The Facts:
Lifting weights or doing strengthening activities like push-ups and crunches on a regular basis can actually help you maintain or lose weight. These activities can help you build muscle, and muscle burns more calories than body fat. So if you have more muscle, you burn more calories—even sitting still. Doing strengthening activities 2 or 3 days a week will not “bulk you up.†Only intense strength training, combined with a certain genetic background, can build very large muscles.
Tip:
In addition to doing at least 30 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity (like walking 2 miles in 30 minutes) on most days of the week, try to do strengthening activities 2 to 3 days a week. You can lift weights, use large rubber bands (resistance bands), do push-ups or sit-ups, or do household or garden tasks that make you lift or dig.
SOURCE: The Weight-control Information Network (WIN)
This is one that needs to die. It seems like everyone woman I know who works out lives in fear of this. I’ve tried to explain to them that I am TRYING to gain muscle and go out of my way to drink protein shakes and such and still it takes a while to build significant amounts of muscle.