I watched something the other day where this lady was starving herself to get to 120 or so then she went back to eating 1200 cals just enough to get nurishment and still working out she is fat again, sometimes life is a bitch haha

Wrong, as in fat isn't gross?

There's a difference between a woman with padding and a woman who weighs 200 lbs.

Are titties gross to you?

It comes down to calories in vs. calories out. They're not just manufacturing fat out of thin air. As long as you are burning more calories than you take in, you will lose fat.

I don't think he was making a value judgment on the character of those people that are fat, though.

Depends on the size :)

Fat people are killing you. That's a value judgement about the character of fat people.

Your first statement isn't true for everybody.

He was talking about the evolutionary signal, not being literal.

Really? How could people who eat under their BMR manufacture fat out of thin air? If they are eating under BMR, they should be burning fat, no matter what kind of food they eat. The essential organs and lean body mass will get the energy from both food and stored energy sources. If their bodies are still manufacturing fat, either their organs aren't getting enough energy (in which case, they're going to die) or it's coming from thin air. It's not possible to starve your organs of energy for any length of time and still be alive.

So how long should one lift before upping the reps or the weight?

Just do trial and error. If you up the weight and you can handle it, do it! I'd back off if you're lifting to failure on each set, though.

How often should I lift to failure? Honestly I don't do it much. It's incredibly challenging, but I don't fail on each exercise let alone each set.

I usually find that if I lift to failure it's on my last set when I'm most fatigued (per exercise, not on the last set of the entire workout). I've been getting pretty close the last few days since I switched back to 50-pound dumbbells.

Then I should definitely try and up my weight. How about reps? I'm doing 8, and I'm in my 3rd week. Really the 2nd real week though, the 1st week I really slacked with the soreness.

Lifting to failure should be done when you're trying to increase muscle mass.

So if you're doing forms of training that involve putting on muscle, i.e., conventional training or superset training, lifting to failure is ideal.

but if you're doing pyramid training, where you decrease the weight and increase the number of repitions as you move along from set to set, you don't have to train to failure.

I'm literally just getting started and don't know anything about it. Thanks for the information.