Q: I am a 19 year old female and active gym goer. I go to the gym 6 days a week for about two hours each day. Before I began going the gym (about two years ago) I weighed 150. Now, I weigh 155. I am not sure what I am doing wrong, or if it is due to the muscle mass that I have gained. I do weight training two days a week. A lot of the advice you have on the site emphasizes the importance of weight training in losing weight, but is that advice the same for females? As you know, most girls are afraid of gaining too much muscle mass. Is there a way to combat this problem while still reaping the benefits of muscle?

A: Yes, the advice about burning fat through weight training applies to women just as much as to men. Check out http://www.mikesfitness.com/content/girls-lift-weights-overly-muscular for my response about women becoming overly muscular -- it should not be a concern as long as don't gain weight.

In your case you have gained a little bit of weight and yes, there's a good chance that those five pounds are mostly muscle. But you need to keep in mind that you do not gain weight from weight training. You gain weight from overeating (and also aging in the long term, but that's not the case with you, of course). So you may want to watch your diet a little more closely and cut out some calories (junk food and sweets are the best candidates here :) if you are concerned about continuing weight gain.

Now the interesting point is why, given your obviously hard work in the gym, haven't you lost weight? I assume that your appearance has not changed significantly in the two years you've been at the gym aside from gaining a couple of pounds, correct? Here are the likely reasons and ways to correct them:

• You are not following a fat-burning diet. I know following a diet can be a HUGE hassle, but right now you are spending around 15% of your waking time in the gym without desired results! It would be a much better investment of your time to follow basic fat-burning diet and get the results much much faster. Read my nutrition article carefully, try to understand it as much as possible (come back here and ask me as needed), and implement it into your life. It's the single best thing you can do, given that you already exercise.
• You are spending way too much time in the gym! An effective fat-loss program requires 3-5 days of weight training per week, around 30-60 minutes per session. Optionally you can do moderate cardio: 2-3 times per week, 15-30 minutes per session. That is all! More is not better in this case. By continuously putting your body through strenuous gym sessions you are not letting your muscles recover and not reaping the metabolism-boosting benefits of weight training. Heavy cardio further drops your metabolism. Read my weight training article and choose from any of the weight training routines listed in it (I recommend low- or medium-volume ones to start). If you like cardio, supplement the weight training with light or moderate cardio on non-training days. But let your muscles rest and burn those calories during recovery!
• When weight training you are probably not doing the right exercises. Women often tend to stick to exercises like bicep curls, tricep extensions, shoulder presses, and the adductor/abductor machines. While those are all perfectly good exercises, they train maybe 20% of all your muscles. The other 80+% are just sitting there and doing nothing and not burning your fat reserves during recovery. The best exercises to boost metabolism are the big ones: squat, deadlift, lunge, bench press, pulldown, row, shoulder press. If you avoid these exercises, you'll never get much out of weight training. As I explained before, watch your diet so you don't gain weight and you will be in no danger of becoming overly muscular. Do these big exercises, punish your muscles in the gym, and reap the metabolic benefits while your muscles recover!
• When weight training you are probably using weights that are too light. Many women pick weights that they can do for 20 or higher reps and will almost never come close to muscular failure when performing the exercise. This is probably also a consequence of the 'I am afraid of becoming bulky' myth. The truth is that in order to gain the most metabolic boost, you need to stress your muscles with resistances that will cause muscular failure in 12 or fewer reps. If you are uncomfortable with going to failure, then don't do it! Simply select a weight that would cause failure in, say, 10 reps and only do 7-8 reps of it. But LIFT HEAVY WEIGHTS! Once again, you will NOT become overly muscular unless you start overeating. Watch your diet and lift heavy for maximum fat burning.