Exercise and weightloss help

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Frusterated215

New member
So here is my situation:

I am 32 years old 5'6" and 129lbs. I wanted to lose only a few pounds and be 125. Size 5 pants

So, I joined the gym and do cardio and strength training 4 days a week.

Does anyone know why I feel like my pants are getting tighter and my butt and thighs are getting bigger? I do look more toned but I don't want to go up a pants size....HELP! What am I doing wrong?
 
No matter how much exercise you do, unless you are eating less than you are burning you will never lose weight.

Take a closer look at your diet. The hardest part will be you are in a real good weight range already. Chances are you are eating close to your daily needs and the muscle is building. Try aiming for cutting something like 100 calories from your daily meals.
 
Jericho said:
No matter how much exercise you do, unless you are eating less than you are burning you will never lose weight.

Take a closer look at your diet. The hardest part will be you are in a real good weight range already. Chances are you are eating close to your daily needs and the muscle is building. Try aiming for cutting something like 100 calories from your daily meals.
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What Jericho has said is good advice. If I were you I would look at the composition of what you are eating. My first thought would be to increase your protein level and slightly decrease your carbs.
This should help you build muscle and tone up.
 
Your not going to build muscle AND tone.

If you want bigger muscles keep doing what your doing.

If you want to lose weight keep doing what your doing exercise wise, but reduce your calories more, just like jericho said. You should start to see the results your looking for.
 
Basicly its like this:

Fat lies beneath the skin, but muscle lies under the fat. So layer wise you essentially have 1. skeleton, 2. muscle and ligaments, 3. fat, 4. skin.

If you build up your muscle, it will become bigger. Exercise with resistance or intensity will do that, and gaining muscle is good as it aids weight loss- takes a bit of the edge off being that you require more calories to maintain muscle.
But if you don't get rid or reduce the fat layer on top of the muscle, the definition wont show and the muscle will just seem as though its pumping up the fat- take a look at Sumo wrestlers- they are very strong but they are also very fat.

To slim down (not that you need to going on your statistics) you need to lose weight and that will come partly from fat loss and partly from muscle loss (you never just lose fat).

Like the others above have said, you need to consume fewer calories then you use, eat less, exercise as normal. No easy way out. Eventually your body will start to use the muscle and fat in your body for fuel. This will take a long time and you have to be patient and keep focused. Eventually your weight will plateau and you have to cut back more food so be careful not to cut too much at first or you'll be really stuck when the going gets tough!

It is a good idea to keep going to the gym, firstly to build some muscle so you can workout harder and burn more calories at rest but also to help rebuild the muscle your body takes down through weight loss.
 
Frusterated215 said:
So here is my situation:

I am 32 years old 5'6" and 129lbs. I wanted to lose only a few pounds and be 125. Size 5 pants

So, I joined the gym and do cardio and strength training 4 days a week.

Does anyone know why I feel like my pants are getting tighter and my butt and thighs are getting bigger? I do look more toned but I don't want to go up a pants size....HELP! What am I doing wrong?
Click to expand...

Your current weight is 129lbs which gives you a BMI of 20.8 that is lower than 80% of the American population. If you drop your weight down to 125lbs your BMI will drop to 20.2 this is still within the healthy range so your goal is achievable.
With a BMI of 20.8 there can't be much fat covering your muscle. The only way to tone up is to build muscle and burn fat so that you can change your body shape.
Keep with the program and you should be able to achieve your goals. But don't get stuck in a rut obsessing about a few pounds. It's just not worth it.
 
I love the advice

Thank you all for the superb advice, but I think NuBeginnings has it right with I shouldn't be stressing over 4 lbs. If overall I am healthy I shoud be grateful that I am in percentage of Americans with a healthy BMI.

See I used to weigh 194 lbs at one given time and I worked really hard to get to the 125lbs that I once was. Weight gaining and "looking fat" is always in the back of my mind. I used to eat a lot less until the trainer at the gym told me I wasn't eating enough for my body so I am incorporated more food mostly fruit as snacks. I guess I am more scared than anything when I started to feel the pants getting tighter.
 
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