Cathe, I have a question.

[kelley111]

Hi Cathe, First of all I want to say that I love your workouts. They are awesome, but I have a problem. I may already have the answer, but I need to be sure.

I primarily do your workouts and the Firm workouts. Here's what happens. After doing your workouts for a few weeks, I always end up gaining a couple of pounds, 1 inch in my waist, 1/2 to 3/4 inch in my hips, and 1/4 to 1/2 inch in each thigh and I look terrible. I then get discouraged and go back to my Firms. Within a couple of weeks I lose the pounds and inches. I then get the itch for your workouts again and the same thing happens. I've been in this cycle for quite a while now and, as you can probably guess, I'm not getting anywhere with my fitness goals. I need to get out of this cycle.

I am wondering if this is possibly what is happening. Am I getting bigger and gaining weight because of building muscle underneath this small layer of fat over my body? If this is the case, do I need to make myself stick to a certain rotation for a certain amount of time to work through this and do you have any idea how long it will take? Because literally, my jeans get so tight that I feel I need a bigger size and definitely don't want to go shopper for bigger clothes.

Sorry this is so long, but I really need to know what is going on and what to do about it.

Thanks for your help, Kelley

 

[Cathe Friedrich]

Hi Kelley! When you strength train, your muscles will swell to some degree as the tissues repair themselves. This usually goes away within three or four days. If you are hitting a few different muscle groups every few days you may be noticing a constant swell since your body is in contant repair mode. Eventually your body would acclimate to the program and you will notice less of the swelling action.

Another thing to consider is your diet. The more lean muscle you build, the more fuel it requires. But if the fuel that you feed it is not clean and instead loaded with sodium and starches, you will also feel quite bloated.

A final thing to consider is that you may find that your body responds better to muscle endurance workouts as opposed to heavy strength workouts. If this is the case, you may find that doing muscle endurance workouts primarily with occasional heavy weight training workouts will be a better formula to keep your muscles from bulking.

Good Luck!

 

[kelley111]

Cathe, Thank you so much for the quick response. I have noticed this happening more when I lift heavy and especially when starting the new pyramid workouts. I think I'll try a new rotation with more endurance workouts. I have the new workouts and will be getting them on DVD also this Friday. I'm going to setup a rotation with more endurance and I'm going to make myself stick to it and work through this problem.

I also joined Weight Watchers online today and I'm going to give that a try. I definitely need to make better food choices.

So, hopefully with a new eating plan and setting up a new rotation, I can get closer to reaching my goals.

Thanks again, Kelley