You really should eat something at 2 hours to 30 minutes before you workout. This is because if you wait more then that, your stomach is empty you really don't have any extra fuel, as for your body actually taking the muscle you were working hard to build it can happen in extream cases, like when you sleep for 7 hours, and then do a really hard workout and don't eat for another two or three hours after that. Your body is now in starvation mode, you haven't feed it for 12 - 13 hours, and it has no fuel, it will attack the fat some, but it can be really desperate and it will attack muscle if you do that. It's also the worse thing you can do as it can tear up your stomach as well, as your jumping around and swooshing all that acid around and it's making more and there is othing in your stomach to absorb it or react to it.
As for you legs bulking up, women generally don't bulk up, but you need to really stretch afterwards, as that losens the muscles and when your body is adding more muscle fiber it has a long muscle to add to and not a tense one which can play a factor in bulking as your body just nits and if it's really tense the body won't stretch out the new muscle fiber which will cause the muscle to be more dense and can bulk.
Also genetics plays a part in this, you have to have a lot of really lean muscles not to bulk, just take a look at some of the women in Cathe's videos, a few of them I would consider bulked a bit. The one tape I gave to my mother, the first thing she asked was, "My thighs aren't going to get as big as those girls on the video are they? They are big." She's quite thin, 5' 3" and wears size 0.
And it depends on your body frame as well. Some frames even lean muscle looks bulky, on other frames it's not even noticed.
Now here is a question for you, are you wanting to lift the weights as the videos getting too easy, or why?
And also what would you consider your legs right now? Super skinny, slim, medium, a little stocky, chubby, thunder thighs/legs?
That will also play a part in what way you want to go, weights or no weights.
The Super skinny can add weights with no problem but would want to start slow.
The slim would want to add weights, but would want to be careful and do a lot of stretching aftwards.
The medium may want to but would want to stretch even more then the slim person and would want to watch how much weight they add, they'd want to add it extreamly slow and do more endurance toning then to build muscle. As it will build muscle really slowly and you can see where to stop.
The little stocky, chubby, and thunder would really want to concentrate on diet and aerobics. As stepping will add muscle tone, and you want to lose the fat before you start to strength train heavily. Mostly because if your muscles just puff a little it will look like they really bulked when they haven't.
Also if you feel your starting to bulk or don't like that you added 1/2 and inch onto your legs, drop the weights from then on, and take a break from strength training you'll usually will see signs of unbulking in a month or so, make sure you stretch like crazy. My calves like to puff up when I do a lot of step, so during my rest week they are my main target for stretching as well as I try to take it easy with them when I do aerobics, I drop back to floor exercise that focus more on moving all over then using the leg as not only the main movement but do things to strengthen the muscles. I've always had my calves unpuff by the end of the week. And when I do that rotation again, I make sure to go a bit easier, the next time around.
As long as you pay attention go ahead and use weights, and measure yourself once a week, when you start to get results you don't like that is time to either drop to a lighter weight or drop the weights. Remember you are in full control of your body, so if you try something you you don't like what you see stop, as you can't maintain the muscle mass if you don't keep stressing the same msucle with the same heavyness of weight over and over. As that is how you create muscles, each time you go up in weight your creating heavier and more denser muscles. So if you stop, and drop back, you are not maintaining it. Just like if you decided to go sit on the couch for a week and not move, all your muscles would be weak and some would even be floppy to some extent. This is the same deal.
Kit
