You guys apparently don't realize how easy it is for us ladies to gain unreal amounts of muscle. I mean one set of squats and my thighs burst right out of my jeans. Don't even get me started on my 17" biceps that erupted after my 10lb curls

Original Post by spirochete:

You guys apparently don't realize how easy it is for us ladies to gain unreal amounts of muscle. I mean one set of squats and my thighs burst right out of my jeans. Don't even get me started on my 17" biceps that erupted after my 10lb curls

 OMG you made me spit offee out onto the screen... your so funny.

Opps should i admit im drinking coffee??? erm it was water .. yes water for clean living that was it... i spat water out all over my screen.

Yeah i don't get this whole "i don't want muscles" attitude some women have...

Seriously girls no amount of wiehgt training is gonig to turn you into this

 http://femalefitnessfigurebodybuilders.blogspot.com/2008/01/ heather-lee-hulseberg.html

Or

http://www.bennadel.com/blog/987-Been-In-A-Funk-Lately.htm

I sware we are just not made that way Both this women have an insanly LOW body fat (like below 12% at a guess) and both take all kinds of anabolics

Seriously eating right the best your gonna get naturally is alittle nice muscle definition and looking like a model ... seriously wiehgt training and muscles are GOOD!!!!! they make you look sexy!!! most models and the super stars with the good bodys all do weights its how they get looking that fab, all slim and toned

 http://bp1.blogger.com/_2-7AdSkZA7I/Rg0uu_gnuoI/AAAAAAAABsg/ XDfKQzTq1SY/s1600-h/MM-HIU-dh016.jpg

Original Post by spirochete:

You guys apparently don't realize how easy it is for us ladies to gain unreal amounts of muscle. I mean one set of squats and my thighs burst right out of my jeans. Don't even get me started on my 17" biceps that erupted after my 10lb curls

 Actually until I got to the part about the 10lb curls, I just thought she meant she was doing squats in jeans and her pants ripped open - which would serve her right for doing squats and non-flexible clothing XD

omg i just realised all these years i thought the she hulk had to get angry just like bruce banner to hulk out ... how could i be so foolish all she did was pick up a 2lb pink dumbell .... Right next time my husband pee's me off im reaching for my dumbells .... she hulk i know your secret ... rawr!!!!!!

Try a toning belt!

Yes your right sarcasm doens't help.

Sorry i got visions of spiro ripping her pants and lost all reason couldn't get she hulk out of my head it wasn't mean as an insult honest. !!

Tbh though muscle is so much more compact than fat, if to much muscle is becoming a problem why not try some extra cardio with your wieght training??

wieght training maintains muscle and is proven to burn a hell off more fat than cardio, but the cardio with burn abit of fat and burn abit of muscle along with it so you might see a general size reduction all over.

Perhaps once you have gotten down to the size you want and lost all the fat you can then switch back to toning with weights??

Im sure people will shoot me down for suggesting this but hey its worht ago.. 

i know what you mean about fat thighs ive always had very fat thighs in comparison to the rest of my body.. im sure my legs are actually mens they sort of got mixed up somewhere and i got the wrong set.

Original Post by leopardrayne:

Anyways, I am one of those girls who, if she's worked out in the gym (resistance training), loses, on average, 1.5 - 2 pounds a week, but my upper arms and calves have bulked up considerably. My calves are right now almost as big around as my thighs, when it use to be that my calves were tiny and my thighs were big.  I've been measuring.  My arms are consistently getting bigger, and it seems I've just been adding muscle beneath the fat, and seeing no decrease in mass on my arms.

As for the actual muscles, I know for a fact that someone's muscles are going to bulk temporarily immediately following a workout.  Your muscle is pumped with blood to keep it from being injured.

 If you are building muscle bulk while losing weight, you need to drop what you're doing RIGHT NOW and be some sort of fitness professional. There are a small handful of people on this planet who can do that. You are going to be RICH

Here is the deal for all you ladies worried about looking like a she-hulk and this is not as scary as you may think.  When a woman first starts weight lifting it is not uncommon for a woman to put on between 10-20lbs of muscle in the first 3 to 6 months.  This is why you may be experiencing all this bulking up and are not loosing any "quote on quote" in your measurements.

The good news ladies, we have estrogen!  After you have reached your muscle peak (which will be no where near a man's unless steroids and hormone treatments are helping you along)  you will pan out and won't gain unless you are maxing out in all your weight training sessions.  Once the muscle mass has peaked, you continue lifting weights to maintain that muscle. 

The cool thing that happens next is that all that active muscle tissue starts devouring those fat stores (assuming you are not eating more then your deficit) and since muscle takes up less space then fat you start looking really good.  You will probably look more like the woman in the below link then any of those other pictures. 

http://www.spn-supplements.com/stack1

So my point is, do the weight lifting and do cardio.  Cardio will help you loose the fat faster and weight lifting will keep your metabolism fired up.  Just don't weight lift in consecutive days.  Your muscles need 24 hours to repair themselves otherwise they break down too much, get inflamed, and basically defeats the purpose of weight lifting in the first place.

P.S. Your muscles will always be bigger right after a workout.  Give your muscles about 24 hours of rest before you measure next time becasue that will be a more reaistic measurement of what size your muscles are.

I have a similar problem with not wanting to bulk up. My calves are naturally very muscular. I could sit on the couch for a year and still have muscular calves. I am always afraid that they will get bigger, but I do know that if you want to tone your muscles without bulking them up (Which is generally what women should do) then you need to use light weights and do more repetitions. If you use heavy weights and max yourself out, you will gain muscle mass. If you just use light resistance you will tighten the muscles without making them too big. Of course, there are sure to be exceptions to this rule, but in general that is how it works. Good luck!

Original Post by mratts:

 If you use heavy weights and max yourself out, you will gain muscle mass. If you just use light resistance you will tighten the muscles without making them too big. Of course, there are sure to be exceptions to this rule, but in general that is how it works. Good luck!

Sentence one builds muscles efficiently. Sentence two builds muscle in a very slow, inefficient manner. That's the only difference there. You're either building muscle or you're not. There's no such thing as "tightening" your muscles. I'm not even sure what that's supposed to mean.

"tightening" the muscles means increasing muscle tone, it's best accomplished by lifting heavy weights with low reps.  From this article:

"Simply put, there are two types of muscle tone: myogenic and neurogenic. The former refers to your muscle tone at rest; the latter refers to muscle tone that's expressed when muscular contractions occur.

Low(er) rep training increases the sensitivity of various motor units resulting in increased neurogenic tone. On the other hand, myogenic tone is correlated with the overall density of your muscles (specifically the contractile proteins myosin and actin) and is vastly improved by lifting heavier weights.

This is going to come as a shock to most women, but utilizing light weights (anything above twelve reps in my book) while dieting will likely result in loss of muscle, which is the exact opposite of what you want to happen."

Original Post by mindy_sue:

When a woman first starts weight lifting it is not uncommon for a woman to put on between 10-20lbs of muscle in the first 3 to 6 months. 

 10-20 lbs in 3-6 months would be really impressive for a guy who's doing everything possible to gain muscle, it rediculous to think that an average female weight lifter could put on anything close to that.

I know guys who have put on 10 lbs of muscle in 2 weeks because they haven't lifted weighs in years.  So it is very possible for a woman to do that in 6 months if she has never lifter weights before.

Original Post by kashicat:

Try a toning belt!

 And the fit flops too!