Thread: new girl needing advice

Hello & welcome to IMF!

First off, by your stats I dont' think your bodyfat is really that bad - for your height & current weight. So just to keep things in perspective Also each of us have our own unique bodyfat distribution based on genetics as well as hormones. Estrogen is what lets us women have a higher concentration of fat cells usually anywhere from the mid-section down to the thighs (intended to be a survival trait to help protect a fetus). To that end, when you diet / train to drop bodyfat, you lose it proportionally across your body. This can be frustrating because where you usually want to lose it the most, is going to be the "slowest" to show the change - e.g. if you lose 2% bodyfat, you may notice it more in your upper body where women tend to hold fewer fat cells, so 2% of a smaller amount will be more dramatic than 2% of a larger amount. Since you can't "spot reduce" or "pick" where you want to drop fat, you really just need to be patient and continue what you are doing w/ your diet / training.

In terms of "fat burners" & ephedrin / ECA, here's some info below. Definitely feel free to throw in an OTC fat burner or make your own ECA stack, but I would suggest you post up your current diet as well - DIET is always your primary force that determines what your body responds to. Fat burners can do a small bump in 'burn' efficiency & IMO more than anything, give you a kick in the pants when you hit the gym or go to do cardio in the morning, but its not going to do the heavy lifting that your diet should be doing. I.e. if your diet is not optimized, then just adding ECA or some fat burner is not going to "fix" it. If you've been getting slow results for 6 months of effort, my first guess would be that your diet isn't optimized, and where you are now is the direct result of the way you currently eat plus the training & cardio. So it may be that the training & cardio is being hindered instead of helped by your diet. If you can post up your meal plan & portions, I bet we can find some simple tweaks to make things work a little better, e.g.

Meal 1 (8 am)
1 whole egg + 3 egg whites
1 c oatmeal
1 c coffee

Meal 2 (11 am)
2 pieces of whole wheat bread
4 oz chicken

etc.

It is also useful if you can put your meal plan into a food counts program like www.fitday.com to get an accurate accounting of your total calories, and macro nutrient breakdown (% & grams of Protein, Fats, Carbs). There's no "right" or "wrong", but rather just putting accurate numbers on what you're eating right now.

OTC Fat Burners

There are lots of ‘fat burners’ out there. Depending on how recently you’ve done a walk through a GNC, you may be more or less familiar with the different brands. It’s been a long time since I walked through a GNC so I am not up on the latest. You may need to experiment with different products to see which works best with your own body chemistry, and also keeping in mind things like can you take it on an empty stomach (e.g. if you’re thinking AM fasted cardio). Generally IMO it’s more important to find the one that allows you to function during your day and sleep at night, as opposed to worrying about getting tweaked out enough to “lose weight”.


Ephedrine

If you want to go back to basics, you can build your own ECA stack with individual components like NoDoze (classic college-finals week caffeine supplement), Ephedrine and aspirin (cheap off-brand is fine if you want to keep things cost-efficient).


Ephedrine Profile

Here are a couple articles on use of Ephedrine:

· “Efficacy and Safety of Ephedra and Ephedrine for Weight Loss and Athletic Performance”
· Efficacy of herbal ephedra-containing dietary supplements and ephedrine on weightloss
· Ephedra Side-effects
· Difference between Ephedra and Ephedrine (re: when Ephendrine was banned in the US)

To build your own stack:

· E/C: 1:10 ratio of ephedrine to caffeine. Typical is 25 mg ephedrine + 200-250 mg caffeine

· E/C/A: 1:10:10 – 1:10:15 ratios. Adding in aspirin thins your blood a little to extend the effect of the E/C. Recommendations for aspirin range from a baby aspirin (80 mg) to a regular aspirin (325 mg)

Another variation is ephedrine / caffeine / yohimbine HCl (ECY). Yohimbine is great as an appetite suppressant, but too much of it can leave you feeling sick to your stomach.
· E/C/Y: 25 mg ephedrine + 200-250 mg caffeine + 5 mg yohimbine..

You can take any of these combinations at 2-3 times / day, but it is generally recommended to not take anything after 3 pm, or determine how late into the day the last dose affects you, and make that the latest time of your last dose so you can sleep. Anything that affects your sleep will reduce your quality recovery time and begin to negate any progress you make from the compound you’re taking.

First off I'd say stickies.

Next, give us a rundown of foods eaten on a daily basis. (Looking for the easy fixes, sugar elimination, processed carbs, etc.)

Also, CUT the cardio DOWN. Its not the total answer.

1babyjo, describe your current training in detail, please. Break it down by the day and include the lifts you do, sets, reps, weight used, and the amount and type of cardio you do.

What do you see as your goal weight?

1babyjo, you have 2 top notch diet experts helping you. Built and Sassy69 are the real deal!!!! If you want results they will work feverishly to get you going, if you get them the information they need. That is my diet advice for you.

Originally Posted by Built

1babyjo, describe your current training in detail, please. Break it down by the day and include the lifts you do, sets, reps, weight used, and the amount and type of cardio you do.

What do you see as your goal weight?

im looking for a goal weight of 105.

currently i do no weight training at all. but i do all cardio in the AM after breakfast. i usually jog for like 15 minutes and walk for 25 minutes. (doing a interval training)

my diet looks like this:

meal 1)
3 servings of egg whites, 1 slice of cheese, 1/2 cup oatmeal

meal 2)
ON protein

meal 3)
1C brown rice, 2C broccoli, 6oz grilled pork chop

meal 4)
ON protein

meal 5)
5oz Tilapia, 2C green beans

macros:
Calories--1300
Fat--23
Carbs--106
Protein--142

When are you hungriest, and when are you not as hungry? If you had to skip one meal, would it be breakfast or your last meal of the day?

You've been at this with cardio for some time now. You might have figured it won't work, so you might as well drink the Kool aid and ditch your current approach.

Are you lifting at all? Have you lifted in the past - and if so, do you know how to do a proper, below-parallel squat? How about deadlifts (conventional or Romanian)?

Originally Posted by Built

When are you hungriest, and when are you not as hungry? If you had to skip one meal, would it be breakfast or your last meal of the day?

You've been at this with cardio for some time now. You might have figured it won't work, so you might as well drink the Kool-aid and ditch your current approach.

Are you lifting at all? Have you lifted in the past - and if so, do you know how to do a proper, below-parallel squat? How about dead-lifts (conventional or Romanian)?

why would she want to skip a meal, ecspecially breakfast?

Originally Posted by Built

When are you hungriest, and when are you not as hungry? If you had to skip one meal, would it be breakfast or your last meal of the day?

You've been at this with cardio for some time now. You might have figured it won't work, so you might as well drink the Kool aid and ditch your current approach.

Are you lifting at all? Have you lifted in the past - and if so, do you know how to do a proper, below-parallel squat? How about deadlifts (conventional or Romanian)?

i could skip any meal really. i don't get cravings or anything to eat, i just eat often to keep my body and metabolism working.

i am not lifting at all. and i have never lifted religiously. but i would be willing to get a PT for a short amount of time to guide me and coach me in proper form and what not.

what do you have on your mine?

ps. thanks for the help!

Got to weight train....

Originally Posted by 1babyjo

i could skip any meal really. i don't get cravings or anything to eat, i just eat often to keep my body and metabolism working.

There is no metabolic advantage to eating more frequently. It does NOT burn more calories or speed up your metabolism. This myth was formally debunked in 1997 - but you'd be amazed how few trainers or dietitians know this.

Try consolidating your five meals into three larger meals (and perhaps one substantial snack) - emphasizing protein as you have - and also a bit more fat. Your fats are LOW. If we assume you're carrying at most 90 lbs of lean mass, your protein should be in the 90-140g range, and fats should be at least 45g. Protein helps kill hunger, so you're quite wise to keep it high. Try to creep up the fats a bit, though. Your skin and endocrine system will thank you. You can pay for the extra fat with a bit of your carb. Toss in some fish oil - I take 10g daily but I'm bigger than you. For you, I'd aim for at least 6 or 7 g daily. Trickle it in with your meals.

You could look at something like carb cycling once you start lifting. With this, you eat higher cals and carbs on the lifting days, and lower carbs (and possibly a bit higher fats) on non-lifting/cardio-only days.

Originally Posted by 1babyjo

i am not lifting at all. and i have never lifted religiously. but i would be willing to get a PT for a short amount of time to guide me and coach me in proper form and what not.

what do you have on your mine?

ps. thanks for the help!

babyjo, take a look at homework 1 in my sig for the workout I'd suggest starting with. You don't need a trainer. I never used one, and I only started lifting when I was 38 years old, and fat. You can take little vids of your lifts and post up the youtubes here if you want feedback on your lifting. Sad to say it, but very few personal trainers will lead you down the right path. I'm not selling you anything so I have no reason to lie to you about what to do, remember that.

I'd say that that body is just begging for some kick ass real work with weights. You'd be surprised. And yes, you have good advice so far. If you could learn how to squat properly(no you don't have to put weight on your back), you'd be half way there.

Yeap squats helped me ALOT! Also high intensity cardio after a good workout really seemed to help me burn fat off my midsection.

Stay with it results are not going to be right away but with time you will notice a huge difference

Originally Posted by ldyzluvdis06

why would she want to skip a meal, especially breakfast?

Sorry - I just noticed this question.

I should clarify - really, whenever you begin eating for the day is "break-FAST"; what I should have said is to postpone it.

The longer you can hold off, the longer you extend the fast and there are many advantages to doing so.

For one, many people find eating breakfast sets them up for rebound hunger within a few hours (this can and is hugely influenced by meal composition, more on this later), whereas postponing this first meal until later - perhaps combining it with what would have been "meal 2" under the typical "6 meals a day" bodybuilder paradigm - means they feel fuller, and experience shorter and more tolerable periods of hunger than they do when they eat tiny meals more frequently.

This seems to be a particular issue for women, whose calories must often be so low that "6 meals a day" translates to "six 200-calorie micro-snacks" - none of which do much to satisfy hunger. There appears to be a threshold for meal size - eat lower than this threshold, and you fly under the radar of feeling "fed".

Extending the fast has positive implications for insulin sensitivity, glycemic control and other metrics of health.

Finally, some folks can blow off that first meal, but they simply CANNOT go to sleep hungry. If this is you, shift your eating so that you always get a meal before bedtime. This is what I do - in fact, I do it with carbs. I only eat starchy or sugary carbs in the last meal before bedtime. I postpone eating until about 3 or 4 hours after I wake, and only eat protein, fat, and fibrous veggies in the daytime.

I find this strategy particularly helpful while dieting, since it's better at helping me control appetite - but that's me. Some folks feel more satisfied eating early, and not eating after, say, 8PM. It doesn't matter, really - it all comes down to calories in, calories out. You just have to be able to stick to it, so find a way that doesn't make you crazy.

Does this help, ldyzluvdis06?

awesome! appreciate the time you took to explain that! helps a lot. when you say it all depends on calories in and out. what should a person be looking to burn as far as calories to result in weight loss? the OP as an example, has a caloric intake of 1400 calories. what should her goal be as far as "net calories" (calories in minus calories burned) to result in weight loss?

Instead of worrying about the "calories burned" part, how about this: figure out what maintenance is. Then reduce your calories by no more than about 20%.

Most non-obese, reasonably-active people maintain on about 15 times their bodyweight in pounds. To diet, about 20% less than this works out to 12 times bodyweight, which is what is often cited in bodybuilding lore.

In my case, I weighed 144.4 lbs this AM and interestingly, my maintenance is just about 15 times my weight - I maintain on about 2200 calories a day.

Now I'm fairly lean (under 20% is athletic-lean for a woman), lift weights 4 times a week most weeks, and go to the diving tank a couple times a week where I suck at swan-dives and flips. In other words, I'm reasonably active and non-obese, so the "rule of thumb" fits me well. A 20% reduction works out to 1760 calories a day - roughly 12 times by bodyweight. At this intake, I could expect to lose just under a pound a week.

Fatter and/or less active folks will maintain on less than 15 times their weight, so if you really want to know, you track your calories and your weight on something like fitday, and figure it out by observation.

A "quick and dirty" approach could be to set calories at 15 times your goal weight and see where that brings you. Losses may happen more slowly than you'd like, but you'll get used to eating at what will eventually become your maintenance, so it has the advantage of helping you maintain the loss.

If you are really eating like you say your diet is not the problem. You have a high protein diet but no weight workout's. Get a trainer to show you how to workout with weights. 40 minutes high intensity weight workout's then cardio for 20 minutes. Do that 4-5 day's a week.

Your diet is great. Drink lot's of water too. And if you want to burn fat this is how you do it. You got to get your heart rate up. It's got to be 60-70% of your max. Just figure out your max and then do 60-70% for 40 minutes 4-5 day's a week. Doing it with weights is a lot better than jogging. You increase muscle and burn the fat.