Hello! I'm had my third weigh in yesterday, and I have a question. My consultant said I should not lift heavier than 4 pounds. I planned to do the Firm sculpting workouts from time to time and use 3, 5 and 8 pound weights. I thought the current wisdom was that you would lose FASTER if you were building muscle. Was I given good advice, or should I go on and use my 5 and 8 (and eventually heavier) weights?

KyCatsFan

Use whatever poundage is appropriate for YOU. The goal is to tone up and lose FAT. The loss rate that you see on the SCALE may not be as rapid as if you weren't changing the structure of your body at the same time, but you'll be happier with the results. Building muscle is always a good thing! If you're particularly sore after a workout at the time of weigh in, the results could be skewed due to extra fluid built up in the sore muscles. No worries! It evens out over time.

WHAT!? That's an absolutely ridiculous statement for your JCC to be feeding you! Like LesterLou said, your scale losses might be less as you build muscle and you'd want to avoid the scale around times your muscles are sore because it'd show a false gain. BUT, you need to decide what you want your goal to be. Are you just interested in seeing the scale # go down? Or do you want to tighten and firm up as well as you lose? My trainer has me using 15lbs per arm and lower body is ALOT higher weights. I've toned all through my weight loss journey and as I am nearing goal, I'm very happy with lifting heavier than 4 lbs!

man... sorry... but I'm going to be shaking my head for awhile with that one!

Do what is right for you! If The Firm is your goal, DO IT! Good luck!

Building muscle will increase your metabolism, thus burning more calories. You may loose fat faster, but the scale will move downward at a slower rate. Perhaps that is why your JCC is discouraging the use of heavy weights, to help prevent disappointing scale results? Ah well, I use 8 pound weights and plan to take it up a notch to 10 in a week or two. My weight loss has been slow, but I'm OK with that. I dont want to end up being skinny, and yet still be unhealthy!

Take care,
Angela

That sounds ridiculous. I typically read that you should choose your weights based on making 8-12 reps challenging. I would feel nothing if I used 4 pound weights. I regularly do 540 on the leg press and at 70 on the bench press. The lightest weight I ever use is for rear lateral raises on the cable machine and that is 10 pounds each side.

yes ridiculous unless you discussed concern for injury, you should increase weight for results, perhaps if you expressed concern for gain or seeing loss as quick, what happens when you lift is you are tearing muscle to build muscle, and in order for it to repair itself it fills with fluid and can take 24-48 hours to deplete and can show gain on scale, also people think gain due to Muscle weight, but that is not true in the early stages of starting to use weights, it takes time to build the muscle. And as Jillian Michaels has said on her radio show when people ask about muscle weight gain, look at the biggest losers who are training as first class athletes who lift a ton and still lose, their body has not build up enough muscle to show gain in such a short time.