I don't like the look of this

K

Kath

Cathlete
Anyone who says you can't change your body shape is wrong, but sometimes it's hard to tell what changes you're making until they appear.

I quit dieting, increased my weights in my workouts, and in three weeks I have built a butt the size of a house! As someone else puts it, "a butt you could ride".

This is not what I had in mind!!!! (picture me throwing things)

I'm not overweight, but I now have a big power-butt that is way out of proportion with the rest of me.

I'm going back to counting weight watcher points, not to starve myself but melt some fat off.

Should I decrease my weights back down? Or just focus on slowly losing fat? Cathe and her crew squat with heavy weights and they're all compact.

??????? Kath
 
Hi, Kath, since you've built that butt you might try using lighter weights for your lower body workouts. Some bodies just pack on the muscle. Since you're bulking use ligher weights, at least for those muscle groups you don't want to get disproportinately large. Keep your diet lean and clean but reasonable and play with it. Every body is different!

Bobbi http://www.plaudersmilies.de/chicken.gif Chick's Rule!
 
Hi, Kath! This is just my experience, but I find that when I up my weight loads on my lower body work, my glutes, quads, hamstrings AND abductors "blossom" for awhile, but then if I keep everything else constant / consistent, including hi-intensity cardio and a moderate diet, the lower body muscles kind of pack themselves down, and it takes longer than 3 weeks for that pack-down process to happen. That may be just me and my body type, whatever that is, but I'm a short-stuff (5'3") and I would've thought I'd be very stocky by now, but I'm not - I'm up to about 56 pound weight load for my squat and lunge work.

Maybe just give your current program, with increased weight loads and reps, another 3 weeks or so? Can you do Interval Max once a week? That's a total burner for me!

Just my $.02 -

Annette
 
Thanks for the good perspectives. I'll give it some more time. I asked my husband's opinion (he's into fitness) and he fearfully but honestly responded that a big hard butt is better than a small droopy one. Then added that you don't see too many long distance runners with big butts, which is true. Guess I'll increase the running.

I read that post by Cyberfit explaining how you can't put on muscle and lose fat at the same time...and in fact you have to put on a little fat when you put on muscle but you can burn off the fat later.

I just want to be small AND hard, is that too much to ask? lol

Keep on tweakin' the routine...Kath
 
Kathy,

Exactly what were you doing to get this big firm butt! :) I'm curious. What exercises/tapes were you using? How much poundage?
I'd like for my glutes to be a little firmer!

Angie
 
Thanks for the good perspectives. I'll give it some more time. I think I'll keep the heavy weights and increase the running. My upper body has bulked up too but you won't hear me complaining about bigger harder arms. I think part of it is, I'm finally not dieting, so I actually have some extra calories to build muscle. And that comes with fat, in the short term. Although there's no fat on my tummy where you'd normally find it.

Any increase in pants size is alarming though!!! I don't know if I'm doing something good, or on the fast track to obesity.
I'll have to report back in a few weeks. I've also gone sugar-free so that can only help.

Thanks for your suggestions...Kath
 
Kathy,
Make sure you are getting a good shoulder workout as well. It will help put your body more in proportion. I have a complete pear shape and that is what I have been doing. I carry all my weight below the waist. I remember reading that in one of the fitness magazines because it applied to me so well.

Just a suggestion.

Kelly
 
I just keep telling myself (and anyone else that may be interested) that I have the J-Lo butt thang going on ;-) !
 
Please define for us what "I quit dieting" means. It could be that you're gaining weight. Do you keep a food journal?

Personally, I go with the idea that lighter weights are best for lower body. And Cathe's crew may not lift heavy all the time....keep in mind that they are making demo tapes. This doesn't necessarily reflect what they do in their own workouts.
 
Kath,

I was alarmed when my pants didn't fit shortly after I started doing heavy (example: 50 lb squats) lower body work. I am certain now, a few months later, that this was swelling in the muscles. I was not dieting and didn't change anything in my cardio routine during this time (nor did I when my legs finally "shrank" back to normal). Can you feel/see fat for sure or could it be swollen muscles?

I now think that the heavier I lift, the better. It was depressing at first, for sure, as I couldn't wear my pants! I was mad, like you. But, I continued to lift. It did come off as my muscles acclimated to the heavy weights.

Just as when you injure tissue on the surface of the skin, like with a black eye or something, there are all sorts of materials that must come to the injury site to help repair. As I'm sure you know, building muscle requires you to injure, or break down the muscle fibers. Your body must disassemble and remove the old fibers, bring in amino acids, hormones, and other players to build new tissue, and then actually do the building. Whenever you bring more solutes into an area, water follows (osmosis); hence swelling. Since the muscles of the lower body are so large, when they swell, they seem worse than other, smaller muscles. Your biceps, for example, swell too, but they are so much smaller that it's not perceived as such a big deal. Once the new tissue is in place and the waste materials are removed, the extra water flows out (osmosis again) and your pants fit. You use energy of course to do all this work, so unless you're eating more/exercising less than before, you will have lost fat too.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure that if I stopped with the heavy weights and then went back to them after some time off that I would swell again and not be able to wear my pants.

I know this might not be what's going on with you (and the food journal/consideration of too high calories might very well still be valuable), but I thought another person who went through the same thing might help. Again, I didn't change anything, continued to lift heavy, and after a few months (long time!), the swelling went down. My legs are more solid but my pants fit better than before now.

Good luck!
ginger
 
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