Ok, i know weight lifting isn’t going to make me huge but the one thing I don’t want to get bigger are my legs since they’re already too big….and in the last couple of weeks….I have a pair of boots I can’t zip up anymore, another pair is tight that wasn’t and a pair of jeans is so tight on my thighs that I can’t wear them? I know as I lose I’ll lose more body fat in my legs but I don’t really want my legs getting any bigger.
Let me start with some objective, random thoughts.
1. In the beginning, even while dieting, strength training can invoke muscle growth. It’s just the way it is with beginners, and you’ve never trained like this before in your life. The bottom line is, though, that it’s not going to continue. You’re legs are not going to get hulking huge, nor is any other part of you. If it worked like that, your everyday male who’s lifting weights and eating in a surplus would become enormous. You’re at the polar opposite end of the spectrum being female and dieting. Your level of hormones wouldn’t support large muscle gains even if you were eating in a surplus. This said, it’s something I wouldn’t sweat if I were you. There’s a reason why you see women deadlifting 2 and 3 times their body weights without having tree-trunks for legs.
2. Related to number 1, females wear form fitting clothing. When clothes are tight, and there’s a minor change in circumference, said change is going to be greatly magnified due to the kinesthetic reminder from the form fitting clothing. Put differently, the tight wardrobe of females in our culture leaves no room for change unless change means smaller circumferences.
3. You’re probably thinking, “Well smaller circumferences is what I’m interested in.” And that’s completely understandable. But I assure you that if you get the fat heading in the right direction, the small increase in muscle mass stemming from your “novice gains” will not matter in terms of circumference. Well it’ll matter, but only to the extent that you’ll have defined shape to your legs once the fat’s reduced.
4. Let’s, for a moment, pretend that your legs became exponentially larger and more muscular over time even though you’re female with low levels of anabolic hormones (relative to man) and even though you’re dieting. For whatever reason… chalk it up to genetics or whatever… but your body is such that you can build freaky levels of muscle mass in your legs regardless of circumstance. Let me ask you something… what happens when someone breaks their leg and is placed in a full-leg cast for a couple of months? Hint: The simple loss of mobility and load baring leads to substantial atrophy of the muscles of the injured leg. The point is, even if you did build levels of muscle that you weren’t comfortable with, it wouldn’t be any more permanent than your current program. Said muscle would only exist due to your body’s homeostatic drive to adapt to its environment. Right now your environment contains progressively heavier strength training. Change, reduce, or remove this stressor and the body’s “desire” to maintain this supposed muscle mass will also be changed, reduced, or removed.
Put simply… adaptations are reversible.
5. This is all the more reason to really focus on dietary compliance. You mentioned that the scale is finally starting to trend downward, but for a number of weeks that hasn’t been the case. Which implies that you’ve been strength training while eating in at least maintenance and possibly even a surplus. Novice gains aside, when you’re introduced to this sort of training while eating maintenance or a surplus, there’s much more “incentive” for your body to add muscle. We’re strength training the way we are in order to preserve as much muscle as possible while eating in a deficit. Granted, I’ve encountered many women who wind up losing their fat, exposing their shape and muscle, and at that point in time, still wanting more muscle… and we’re not talking a desire to be bulky at all. In that case, we are progressively getting stronger while eating in a surplus. But that’s not where we’re at in your case… so let’s prioritize nutrition, get your calories dialed in, and let our strength training serve its intended purpose.
That’s just some food for thought. We can discuss this further of course at our session tomorrow, but before we change anything with your programming, I’d
consider being a bit more patient. Give your body some time to adjust to this sort of training while being paired with a dialed in diet. If, after that, you still find that things aren’t heading in a direction you’re okay with, we can do some overhauling. It’s my job to pair the type and dose of training to your goals, and that’s something I’ll certainly do as I’m not married to any one approach. But I’m not sure we’re at a true crossroad yet.
If we did wind up making some changes, here are some thoughts…
Muscle growth requires sufficient tension in the muscle, which correlates very closely with the load you’re lifting. Which simply means that you need to lift a sufficiently heavy weight and thus cause a sufficient amount of tension in the muscle in order to force growth and or strength gains. Concurrently though, you also need to do enough work with said load. Simply lifting a sufficiently heavy weight a couple of times each day isn’t going to cut the mustard. There’s a “fatigue” component to muscular growth. So if it winds up that we do have to make some change, it’s likely going to be in the volume department in certain lifts which should “dampen” the growth stimulus.
Given that I get the sense that you like the new found strength, I don’t see a point in sacrificing it unnecessarily… especially given all of the the benefits associated with health and functionality.
Best,
Steve
