Lifting and weightloss, help or hinder?
 

I have been going to a local gym pretty consistently since November 1st. I make a 2 new plans every month and do them back and forth. I sweat like a horse through out the whole workout. I incorporate HIIT into my workouts and heavy lifting. Then i run for 10 mins on the treadmill. I'm eating about 1400-1600cals a day and I try to cycle them aswell. The only difference I have seen, is I have nicer arms and back. No weightloss at all. It's defeating when I'm eating so well and excersizing hard and being so close to my goal weight, and I can't get there!
When I was losing more steadily, I wasn't lifting. Just eating about 1200 calories and doing a JM DVDs 5 times a week.
Do you think the lifting is hurting my weightloss?
Thank you for reading!

I don't have the answer to your question, but it sure sounds like you are doing everything right! I'll be curious to see what other people have to say. I've started weight lifting this week and noticed a few pound gain that is related to water retention from the lifting. I'm not worried about it because I know what it is. From my reading about lifting, it sounds like you have to be willing to ignore your scale for a bit. Instead, I've seen it recommended that you look at other signs of progress such as looser fitting clothing and body measurements.

Thanks MF for reading! I also have a related questions, should I do cardio on a different day?

I'm lifting 3 days a week and alternating with cardio the other days. I'm shooting for at least 5 days a week of exercise.

For me, it's a definite help for weight loss. It helps to keep my metabolism revved and helps me keep my muscle and lose only fat, rather than losing both muscle and fat.

Do you want to lose fat or just weight?

Chances are it's fat you want to lose, right?

Weight training may hinder WEIGHT loss, but it will help fat loss. It's probably the reason I was able to gain 5-6 pounds and have my clothes fit BETTER than they did before (I even fit into 00P pants the other day!!). It doesn't really matter what the scale says if you're at your ideal size ;)

That said, make sure you're alternating your weight training days to give your body rest. If you want to do cardio on the days you weight train it is actually a good combination. Do the weight training first, then cardio if you feel you're up to it. I personally LOVE weight training and then taking a cardio class...I just need to make sure to have a good snack in between the sessions :)

Once again, just make sure to give your body adequate rest AND adequate nutrition (plenty of protein!). Muscles are built and maintained in the kitchen and on your rest days :)

Thanks for the info Sontaikle! I'm really hoping this weight lifting works out for me like I hope it will. I just did two days in a row (oops!) because I felt like yesterday's workout didn't feel rigorous enough and make me sore. I'm doing the NROWL4W and have just started. Myfitnesspal also told me today that I didn't eat enough. I'm confused about eating at a deficit and trying to gain muscle at the same time. Any words of wisdom?

Don't sweat it! It's not as if you destroy your progress by doing weights two days in a row :) Also, you technically CAN do two days in a row if you alternate body parts...say upper body one day and lower body another day. I just get bored and do everything on one day :lol:

You can't really gain muscle while eating at a deficit except for a small window when you're a newbie at lifting. You might actually gain muscle then—otherwise you'd normally have to eat at a surplus to gain muscle.

What lifting does when you're eating at a deficit is cause you to lose mostly fat and very little muscle. You'll become leaner, notice more muscle tone, etc. Once you lose the fat you want you can maintain or eat at a surplus to gain muscle.

At my gym I get compliments on my arms all the time and people always say that it's because I lift heavy. Not so! It's because I lifted as I lost weight, watched my nutrition and have a low body fat % Someone else could lift heavier than me and NOT have toned arms because their body fat % is higher.

Good to know! That helps me with strategy--a lot!

For me strength training often causes me to lose size and gain weight (when not watching what I eat) and can cancel out weight loss when I'm being reasonable about what I eat.

But this doesn't last long and in the long run I have never had good weight loss without incorporating some kind of strength training (this isn't always lifting!)

Your weight loss may have slowed because you are working on toning and building muscle and have limited your cardio. If you keep at it your weight will eventually continue to come down again as the muscle builds.

If you want to jumpstart your weightloss again though, you need to add more cardio. You may have underestimated how many calories you were burning with the JM videos. I would do at least 30 mins of cardio three times a week to get things moving again. You might have to up your calories a bit to compensate but I'd wait and see if the scale starts moving again first.

Good luck and let us know how it goes.