Well… that didn’t work
I’ve been on a weight lifting program for three months now, and though I have had some significant strength increases, I have had no measureable differences in muscle mass.
I can see that I have minor increases in muscle on my chest and abdomen. But, due to the concurrent weight loss there has actually been a decrease in some of my measurements.
I’ve taken the last two weeks off; partly because of discouragement, and partly because I’ve changed living locations.
I’ve decided to change my weight lifting program. I had been doing the "Body for Life" program, but it did not seem to work for me.
I’ve decided to go from the 5 set approach of "Body for Life" to a 2 set approach. The first set is a warm up set of 2/3rds what I plan to lift in my second set, and the second set is the maximum amount of weight with which I can achieve at least 5 repetitions. If I achieve 8 repetions on the second set, I increase the weight the next work-out.
The problem with the 5 set approach was that I was so worn down by sets 1-3 that when I did set 4 (the big weight set), I couldn’t lift that much. With the 2 set approach I can lift more, and I think that may be what I need.
I’m giving this approach at least a month. If I see strength increases, I’ll keep with it. If not, I’ll think again.
I talked to my dad on this past weekend, and as far as he knows no-one in my family has ever had any significant amount of muscle. My father, uncles, grandfather were all farmers, yet they never got muscular even with large amounts of heavy labour. They all got very strong, but not muscular. My dad had tests done while in hospital for arthritis treatment and he was much stronger than his muscle measurements would suggest. Something about "coordinated firing". Basically, it seems his muscles were very efficient. Darn… why can’t my family have "inefficient", but medium-sized muscles. 
So, it might just be that it’s going to be very difficult for me to gain large amounts of muscle. I’m not giving up. I’ll keep trying different approaches until something works for me.
