Frustrated by lack of progress in progress pics - advice needed

[DesyC]

So my husband and I started weight lifting in Aug and have been going to the gym pretty consistently for at least the past two months. I took some before pics of myself in Sep and then took some again today to try and gauge my progress and I am super disappointed. Especially considering that I wasn't large to begin with, I thought for sure I would have seen significant improvement/changes in body composition by now.

Here are my stats: I'm 5'0 and currently about 103lbs (101lbs in Sep). Body fat percentage is around 24-25% but this is just a guesstimate. I have just recently started tracking my calories and macros and right now I am trying to consume 1700/day with my macros looking like this: carbs 149g 35%, fat 76g 40% & protein 106g 25%. Maintenance is about 1660 cals. I have literally just started tracking calories a week ago, which is obviously not enough time for it to make a huge difference in my appearance. I do believe that my back appears to be more muscular in the picture and my arms are definitely more muscular (which makes sense b/c it's where I've noticed the most muscle gain) but everything else just looks so... blah. My husband did say my butt looks more "lifted" but you definitely can't tell that in my pics. :/

Anyway, after looking at my pics I am just really unsure of what I should be striving for and how I should go about getting there. I really wanted to do a body recomp (gain muscle while simultaneously losing fat) but my husband keeps saying that's not really the most logical thing to do and that I can't really gain muscle while losing losing fat, it has to be one or the other. So I'm wondering if anyone could advise me. Should I be trying to focus on gaining muscle or losing fat or is it possible to do a body recomp? If I'm trying to change my body composition, should I be eating above or below maintenance. How do my macros look? Lastly, does my progress look "normal" and I'm just expecting way too much too soon? I would appreciate any input!

*My pics are attached but unfortunately I couldn't get the before photo from the back uploaded.

[oregonchick76]

At your stats I can't imagine dieting any further. You're going to benefit most from a long slow bulk, followed by a cut.

Think 6+ months and a gain of 6-12 lbs. You're low in LBM so no matter how far you diet down right now, you're not going to have the look you want with no muscle underneath.

[likeafish]

Noticing a slight change in a couple of areas is normal for a couple of months Drastic changes don't happen, especially on the building side.

You've gained 2 lbs but that really could just be water/glycogen/intramuscular fluid/"pump" that happens when people start lifting. How did you put on that weight, like was it mostly within the first couple of weeks and then your weight has barely changed since, or has it gradually been increasing the entire 8 weeks? People tend to eat what it takes to maintain their weight so if you weren't tracking or purposefully overeating, I'm guessing that you were eating maintenance, recomped a little bit and put on some pump weight.

Tracking, no matter how accurate someone tries to be, is not perfect, errors are made. A 40 calorie surplus is within the margin of error for tracking, it can be eaten up over the day being off by small inaccuracies. As well as that amount can easily be part of normal daily activity fluctuation, you can burn 40 cals doing a couple of loads of laundry. You might find yourself not gaining or gaining excruciatingly slow with that kind of surplus.
And that's if it even is a surplus, because maintaining on 1660 doesn't sound right. Your BMR is around 1250. Even if you have a desk job, even with short workouts, your maintenance should be more like 1800. So if you are trying to gain slowly, you'd still want to be eating 1900-2000.
You'll find out though now that you're tracking. Be as accurate as possible getting the right weights and nutritional info for your foods, and if the scale isn't going up, raise your intake.

[Partyrocking]

I would start with a solid novice routine, e.g. Fierce 5. Do the routine at maintenance until you stall (i.e. you fail a lift twice and have to reset, take 15% off the bar), and then start your bulk, aiming for 1-2lbs weight gain/month.

[rockangel]

You are in roughly the same spot I was in when I started. Best thing you can do to "fix" the issue is to bulk as the others have pointed out.

And I would like to reiterate as well, you are talking in years here, not weeks. I would bulk for around 18 months, adding 1 pound a month, get to about 120, then diet back down losing about 1 pound a week (that would be maybe 15 ish weeks to get back down) and I think you will like the look you come out with just fine.

I know gaining weight can sound crazy, but it will put you in a better place. If you do a recomp, you are looking at a much longer timeline with much less visible results. If you are right now complaining about not seeing results fast enough, then I would say a recomp is not for you.

Recomps are slower and results may not be seen every week or even every month. 2 months in recomp is NOTHING, again you are talking years... not weeks or months. In recomp, you can gain a little muscle, and lose a little fat... but its LITTLE, no big shifts... and its cumulative... meaning that all the little bits add up over time... a lot of time. We are talking losing .07% body fat per month, for you that means a few ounces here and there either way.

So if its fast visible results you are after... build then cut.

[DesyC]

Noticing a slight change in a couple of areas is normal for a couple of months Drastic changes don't happen, especially on the building side.

You've gained 2 lbs but that really could just be water/glycogen/intramuscular fluid/"pump" that happens when people start lifting. How did you put on that weight, like was it mostly within the first couple of weeks and then your weight has barely changed since, or has it gradually been increasing the entire 8 weeks? People tend to eat what it takes to maintain their weight so if you weren't tracking or purposefully overeating, I'm guessing that you were eating maintenance, recomped a little bit and put on some pump weight.

Tracking, no matter how accurate someone tries to be, is not perfect, errors are made. A 40 calorie surplus is within the margin of error for tracking, it can be eaten up over the day being off by small inaccuracies. As well as that amount can easily be part of normal daily activity fluctuation, you can burn 40 cals doing a couple of loads of laundry. You might find yourself not gaining or gaining excruciatingly slow with that kind of surplus.
And that's if it even is a surplus, because maintaining on 1660 doesn't sound right. Your BMR is around 1250. Even if you have a desk job, even with short workouts, your maintenance should be more like 1800. So if you are trying to gain slowly, you'd still want to be eating 1900-2000.

The weight was gained over a couple of months. I'm using myfitnesspal to track my calories and when I started my profile it said that my maintenance would be about 1660ish (being lightly active). Based on that, I bumped up my cals slightly but I'm just now realizing that a 40 cal increase is not anywhere near being enough, especially when you take into account inaccuracies. :/

*Edit: Thanks so much everyone for the replies and info! I have never worked out seriously with the intention to gain muscle, it was always with the intention of being lean (I was a runner). This is a completely new thing to me and so I'm really struggling with changing my mindset that weight gain is bad. I'll be working on a bulk like you all suggest and see where that gets me.

[likeafish]

Try this calorie estimator, it's very personalized, http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/CalRequire.html

[spradish]

The weight was gained over a couple of months. I'm using myfitnesspal to track my calories and when I started my profile it said that my maintenance would be about 1660ish (being lightly active). Based on that, I bumped up my cals slightly but I'm just now realizing that a 40 cal increase is not anywhere near being enough, especially when you take into account inaccuracies. :/

*Edit: Thanks so much everyone for the replies and info! I have never worked out seriously with the intention to gain muscle, it was always with the intention of being lean (I was a runner). This is a completely new thing to me and so I'm really struggling with changing my mindset that weight gain is bad. I'll be working on a bulk like you all suggest and see where that gets me.

Keep in mind that the goal that MFP gives you doesn't account for exercise activity. That is, the activity level that you choose should be based on your activity outside of exercising. Then you are supposed to log your exercise and it will add more calories to your day. Also, I've found that even though I work a very sedentary job and would be considered sedentary according to MFP's description, I'd have to set myself as lightly active and then log exercise on top of that to end up with a maintenance calorie goal that matches what I know my maintenance range to be. All of the calculators use formulas that give you best estimates, of course, but I kind of think that MFP's estimates are conservative, possibly due to the site focusing a bit more on people wanting to lose weight rather than maintain or gain.

[DesyC]

@likeafish Thanks so much for the calculator! I checked it out and even trying to be really conservative with my energy output throughout the day and not accounting for gym time (husband and I only go about 3-4 times a wk so I wasn't really sure how to input that), it still had my calorie requirements at about 1900 on the low end and 2000+ if I increased my daily activity and if I tried to factor in weekly workouts. I was shocked to say the least.

@spradish It's crazy how much of a difference in calories there was between the calculators on MFP and the link that was provided above!

Thanks so much ladies, you guys have given me so much helpful advice and info! I really appreciate it!