How to sculpt your body into what you want

My goal right now is to lose weight but ultimately I want to have a strong slim body. I've been skinny before but I looked more weak than strong. I just couldn't seam to build the muscle deffinition that I want. I'm looking to go about things differently this time but I was hoping that some of you have had experience with things that do or don't work for building lean muscle deffinition ( especially abs! ha ha).

Well you need to lift heavy...heavy for you that is.  May I suggest http://www.stumptuous.com/cms/index.php and the book New Rules of Weightlifting for Women.  Both are excellent sources of info about building muscle.  Weight lifting is the best way to give great shape to your body rather than being "skinny fat" like so many cardio bunnies.  Good luck and welcome to the glorious world of picking up heavy things.

the first thing you will want to do is start taking in more protein, especially after your work out...that helps repair the torn down muscles and helps build lean muscle mass....the work outs i would suggest for a long lean strong look is to do strength training 3 days a week and a couple days of good cardio....always remember to stretch before and after every work out this helps to get muscles long and lean....when you do strength training make sure you warm up before and after each work out....good luck!

I would also suggest doing the New Rules of Lifting for Women program, which is great for beginner weight lifters. It gives you 7 different workouts that you do in stages for about 6 months, based on 3 workouts per week. I'm beginning stage 4 today and I'm so much stronger than when I started the program, in October. Make sure you eat plenty of protein, too.

Once you're doing your routine, eating protein, etc, make sure you are always increasing, either weight or reps.  In every workout, try and doin more than you did last time, it will make your progress so much faster and you will see better results.

Do pilates!!!! Pilates (especially on the reformer or with other equipment) is great for building lean muscle. You will get stronger but not bulky. I am a pilates instructor and it is amazing to see the results you get even just doing it twice a week.

Lifting heavy weights won't make her bulky either.  It builds lean muscle.  Women don't produce enough testosterone to build up big bulky muscles the way men can.  Heck, even most men have to work crazy hard to get bulky.

Original Post by skillz794:

the first thing you will want to do is start taking in more protein, especially after your work out...that helps repair the torn down muscles and helps build lean muscle mass....

I know my body is muscle building, I can feel it, and I crave protein like crazy. 

How much is "more" protein? How much per day, what percentage, etc.?

How much is too much? What ratio of protein to complex carbs and healthy fats? 

Any tips on how to increase protein without big cals? favorite drinks, meat, powders,nuts, fish? I swear its hard to get enough. I feel so much better when I get high protein intake, but even trying to focus on that, I still only average about 23.5%. really not enough, hu. 

About a quarter of your daily calories should come from protein- so about 50 to 125 grams per day ought to be enough to help build muscle. 

Overall, about half of your calories should come from carbohydrates.  So generally:  50-65% carbs, 15-30% protein, and 20-30% fat.

How about trying some tofu, or other soy based products?  They're generally pretty high bulk, low calorie protein sources.    Whole wheat/grain foods also contain more protein than plain white bread.

Also, eat low or no fat dairy products- cheese, milk, yogurt...

Try out these links:

http://www.vegsoc.org/info/protein.html -good chart of some meat-free protein sources

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/w hat-should-you-eat/protein-full-story/index.h tml -more in depth information about protein and where to get it

http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/whattoeat/a/ highproteinfood.htm -a list of the protein in various sources

http://exercise.about.com/cs/nutrition/a/prot ein.htm -helps you calculate how much you need

Original Post by aaltizer:

Do pilates!!!! Pilates (especially on the reformer or with other equipment) is great for building lean muscle. You will get stronger but not bulky. I am a pilates instructor and it is amazing to see the results you get even just doing it twice a week.

 All muscle is lean muscle.  Pilates may help you build some muscle, if you were previously supper sedentary and have almost no muscle mass.  Pilates may be ok for building some muscle, but ther are definitely much better ways of building muscle.

Everyone here has great ideas and they are all positive and helpful.  I was in the same boat as you and I'll tell you what worked for me.  It is tough to both gain large amount of muscle and lose fat at the same time.  To gain muscle, you have to fuel the growth with more protein, which is contrary to weight loss goals.  You could easily end up being bulky instead of slimmer and sculpted which is what I think you are after. 

What worked for me, was to concentrate on weight loss first, through cardio and weight lifting, but with a caloric deficit to help lose the weight quicker, and once you achieve your weight loss goal, you can then significantly up your caloric intake and protein intake to quickly boost your muscle mass and definition.  The good news is that you get a caloric surplus while trying to build muscle so you can eat much more than your maintenance requirements.  For example, to gain one pound of muscle in a week, it takes 3500 excess calories or about 500 per day, depending on variables of course.  I think you might find that you are 75% of the way to that already just by losing the body fat and it's a short trip from there to where you want to go.  Lose the weight through cardio and weight lifting and you'll discover a body there you didn't know you had, which is a pleasant surprise indeed.

Rippled abs are a function of low body fat and building miscle mass.   For women especially, it's approaching dangerously low fat %'s to get that washboard effect and requires a tremendous amount of discipline and work.  There is nothing magic about abs though.  It's just another muscle and I can tell you from experience, that it's mostly heavy strain on the abs that builds muscles there, not repetitive lighter exercises.