I know there are alot of posts from people wanting to achieve the perfect body. Especially overnight without much effort. THAT is not the case here. I have been lifing/working out for the past two years. I have made some progress. I had to learn the hard way that DIET is key. You can kill yourself in the gym but if the diet is not good you are doing it for nothing. That was my first year.
I started at 210. Who knows what my body fat was. I am now 170lbs with 32% body fat. I am 5’4. I have an hourglass shape or somewhat pearish. I have a small waist. Good shoulders. BAD BAD BAD hips butt and thighs. I so need help in this department. I tend to be strong. I can go heavy easy. Which I know is not what I am suppose to do. I change my workouts every three months. I do alot of Cardio 45min as a minimum and shoot for 60min 5 days a week. I have recently been told this is too much Cardio. This is the first time I have ever herd of this.
A trainer at my gym has been kind enough to give me some tips. Most trainers do give me advise as they see me in there everyday working SOOOO hard.
I want to have a figure like body. Actually I don’t care if I am larger so long as I am muscular. I have alot of muscle I can feel it UNDER my fat. I am just struggling to get my fat off. I want to do what is most effective. I am tired of woking for nothing. I am 40. I workout 5 days a week. I recently changed my workout and have split my body parts as most body builders do. I was doing upper body lower body.
I am doing giant sets with 15-20 reps with weight that is difficult to do that many reps of. I keep moving. My leg workout is two different workouts that I alternate. I just dropped the cardio alittle as I was getting burned out. I do 30 minutes on leg days (all my cardio is fairly high intensity) and 45 min on other days.
I could post pics…it would not be pretty. My legs are awful and are a big problem. I have always been overweight. I have never worn shorts in my life. I am very motivated and dedicated. I am strong willed. Any help/advise anyone has I am open to hear.
I read so many different articles that make picking the rite thing difficult. I know you have to do what works for you. I have to admit the last 25lbs came off with low cals. lots of cardio with weights and a diet pill for 30days. I was despirate and needed a kick start. I am off that. I am eating every 3 hours. Good carbs. Lots of protein. Lots of water. With cals. of 1200-1500.
Thank you
I had a gastric bypass 3 yrs ago and went from 269 to about 142 today. I am 5’4" and 42 yrs old. I have been doing ALOT of cardio from day 1–I do about 1hr-1 1/4 hr a day 5 days a week and have been lifting consistently for 2yrs as well. By calipers in the gym they tell me I’m 16-17% bodyfat-hard for me to believe but I am very cut on my upper body–much more cut than most of the men in my gym actually, lower body not so much (but with all the loose skin it’s really hard to tell).
I would tell you not to decrease your cardio. I have found it really necessary to lose the fat. I would tell you you’re not eating enough to sustain the cardio and the lifting and you’re body may be in starvation mode bec of it keeping you from losing any more fat. I eat minimally 2500 calories/day (pretty clean-no sugar, limited white flour) and believe it or not I lift after cardio and this has worked for me.
I think you should slowly increase your calories over a period of weeks so you don’t gain and then reevaluate. Try to eat mostly protein, helathy fats and fruits and vegs. Healthy carbs early in the day and postworkout.
Best of luck.
Wow thank you for the advise. I would be very worried to eat 2500cals a day. I know I would blow up. But I have been trying to stay 1500-1800 more lately. I was also doing my cardio before my weight workout ant my workouts were 2-21/2 hours long. I was buring 1200-1600 cals each workout according to my heart rate monitor.
Then I added a MWF spartan class at my gym that was very cardio and weight oriented. this was in the eves in addition to my am workouts. But after 3 months I started to have over traings symptoms. Crying while you workout is not good. (I am not a cryer) Anyhow. It was highly suggested that I drop my cardio down and do it AFTER my weights which I hate back started last week.
Thank you for your post
Welcome to The Nation and CONGRATULATIONS on your weight loss!!
Luckily here on T-Nation you will not find many posts from ladies wanting the “perfect” body overnight because we all know you have to work your ass off for perfection & earn it.
I’m still in the middle of my physique transformation so I hate to give anyone advice.
I will however give you tons of encouragement, especially when it comes to lifting heavy and lowering the reps. This was the hardest thing for me to do recently. It went against everything in me. But I’ve embrassed it and am now loving it!
Read as many training articles as you can and don’t be afraid to discuss them in the forums if you have questions.
The folks on T-Nation are hardcore & you will gain tons of knowledge by reading & interacting with them.
I wish you the best of luck in reaching your goals!! Sounds as if you are defenitely on the right road!!
BBB, thanx so much for the encouragement. I WISH I was at the lift heavy low rep stage. I love to lift heavy. Good Luck to you also…it is a looooong process. But well worth it in the end.
On my way home now.
Again thank you!
I started at 210 lbs. also, many years ago. I am 38 and have been down to 140-145 for 8 years. I got there with cardio 5 days a week, and eating less. Over the years lifting, light or heavy, definitely gave my upper body a sculpted appearance but my legs still look terrible.
What do you eat? Tell me what type of cardio you do. I like to include some high impact to contribute to bone density, that’s important for us at our age, do you agree?
Good luck to you- I am impressed by your resolve!
Thank you aeromom,
Good job on staying at the 140’s.
I just got alot more serious about my diet. I was just eating very little…only good foo but very little.
I now have much more protein…shake (with h20) chicken, tuna, fish, very little starch carbs…moslty brown rice 1/2 cup 2-3x/week. Lots of veggies. trying to get 6 meals in a day. Uped my calories so as not to starve myself anymore. I lift seriously and do very intense cardio.
I never do more than 20 minutes on one machine. I always change it up. Walk fast…then on deep incline…jog…sprint…My favorites are the treadmill as I described. The Precor. We have jacobs ladder which is a rotating ladder with varying speeds (hard) stairs (rotating) and spinning. My weight workout is with constant movement and little rest.
Thanx for your input
Eating more protein rich foods as a way to up your calories isn’s a bad thing. It takes energy (burning calories) to break it down. And keep the healthy fats up. You won’t gain fat by eating healthy fats (fish oil, walnuts). Stop all processed sugar consumption as well as processed (foods in general) flour products. By eating more good stuff, your body won’t think it’s hibernating. It’ll help burn more calories.
A fat burner is NOT a bad idea.
Get your carbs from milk… or veggies (which don’t count towards your carb total - again, as it takes more energy from your body to break them down). Rice and oatmeal are good sources too. Look into the “Cheat to Lose” diet, as it uses carb cycling most effectively.
Keep the cardio up there… 30-45 minutes using steady state and high intensity regimens.
That 15-20 rep scheme you use is great for hypertrophy (growing large muscles). The low rep (3-5 reps), heavy weight is great for strength, which doesn’t necessarily mean bigger muscles. If you switch back and forth between these two schemes, you’ll allow your body some recovery time, and you’ll be less burned out.
Keep plugging along. Persistency pays off.
Use the search function to look up anything that I didn’t make clear.
Good luck! You’ll never regret all the hard work and hard times, I promise.
Kroby,
thank you. That was good info. I appreciate all that information and the push at the end. I’m getting there. I am glad to hear I am doing something right. I was thinking about doing the anabolic diet. It has cycles of carbs. I have been researching it alot today.
Thanx again
Please make sure your heart is in good shape to use a fat burner. They can raise your blood pressure really bad. You may want to start taking them in the morning and slowly work your way up to the recommended dosage.
MsAttitude,
Thank you for the warning. I have been taking them already for a long time. I am a nurse also.
But thank you that would be good info for a beginner not everyone knows that.
Okey doke, I’m going to unload a ton of info on you and a ton of links to check out. Sounds fun, right?
First off, awesome job! You’ve already lost a lot of weight and have the benefit of having cultivated determination and strong will power. These next few pounds will be easy to lose once you get on the right track.
[quote]I can go heavy easy. Which I know is not what I am suppose to do. [/quote] Nothing wrong with lifting heavy! This is a long article but I think it’s well worth reading. You may find it confusing but I don’t want to treat you like a total newb and hold back the good stuff. So brew up some coffee and take the time to absorb this info: http://www.T-Nation.com/readTopic.do?id=1474118
Changing up your workouts is good, as long as you understand what you are changing and how it affects your goals. 45-60 minutes a day is too much, but for a different reason than you are thinking. If you do long sessions of steady state cardio, your body becomes very efficient at that form of cardio. Over time it learns to burn less and less calories. Your results therefore, will slow down significantly if you keep using the same methods. This is why it is important to cycle your cardio and do intervals (alternated high and low intensity), some steady state, and some moderate. Keep your body guessing.
Body part splits are good because they allow you to work each body part with more intensity. However, if the intensity is lacking then you aren’t going to get good results when you are hitting that muscle group only once or twice a week.
[quote]I am doing giant sets with 15-20 reps with weight that is difficult to do that many reps of.[/quote] Your reps are far too high. You are building endurance and efficiency by working them in this scheme. What you really want to do is build more calorie-hungry muscle tissue. Don’t let your reps get above 8-12 if you want to achieve better fat loss.
Like some other people have said, your calories are too low. You need to at least cycle your carbs or cycle your calories (higher on weight days, lower on off days) to keep your metabolism humming along. If you keep the calories and carbs too low, you will send your body into starvation mode and it will refuse to let go of the fat. You mentioned the Anabolic Diet. It is outlined pretty well in this article but if you need clarification please ask: COMMUNITY - T NATION - The World's Trusted Community for Elite Fitness
I think one of the most important aspects of the anabolic diet is the percentage of healthy fat intake. Fat is not your enemy, it is your friend! Fat intake = fat loss. Even if you are eating lean proteins and healthy veggies, your fat loss won’t be as effective if you don’t get a good mix of monounsaturated and polyunsaturated (found in nuts, avocado, olive oil) and saturated (found in meat) fats.
As a review, Alwyn Cosgrove says that:
For fat loss we need to observe the following as our primary goal:
-Burn as many calories as possible through resting metabolic rate. Lean muscle is metabolically active, so building muscle or at least maintaining it is extremely important.
-Burn more calories through increased meal frequency (digestion burns calories).
-Burn more calories through macronutrient manipulation. The thermic effect of protein is twice as high as the thermic effect of fat or carbohydrate �?? and it adds up.
-Burn calories through metabolic disturbance (increased activity levels and EPOC, or Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption)
-Create a deficit between the metabolism (calories burned) and intake (calories consumed). This deficit can only be closed by “borrowing” from the body’s energy stores �?? i.e. your body fat.
I can vividly remember doing a photo shoot at our gym with a male client who’d lost 85 pounds of fat and now had a six-pack to show for his efforts. My own gym members came up and asked me what his “secret” was. There is no secret! They seemed to think I’d given him the “real” information and had withheld it from them! He’s been given the same advice as I give to everyone else - he just chose to follow it a little more closely. Fat loss isn’t under the control of the magic fat loss fairies. It’s based on simple changes in behavior.[/i]
With that said, here is a Cosgrove program that I know works. It is intimidating, I can’t deny that. He doesn’t hold your hand or promise that no one will laugh at you. But it works and it works well.
Sic,
Sorry, I hadn’t checked this post recently.
I think I love you!
Thank you for the detailed info and links.
I have started the anabolic diet. I am on day 5. I will see what the does for me. Taking in 1800-2200 cals. at this time.
Dropped the cardio down a notch. Incorporated some HIT.
THE ONLY thing I am not sure about that you said was dropping the reps down. This is what most figure people do so I am told by a trainer in my gym who has so nicley given me some advise. NO ONE has ever said doing less for me is ok. Because I have a, my muscles want to get big body, not a long lean body. I am told the rep range 15 is good…the weight is heavy still…hard to do.
The last link you gave did not work. I will look for it. LOVE challenges, I am not a hold my hand kinda girl.
Hey Pink,
Great determination and with the tools Sic provided and all the other info on this site, if you work it, you will succeed.
Just a note about the reps: Stick to 8-12. If it’s hard at 15, make it harder for 12.
I did a Waterbury program in the early fall which calls for his 3x10 and reversed 10x3 rep range with progression. I did the program for 5 weeks and made very good gains in muscle and strength. At the end of that program, I switched up to olympic lifts. The training my coach gave me was a 20-15-12-8 reps range! The reason was to build endurance, which I needed for the o-lifts. I have gained endurance, for sure, but not much muscle mass. However, endurance and strength are my goals at the moment.
You will not get big lifting heavy in an 8-12 rep range. You will build muscle and in turn burn more fat. Females just don’t build the way guys do.
How figure competitors work is not what you should be following right now if your goal is fat loss. In the future, you might go this route if that is one of your goals.
Try it for 6-8 weeks, you will be happy with the results!
db
If you search for “Real Fast Fat Loss” you will find the Cosgrove program I mentioned. Again, like I said it’s not for the faint of heart but it works really damn well.
[quote]pink7465 wrote:
THE ONLY thing I am not sure about that you said was dropping the reps down. This is what most figure people do so I am told by a trainer in my gym who has so nicley given me some advise. NO ONE has ever said doing less for me is ok. Because I have a, my muscles want to get big body, not a long lean body. I am told the rep range 15 is good…the weight is heavy still…hard to do.
[/quote]
It sounds like you are saying that you are afraid to get “big” or “bulky.” The problem is that you are stagnating with your fat loss. You aren’t progressing. That means that you need to try something new. Change your reps up for a month and see what happens. I promise you that you will not get bulky in one month. Your goal is to lose fat, not to stay at 170 while doing aerobic weight lifting. You need to build more muscle tissue to do this… not just make the current tissue more efficient.
Dina and Sic,
Thank you again.
Here is my question…just a question. I JUST started my new routine. But before I was still doing the high reps.
My understanding (and this is what my husband says) to build muscle you just have to break muscle fibers down so they can rebuild. So it should not matter if you do that with 12 reps or 15 reps. He actually thinks the higher reps breaks muscle down more. I ask as I just want to gain more knowledge not be challenging, I appreciate the help.
I am not afraid of getting bulky…I am fat now so who cares if the fat is replaced by muscle.
I do giant sets of 4-5 different exercises is this ok? I hope so I just started this routine.
Thank you