Help My Girlfriend

jgwagner23 · January 23, 2014, 4:00pm

I wanted to reach out to some others on the fat loss subject. My Girlfriend is 41 and she has been working out and running for many years. She weighs aprox 135-140, is about 25%BF and is 5’7". Yesterday we tracked her eating which was an average day for her. She ended up getting about 1007 calories in and the macro’s broke down to: 94 carbs, 36 fat, 55 protein. 77 of the 94 carbs came from sugar found in an apple, a little bit of Dr. Pepper, and a greek yogurt.

My question is… she eats like this comfortably and works out for an hour or so 3-5 days per week. She mixes her training up with intervals, leg days, ab and upper body days, and running days. She isn’t in bad shape by any means but she can’t lose the fat in her legs/thighs/hips like she wants and she is confused that it won’t go away since she is basically comfortably eating every day in a calorie deficit.

I was thinking maybe she isnt eating enough protein to keep the muscle she works out for on her body, therefore it isn’t keeping her fat burning up. Anyways I was hoping some one may have had experience getting through something like this or may have some advice.

Claudan · January 23, 2014, 5:23pm

Staying in a deficit for a prolonged amount of time, while exercising, is a bad idea. Its detrimental to one’s health.

Honestly, it sounds like she incurred metabolic damage.

What she should do is start eating more. She needs to get her back to ‘normal’ because right now her body is in a ‘fat storing’ mode 24/7. Basically, her body is so stressed from under-eating and exercising on top of that, that her body is in emergency mode. The body will NOT shed fat in emergency mode.

I would recommend, eating smarter and more, then drop ‘running’ from the vocab and add ‘sprinting’.

10 minutes of interval sprinting on an incline is MUCH more optimal for ‘fat loss’ as compared to a 30 or 60 minute ‘cardio session’.

Here is some more info in regards to ‘Metabolic Damage’. BioLayne Video Log 9 - Metabolic Damage - YouTube

The above COULD be your lady’s problem, just throwing out my first impression.

but yeah,for christs sake, START EATING. Or, stop exercising while in a deficit.

jgwagner23 · January 23, 2014, 5:47pm

Thanks Claudan. I appreciate the advice. Its right along with what I thought was happening here. I’ve seen some of this video from Layne before… So I will make some changes for her and we will see if this works.

doublelung84 · January 24, 2014, 12:49am

[quote]jgwagner23 wrote:
I wanted to reach out to some others on the fat loss subject. My Girlfriend is 41 and she has been working out and running for many years. She weighs aprox 135-140, is about 25%BF and is 5’7". Yesterday we tracked her eating which was an average day for her. She ended up getting about 1007 calories in and the macro’s broke down to: 94 carbs, 36 fat, 55 protein. 77 of the 94 carbs came from sugar found in an apple, a little bit of Dr. Pepper, and a greek yogurt.

My question is… she eats like this comfortably and works out for an hour or so 3-5 days per week. She mixes her training up with intervals, leg days, ab and upper body days, and running days. She isn’t in bad shape by any means but she can’t lose the fat in her legs/thighs/hips like she wants and she is confused that it won’t go away since she is basically comfortably eating every day in a calorie deficit.

I was thinking maybe she isnt eating enough protein to keep the muscle she works out for on her body, therefore it isn’t keeping her fat burning up. Anyways I was hoping some one may have had experience getting through something like this or may have some advice.[/quote]

A little off direction but has she had a blood profile worked up? Has she given birth? That can mess up the body composition in many ways. 40’s seems to be kinder to men.

Claudan,
Sorry I didn’t have a half hour to commit the video; have to hit that a lunch tomorrow.

jgwagner23 · January 24, 2014, 4:38pm

[quote]doublelung84 wrote:

[quote]jgwagner23 wrote:
I wanted to reach out to some others on the fat loss subject. My Girlfriend is 41 and she has been working out and running for many years. She weighs aprox 135-140, is about 25%BF and is 5’7". Yesterday we tracked her eating which was an average day for her. She ended up getting about 1007 calories in and the macro’s broke down to: 94 carbs, 36 fat, 55 protein. 77 of the 94 carbs came from sugar found in an apple, a little bit of Dr. Pepper, and a greek yogurt.

My question is… she eats like this comfortably and works out for an hour or so 3-5 days per week. She mixes her training up with intervals, leg days, ab and upper body days, and running days. She isn’t in bad shape by any means but she can’t lose the fat in her legs/thighs/hips like she wants and she is confused that it won’t go away since she is basically comfortably eating every day in a calorie deficit.

I was thinking maybe she isnt eating enough protein to keep the muscle she works out for on her body, therefore it isn’t keeping her fat burning up. Anyways I was hoping some one may have had experience getting through something like this or may have some advice.[/quote]

A little off direction but has she had a blood profile worked up? Has she given birth? That can mess up the body composition in many ways. 40’s seems to be kinder to men.

Claudan,
Sorry I didn’t have a half hour to commit the video; have to hit that a lunch tomorrow.

[/quote]

She actually had a complete panel done back in November. Everything was normal. It must be the metabolism…

anon71262119 · January 24, 2014, 9:30pm

Start by adjusting macros, bringing protein up. 1 gram of protein per pound is a guideline, but at least get her up in the 80-100 gram range right now. That alone should help with body comp. She’s not eating enough pro to keep muscle on.

She should track food intake over a period of a couple of weeks. If her true caloric intake is only around 1000 cals per day, then I can’t see how she wouldn’t be in a deficit, even if she were just laying on the couch. My experience with restricting calories like that is that my body will fight back and I’ll end up in a restrict and binge cycle. As in I can eat low for 3 - 5 days, and then I want to eat an entire box of granola and chase it with half a jar of peanut butter. Are you sure she isn’t having some big restaurant meals in there, not counting stuff like alcohol intake, that kind of thing? You need to know what her averages are over a week or two.

Her scale weight doesn’t sound bad, but she shouldn’t be lifting and eating 1000 cals per day and still staying at 25% body fat. That doesn’t add up at all. In other words, she probably wouldn’t be a bit concerned about her scale weight, if she were leaner, at 5’7" she should be able to carry it.

I’m not a huge believer in the “metabolic damage” thing. At least for me, if I put myself in a deficit the pounds will start coming right off. I do hear more women in their 40’s say that they have to add more cardio in to stay as lean as they’d like.

Claudan · January 24, 2014, 6:56pm

[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
I’m not a huge believer in the “metabolic damage” thing. At least for me, if I put myself in a deficit the pounds will start coming right off. I do hear more women in their 40’s say that they have to add more cardio in to stay as lean as they’d like.
[/quote]

Every single person who is healthy loses weight in deficit. That is the function of a healthy metabolism.

Claudan · January 24, 2014, 6:49pm

[quote]jgwagner23 wrote:

[quote]doublelung84 wrote:

[quote]jgwagner23 wrote:
I wanted to reach out to some others on the fat loss subject. My Girlfriend is 41 and she has been working out and running for many years. She weighs aprox 135-140, is about 25%BF and is 5’7". Yesterday we tracked her eating which was an average day for her. She ended up getting about 1007 calories in and the macro’s broke down to: 94 carbs, 36 fat, 55 protein. 77 of the 94 carbs came from sugar found in an apple, a little bit of Dr. Pepper, and a greek yogurt.

My question is… she eats like this comfortably and works out for an hour or so 3-5 days per week. She mixes her training up with intervals, leg days, ab and upper body days, and running days. She isn’t in bad shape by any means but she can’t lose the fat in her legs/thighs/hips like she wants and she is confused that it won’t go away since she is basically comfortably eating every day in a calorie deficit.

I was thinking maybe she isnt eating enough protein to keep the muscle she works out for on her body, therefore it isn’t keeping her fat burning up. Anyways I was hoping some one may have had experience getting through something like this or may have some advice.[/quote]

A little off direction but has she had a blood profile worked up? Has she given birth? That can mess up the body composition in many ways. 40’s seems to be kinder to men.

Claudan,
Sorry I didn’t have a half hour to commit the video; have to hit that a lunch tomorrow.

[/quote]

She actually had a complete panel done back in November. Everything was normal. It must be the metabolism…[/quote]

Did that include testing of her thyroid function?

anon71262119 · January 24, 2014, 8:31pm

[quote]Claudan wrote:

[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
I’m not a huge believer in the “metabolic damage” thing. At least for me, if I put myself in a deficit the pounds will start coming right off. I do hear more women in their 40’s say that they have to add more cardio in to stay as lean as they’d like.
[/quote]

Every single person who is healthy loses weight in deficit. That is the function of a healthy metabolism.
[/quote]

Agree. We don’t have enough information to assume that there is “metabolic damage”, or that something is broken. In other words, a lot more people think they have “metabolic damage”, than people who actually have “metabolic damage”.

Also, I mentioned a lot of women in their 40’s claiming that they need more cardio to maintain their weight now that their metabolism has started to slow. Just to clarify, that’s not where I’d go here, at least not right away. I’m definitely not saying, “Well, add a lot of running.”

Bring up protein to at least 80-100 grams per day right away. Work up from there. Even if she is afraid to bring up cals a lot because she is saying she’s comfortable eating only 1000 calories per day, and is fatter than she wants to be, her body will thank her for adding the protein, because she’ll be better able to maintain some lean mass. Even a couple of protein shakes would add only about 200 cals for the 40 grams of extra protein. A win, no matter what.

Just an aside, I know ballet dancers who regularly eat about 1000 calories a day. Women with small bones, very little muscle and extremely low body fat. A lot of discipline, or disordered eating, depending on how you want to look at that. Once people start eating a bit more, the healthy metabolism will chase intake. We’ve all see figure competitors complain that their very low contest prep diets “damaged their metabolism”. A lot of those people also did extreme cardio while prepping, then didn’t reverse diet their way back out of the deficit in a smart way. Gaining a lot of weight in that situation, no surprise.

Claudan · January 24, 2014, 8:51pm

[quote]Powerpuff wrote:

[quote]Claudan wrote:

[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
I’m not a huge believer in the “metabolic damage” thing. At least for me, if I put myself in a deficit the pounds will start coming right off. I do hear more women in their 40’s say that they have to add more cardio in to stay as lean as they’d like.
[/quote]

Every single person who is healthy loses weight in deficit. That is the function of a healthy metabolism.
[/quote]

Agree. We don’t have enough information to assume that there is “metabolic damage”, or that something is broken. In other words, a lot more people think they have “metabolic damage”, than people who actually have “metabolic damage”.

Also, I mentioned a lot of women in their 40’s claiming that they need more cardio to maintain their weight now that their metabolism has started to slow. Just to clarify, that’s not where I’d go here, at least not right away. I’m definitely not saying, “Well, add a lot of running.”

Bring up protein to at least 80-100 grams per day right away. Work up from there. Even if she is afraid to bring up cals a lot because she is saying she’s comfortable eating only 1000 calories per day, and is fatter than she wants to be, her body will thank her for adding the protein, because she’ll be better able to maintain some lean mass. Even a couple of protein shakes would add only about 200 cals for the 40 grams of extra protein. A win, no matter what.

Just an aside, I know ballet dancers who regularly eat about 1000 calories a day. Women with small bones, very little muscle and extremely low body fat. A lot of discipline, or disordered eating, depending on how you want to look at that. Once people start eating a bit more, the healthy metabolism will chase intake. We’ve all see figure competitors complain that their very low contest prep diets “damaged their metabolism”. A lot of those people also did extreme cardio while prepping, then didn’t reverse diet their way back out of the deficit in a smart way. Gaining a lot of weight in that situation, no surprise.
[/quote]

I don’t feel like it’s necessary for me to say this, but I agreed with everything you said in your original post, with the exception of the last paragraph.

You seem to have been exposed to anecdotal evidence of ‘Metabolic Damage’ more in-depth than I have. I wasn’t even aware it was a “thing” to claim ‘Metabolic Damage’.

Even if the subject does not have ‘Metabolic Damage’ or does have ‘super mega duper uber good functioning metaboss’, the fact remains(we seem to agree on this) that the way to “fix whatever-you-wanna-call-it” is to SLOWLY increase her calories to a maintenance level, and eventually, into a surplus that will allow her to PROPERLY build muscle and lose body-fat.

anon71262119 · January 24, 2014, 10:15pm