Why am I exercising but getting bigger????

[DIddled]

I have been exercising since about October regularly- I did nothing at all before then bar dog walking. Now exercising 3-5/6 times weekly- couple of spinning classes if I can fit them in ( find them really tough but can work up a real sweat in half an hour!) or running ( home from work 2-3 times weekly - either 4 or 5 miles dependent on route). Also running couple of miles at weekend when I can fit it in.

I think I look slimmer, certainly I have lost the flab round my middle for sure and my bum has shrunk a fair bit- yet I am in the same dress size and I have just tried trousers on from last year which are a bit tight. I am not dieting but not pigging out either- I eat quite sensibly. Any ideas/ advice as I'm feeling a bit deflated :(

Are you stretching enough before and especially after runs and spinning? They are really cardiovascular and can make muscles quite chunky or bulky unless you do a lot of very long stretches to keep supple.

which parts of you are getting bigger?
cycling & running might make your legs more muscular

It must be muscle combined with associated water retention. Are you inadvertently eating more to compensate for increased exercise?

i have exactly the same thing!! i actually posted on here a few days ago on a closely related subject....started exercising in october, from nothing for years, do 4-5 times a week, a mix of cardio (intense) and weights (again, work very hard), yet no weight loss at all, stomach is flatter/waist smaller but despite a very strict diet as well i am not generally smaller or lighter and i am sure my thighs might be a big bigger!! been really frustrated too. i try to makes sure i work all muscle groups and I do stretch but perhaps given most classes I do involve, inevitably, quite a lot of work on the legs, they build up a bit??? it's only my upper thigs that seem to fill the trousers a bit more!! NOT what I wanted!
so as you can see I am baffled myself. if you burn a decent amount of calories each time, and do not overcompensate by consuming more than you are burning, you certainly should not be getting bigger I wouldn't have thought!

muscle is almost twice as dense as fat..so you can have lower body fat, lower body volume, but still weigh more.

But you've lost fat & have a firmer body:o
whats not to like??

May be worth dropping some of the weight training and try lower intensity cardio for a longer period of time, ie 70-75% of max hr for an hour several times a week

I don't weight train- just cardio. Just pissed off that my size 12 trousers are too tight!! All of the above noted- thanks

ah sorry Didled, I was referring to Allag with the weight training thing

Responses to exercise seem to vary quite a bit from person to person (?) I guess this has to do with differences in body composition, muscle fibre type, previous exercise history and lots of other things wich are way over my head:o

No worries Mercury good of you to reply!! I'll have a good old stretchy stretch before I leave based on advice earlier in the post - see what my office colleagues make of that :)

sorry, Diddled, did not meant to hijack your thread at all :) just a very similar issue, although different type of exercise....No weight loss basically, or very little!!! Other people on here have advised me that in general, the most effective way to burn calories and lose weight is high intensity interval training (where you do massively intense short bursts and then recover, and repeat) and some weights, combined with cardio, rather than cardio alone where you go at a reasonably steady pace. you might well be doing the interval thing already though - certainly most spinning sessions seem to be very much interval-based....

I've been exercising with a personal trainer since October. I have lost inches off my hips and bust, my legs and arms are slimmer, but my belly just doesn't seem to have changed at all, so although I look slimmer all over, I haven't really dropped a dress size.

It's rather depressing.

just keep going Trixy, adaptations to exercise take place over several months and the belly fat should go eventually

I am going to keep going. I'm loving the changes I can see already. I've never done any weight training before, but I'm totally hooked. It makes such a difference to just doing cardio as I did before.

OP I'd definitely recommend trying kettlebells.

Trixy, how much weight training do you do, and how much cardio? more of the former?

fwiw I am much leaner when I focus more on cardio, with lots of endurance training rather than interval training.

I've found that with weight training more than a certain amount is counterproductive and for women the degree of muscularity which can be reached is limited and can take years and years and years of dedicated heavy lifting.

There seems to be more room to make progress with endurance training, training intensely for strength and endurance constitutes (for most people) burning the candle at both ends