Muscles looking more defined but weight is the same?

[sarahz]

5’4, f, 165 lbs, top heavy hourglass shape with a soft stomach, US size 8

i’ve been being more conscientious about my eating and working out since the beginning of the year; i climb 1-2x a week, try to do pole dance class once a week, and try to strength train 1-2 days a week.

i’m noticing more defined muscles in certain parts of my body, but i weigh exactly the same as i did 2 months ago. is this to be expected? should i expect to gain muscle before i actually start losing weight?

 

[dinafrancis]

@sarahz You have maybe built a bit of muscle, but I think the bigger factor may be the more conscientious eating. If youve started making healthier choices, that is reflected in your body as a lot of ultra processed foods are quite inflammatory.

But ultimately, to lose weight, you need to eat less. Unfortunately, you're eating more than you did before working out since you're burning extra calories with the exercise but not losing the weight. So you need to pull out about 500 calories a day from where you're at now to start losing a pound a week. Tracking calories makes this much easier to do.

Building muscle is very slow work. Especially for a woman. Under optimal conditions and a ton of other factors, a woman can expect to build .5-1lb of muscle per month. Optimal conditions includes a calorie surplus (aka gaining weight). However, an untrained beginner can still build some muscle in a calorie deficit. But note that it is impossible to build muscle to counter act a deficit (aka, the reason you didn't lose weight wasn't because you built muscle). So if you aren't losing weight, you aren't in a calorie deficit. Period.

 

[cfitz]

@sarahz You are dong body recomposition which is good. You can take measurements to estimate your bodyfat%. It is not perfectly accurate, but serial measurements are helpful to track your trend. What is your goal? If it's to get stronger and gain muscle, I would stay the course, since you are gaining muscle.

 

[dawn16]

@sarahz Muscle weighs more than fat.

 

[dawn16]

You’re fine