Losing muscle?

[jadew]

Hi All

Needing a bit of advice as my (soon to be ex) PT doesn't really seem to grasp the results I want.

between the ages of 9-15 I was a gymnast, and now at 25 I have huge calf and thigh muscles. Stats:

body fat: 27%
skeletal muscle: 32.2%
BMI: 22.7
Visceral fat: 4
Weight: 61.9kg / 9st 7lbs
Resting metabolism: 1348 cal

I wear a size 8 - 10 (but frequently becoming just a 10). I'm also 5'5"


I'm under the impression that you can't 'lose' muscle but my legs are so chunky and I hate it! I was wondering if there's a specific diet or exercise routine I should be following to help become more lean? I have bad knees so running isn't really an option. At the moment all my PT has me doing are circuits and weight training but I don't feel like it's working?


I've looked at clen but would rather not go down that route if I don't have to!


Thanks in advance for any help

 

[musclemom]

You're not fat and weight training is only going to make your legs thicker, because I'm betting you've got fast twitch muscle there, easy to grow and with explosive power (great for gymnastics, particularly leaps, landings, things like that).

Running sucks anyway and if you already have bad knees it's nuts to even consider (speaking as someone who has arthritic knees). You want low to no impact, think elliptical, LONG walks or swimming, go for endurance, lay off lower body weight training (don't do HIIT based cardio)unless you'd want to consider building your whole body and go for powerlifting, you'd probably totally KILL in squats and deads!

So lets assume you're desperate enough to go the extreme diet route and cut out ALL exercise to atrophy your muscles. Losing muscle works the same way as losing fat, you lose it all over and in places where you have a lot of fast twitch fibers you're ALWAYS going to have thick muscles that resist atrophy.

I don't think any young woman looks at herself in the mirror and thinks "PERFECT!" not even supermodels (especially not supermodels, really). But I know, being an old lady of 49, that those imperfections exist far larger in our own minds than in reality. Twenty years from now you'll look at pictures of yourself and think "Holy shit, I was HOT, what the hell was I thinking back then!?!" (oh, yeah, you will, trust me, you don't believe me now but YOU WILL, we ALL do!)

So I'm telling you, save yourself twenty years of bullshit thinking, and accept the fact that your legs are naturally muscular and trust me when I tell you that it's probably really only noticeable to you, which could very well be why your PT doesn't grasp what you're trying to say.

 

[Rj83]

When I did triathlons (way back when), I was skinny (skinny fat), I had no muscle, and was 25% body fat however I was a size 6/8 (I'm talking Topshop clothing, given sizes vary) I completely overtrained at the time, cardio only workouts twice a day. I look back and cringe. I would never do this now, but just thought you might be interested. I used to have loads of people approach me and ask what I did/do to get so skinny, I trained for a super sprint triathlons only.

Now I have put on muscle I am a size 10/12 by default. Squats/deads have made my a$$ huge, my shirts don't fit my arms, so I wear jumpers to work and I love being strong and challenging my body. But we are all different, and different things make us happy.

Good luck.