king_of_inismac

quick question: When people are measing their stomach with a tape, do they suck it in?

I mean the idea is to be consistant, so how do you ensure that your stomach is the same everytime?

tribulus

Why would you suck it in?

If you want to be consistent let it sit there without doing anything to it.

Malteaser!

if you were to suck it in would you not be getting a false result??

king_of_inismac

what I mean is with your stomach you can pull it in, or push it out quite easily, making getting a consistant measurement difficult.

I just thought maybe people try to suck it in as far as you can EVERYTIME so you can gauge improvements....

but that's obviously not the case,

Thanks for the info!

mickoo

Women very rarely gain muscle mass from weight training-what does happen is there muscle becomes more solid! anyway to gain muscle you have to be eating excess food, assuming your goal is to lose weight you need to be eating less calories than what it takes to build muscle..and low intensity cardio is useless for fat burning as you burn very few calories in the 1st place-pick up the intensity and you will burn more calories and in turn more fat and get fitter aswell..

tribulus

mickoo wrote:

Women very rarely gain muscle mass from weight training-what does happen is there muscle becomes more solid! .

Please explain this.....

ali.c

mickoo wrote:

Women very rarely gain muscle mass from weight training-what does happen is there muscle becomes more solid!

But surely solid muscle weights more that unsolid muscle? As solid mucles have bigger and more fibres than unsolid muscles. The reason for flabby arms etc is to do with overall bodyfat and little to do with untrained muscle. I agree that women dont bulk up the way men do but they do build muscles and those muscles do weight more than fat.

Op sounds like you are getting results congrats and keep up the good work, dont worry about the scales afterall body composition is far more important. Visual results are a hell of a lot more important that some number on the scales!!

Hanley

mickoo wrote:

Women very rarely gain muscle mass from weight training-what does happen is there muscle becomes more solid! anyway to gain muscle you have to be eating excess food, assuming your goal is to lose weight you need to be eating less calories than what it takes to build muscle..and low intensity cardio is useless for fat burning as you burn very few calories in the 1st place-pick up the intensity and you will burn more calories and in turn more fat and get fitter aswell..

Where to even start...

Dragan

mickoo wrote:

Women very rarely gain muscle mass from weight training-what does happen is there muscle becomes more solid!

Mickoo, i know you have claimed to be a personnal trainer and all so can you please offer a decent explanation for this line?

I'm calling this a breach of rule number 1 "please know what you are talking about" of the charter.

amazingemmet

mickoo wrote:

Women very rarely gain muscle mass from weight training-what does happen is there muscle becomes more solid!

g'em's traps beg to differ on this point, (I have nightmares about them sometimes) Back it up please, if you can.

rubadub

Malteaser! wrote:

if you were to suck it in would you not be getting a false result??

They are talking about consistency of comparisons. It is not like they are trying to fool themselves saying oh my waist is only 28" because I suck it in. It would be false it one week was sucked in and next week wasnt

I am insterested as to which is best too. If you blow your belly out you will have more to measure so a % increase/decrease is more noticeable (i.e. 1 inch gain in a blown out belly might only be 1/2inch in a sucked in belly).

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

Hanley

rubadub wrote:

They are talking about consistency of comparisons. It is not like they are trying to fool themselves saying oh my waist is only 28" because I suck it in. It would be false it one week was sucked in and next week wasnt

I am insterested as to which is best too. If you blow your belly out you will have more to measure so a % increase/decrease is more noticeable (i.e. 1 inch gain in a blown out belly might only be 1/2inch in a sucked in belly).

Which might translate to no change in a relaxed normal belly. Tracking your blown out or sucked in measurements does absolutely nothing as an evaluation tool when assesing progress.

The simple solution? Stand relaxed. Put at type around your stomach above your belly button. Read and records.