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but if you feel like total s**t about your body, pissed off and frustrated you're not going to be showing anything off....
Yogachick, I can understand the frustration, but at 5'6" and 150 lbs, if you are muscular, you should look pretty darn good. If you really feel that way about your body, maybe you need to
rethink what it is that really bothers you. Do you know your body fat %? If you are a hardcore workout fanatic, that number is much more important that your scale weight. If you are very muscular, your body fat % has to stay pretty low or you will just look bigger. Do you have a small, medium or large frame? Is your goal of a smaller pants size realistic or would you be emaciated to achieve that? I know Suzanne just put up a warning thread about e-books, but a good one for you to read would be Tom Venuto's "Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle".
I've written this a zillions times, but I started lifting HEAVY, doing a bodybuilder split after I hit my initial goal weight of 135. At the beginning of my adventure into heavy metal, I wore a size 6-8 jeans. My bodyfat was 27%. I did a LOT of exercise while losing- ran, played tennis, circuit trained, bodypump classes. Ater 12 weeks of
hardcore lifting and intense cardio, I'd dropped to a size 4, gained 2 pounds and my bodyfat went from 27% to 19%. According to the scale, I was a failure...but I much prefered my size 4 jeans and no fat thighs.
When we say that women can't bulk up, that doesn't mean that women can't build muscle
That would be a disaster! Lack of muscle is a much bigger problem for most women, especially over the age of 40 and beyond. We certainly can build muscle, just not HUGE muscle naturally. The whole point of weight training is to build muscle. Most of you call it toning, but it's the same thing.