This is all great news!

I have recently stopped trying to "lose pounds" so I have adopted a new attitude of intuitively heating healthy. Because of this, I do have a small deficit.

Tejas Its not that I dont want to get strong and healthy. I feel strong and healthy! I just want to adopt a lifestyle with weight lifting and cardio that I can maintain the rest of my life. With that being said, I am scared to gain a lot of muscle over time but never shed the fat (because of the treats I now allow myself). The goal here is to look smaller and more toned, not bigger..Sorry If im being confusing.

Ive worked very hard to change my eating this past year. It has been a real struggle to not only stop eating the horrible way I used to, but to actually enjoy healthy foods. I really just want to be able to maintain a healthy lifestyle !

Katy I have noticed with lunges and squats, my knees KILL when I do them. Is this normal?? Also, if you dont notice any soreness the next few days, does that mean they arent getting a good work out?

Amandie Ive read this too. What I am confused about is how do (this is going to sound so annoying and cliche) celebrities get so toned then? They eat like rabbits, have huge calorie deficits and weight lift - they manage to build muscle...

make sure your form is correct doing the lunges and squats. your knee shouldn't go further than your toes. try wallsits to get an idea of where you should be. also, the support of the wall helps take pressure off the knee i think.

if your body is used to doing squats and such, you might try doing it with any kind of weight. even a backpack with books. it doesn't have to be an actual 'weight'. most of the time i'm not sore at all after a w/o working on my muscles. if you feel like it's a great workout, then it is. but after a certain point, it takes forever for me to feel the 'burn' doing just reg, squats. then i have to use some kind of weight.

try doing exercises that you haven't done before. like elevated bridges. making your feet higher, makes this move much more challenging. more info about how to do this is on the strength challenge in the chicks up for a challenge forum. under try something new.

you might also try plyo, jumping when you do the moves makes it so much harder. and it's cardio and str all in one.

My experience with strength training has been negative. I used to stalk the bodybuilding.com forums and bought into how they said I won't "bulk up" because I don't have enough testosterone. TRUE, i didn't nor will i ever get as big as a man, I grew too big in places I wanted to look slimmer. Because, yes, you basically will gain inches if you build muscle and not simultaneously lose enough body fat. My legs were just expanding and not looking anymore "toned." and i now avoid all direct ab work because thats how many women lose their waist. why would we want to build muscle on a place that is supposed to be quite small.

I now instead, do very intense cardio and occasional body weight exercises. Sprinting does wonders for the legs and the butt just the right amount of muscle. and sprinting even helps the core because you just keep the body tight while running. my arms sometimes feel a burn. but i think you'd like this website: fitnessblackbook.com he even just came out with a E-book on women training that is less conventional but probably more what most women actually want! i didn't get it because i am poor. but he has many articles talking about fat burning cardio, quick strength training routines, some diet tips. i enjoy it all.

and before anyone wants to call me out on not wanting to be strong...that's not the case. i am as strong as i need to be already.

One thing you should remember is there are 2 types of fat, the type that is around your muscles and the type that is within the muscles. I've seen many women 'bulk up' when they have been eating excess calories but I'm not sure that is muscle they are gaining. On the flip side, I workout with a lot of women who lift very heavy weights and they are tiny.

Of course it comes down to doing what works right for you. If you are lifting weights and eating a calorie deficit and not losing inches/getting the look you want, then you can easily back off on weights. Losing muscle is easy, gaining it is hard.

Intervention That is the EXACT reason I have stayed away from weights. I am not bashing them or anything. But I think its situational and different for everyone. For instance, my sister. She is tall and lean (not much muscle). But she could tone. I would totally recommend her lifting weights because she doesnt have a "big" look to her already nor does she have a lot of muscle that would show if she did lose fat. She would look AMAZING if she weight lifted. Me on the other hand have a lot of muscle from sports. So if I just get rid of the fat, I think more of that muscle would show (a lot of it still does show!).

nelie You have a good point. Are you bulking up from the muscle or from fat? So basically I am going to continue with my running and add in body weight exercises. I really doubt lunges, squats and pushups can get me looking bigger so I will incorporate those just for the simply "getting stonrger" part of it!

Thanks ladies for all of your advice and help! Happy Friday!!

Inteventionn, thank you! That site is exactly what I was looking for! I bought his book for women, and while it is very helpful, you really can get everything in that book for free if you read his individual posts. The gist of it is, do only 5 reps per set, 4-5 sets of a particular exercise using fairly heavy weights (don't do high rep sets, like 10-12) and DON"T lift a weight so heavy you can just barely get it up the last time; that is, don't lift to muscle exhaustion. If you avoid that, he claims you will gain strength and tone without gaining muscle size. Then he also advocates a 15-20 min HIIT session followed by 15-20 min. steady-state cardio for maximal fat loss. He combines the weight lifting (about 25-30 min routine) with the HIIT/steady state cardio (about 30-40 min) 3-5 days/week. I've just started that routine because I finished the New Rules of Lifting for Women program, and I am definitely more bulky right now than I'd like to be.

Dianne042425, hope that helps you too!

Lots of good questions here. I have some answers. Mind you, there is proof for every theory and some contradict the others. My opinion here is based on my degree (physical education) and personal experience lifting weights and teaching weight training and boot camp.

A basic, brief, deluted mini education on this topic: Muscle is made up of fibers. Fat is made up of cells. You are born with the number of fat cells that you will keep (roughly - I think somewhere in development you create more fat cells but as adults you have the same # now as you did 10 years ago).

When you don't use the same amount of calories that you have burned, the energy is stored in fat cells. Think of water in a balloon. Each day you consume more cals than you burn, you add more water into each balloon. You don't get more water balloons. As you burn more cals than you take in, the water balloons shrink, you don't lose the number of balloons you started with.

Muscle fibers get "damaged" when fatigued. Micro tears occur in the fibers. During recovery, blood delivers nutrients to repair the tears. The repair, when needed frequently, builds up on the last repair. This is what shows as muscle growth -layers upon layers of repair fibers in the muscle.

A perfect combo is to lose excess body fat to show the muscle tone. For instance, I bet every single one of us has six pack abs. Just burried somewhere...you know, under the fat.

In order to grow the muscle you have to fatigue the muscle. To fatigue the muscle, you have to work it harder than it's usual capacity and leave 48 hours of recovery before fatiguing it again. (otherwise you will get hurt).

Let's think logically. I know the strangely awesome pain associated with lifting. The good pain - the burn. Do I want to spend my time doing 25 reps of a low weight or 10-12 reps of a heavier weight to achieve the same thing - fatigue the muscle and feel that burn?

You see, no matter how you do it, you are fatiguing the muscle. No matter how you fatigue the muscle, your body will repair it and build on it.

Do you want that to take 6 months or 6 weeks?

IMO, lift heavy. 3 times a week, whole body, 3-5 sets. You can PM me for my little trick on making it a cardio benefit, too.

If you lift, you will change your body composition, your metabolism, and you will achieve strength. When you change your lifestyle and do this, after about 3 months, you will feel your muscle growth. After a year, everyone else will SEE it.

I gotta go, but there's SO much more! I'll add later. Good luck.