Bodybuilding, cutting, and cellulite!

[TeesNMee]

I’ve been lifting weights for about 7 months now and I absolutely love it. Next year I would like to enter a body building competition. Before I start with my question I will give you a quick review on my stats. I am 20 years old, 5’5”, small frame, 17% body fat, and 134lbs. My weight-training schedule often changes to keep my muscles growing. I pretty much lift six days a week and do moderately easy cardio (incline treadmill walking) 3 times a week for 30 minutes. When weight training I try and always keep my reps around 6-10, lifting to failure. I train each muscle group once (recently twice) a week. I group back/chest, legs/calves, shoulders/bi’s/tri’s and do about 6-12 sets for each major muscle I work on that particular day. Diet is about 90% “clean” (no butter, refined sugars, condiments, etc.) six days a week and one day a week I allow myself to eat what I want. Small meals are place about every 1-2 hours and I eat 12 times a day. Calories on lifting days average 1,950-2,050. Days I do not lift weights I reduce calories by 200. My daily diet consists of roughly 230 grams protein, 180 grams carbs, and 20 grams fat.

Now the problem I am having is this, I am finding that on the higher calorie diet I am slowly gaining weight (half pound to pound a week but then again I am “bulking”). I am not sure how much is muscle weight, water retention, or fat. I do measure myself and try not to rely on the scale too often. My strength keeps increasing and I am appearing “thicker”. What I am finding frustrating is I am not that ridiculously high in body fat but I have dimpling on the back of my thighs and buttocks. I can say over time I have been getting more cut on the upper body and lower leg region (calves) but my glutes and hamstrings are not looking much better. I just can’t get rid of that stubborn cellulite that is covering my lower body. What is really worrying me is that if I do compete next year I won’t be able to get rid of my body fat. Should I just not worry about gaining weight right now and just focus 100% on gaining muscle no matter how much fat I gain? Is the fat on the glutes and hamstrings pretty easy to get rid on when cutting for a contest especially when you have more muscle mass then the average woman? Is this something that most bodybuilding women have problems with? I have only talked with male bodybuilders and they say the fat is easy to drop. Of course men carry less body fat naturally and they have more overall lean muscle mass. Will I have to become a cardio addict to lose my body fat for competition?

Any advice from experienced female body builders is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[sweetbecky]

Well, I'm not an experienced body builder, but my first instinct says you should think about upping the cardio... either more frequently, more intense, or longer duration. A lot of people use HIIT for quick fat loss (just do a search, there are countless threads on HIIT). You probably already have an idea that this is what needs adjusting since you called it 'moderately easy' cardio. Maybe someone else will have other ideas, like playing with your diet ratios, but everything else looks great to me :)

[freaker]

Fat in the glute hamstring region can be very hard for a lot of people to get rid of. These guys will say it's easy to get rid of, but ask any of them have they ever had striated glutes, and you may start to find that some of them do have a problem getting rid of that fat. I've gotten my body fat down to 3.7% for contests, and even though I'm hard as can be striated from the lower back up with my face being sucked in looking and my jaw striated, I have never had striated glutes, so it is hard for me to lose that last little bit on the glute-hamstring area. It's genetic the way people hold their body fat because other competitors can have striated glutes, but their arms and face don't look nearly as shredded as mine. A lot of competitors will also say that as they do shows over time they become harder and it becomes easier to lose body fat in those troublesome areas.

[MDC]

TeesNMe,
The dimples are caused by ligaments that connect the skin to the, I believe, fascia. If you have short ligaments, from your genetics, you have to get the body fat even lower than others to get rid of them. I'm at about 17% and I see a couple of dimples on my butt, but nothing on my legs. I'm just going to keep working out, and start HIIT as soon as I feel the motivation(it's coming soon).

[cdmuscle]

I am 38 years old and have been bodybuilding for about 5 years now. Unfortunately, there is a large dimple on my right outer ham. I competed at 5% bodyfat and it was barely noticeable at all.

Once I gained the weight back, it came back as well. Just seems to be something I can't get rid of unless I want to keep my bf% that low all the time.

I think weight training and cardio makes them less noticeable, but I won't give you a false impression by telling you that it will go away. I also believe that my continuing to train consistently has kept them from getting worse!