Thread: Female Cutting Diet

Originally Posted by Mattywatson

Hello

i need your opinions with something and some help on sorting out calories and macro nutrients, the situation is my girlfriend is 16 and she wants to start a cutting diet, she ways 138lbs, and is about 5ft 5 she wants to loose 2 stone and be around 8stone she has set a time of say 3 month, i tried to help her write a cutting diet but it seems there is no where near as much information on forums for female dieting as there is males, anyway i wrote her a guideline for cutting but i my self no its incorrect i need help fixing it, most sites say a 16 year old needs 1800 calories since she does cardio 7 times a week, but when i bulk her calories up her protein goes to high for a female like 200+g anyway this is her diet, please help before her metabolism messes up

Please i need help

Meal 1 - Before school
27g quaker Oats (water), 3 Scrambled Eggs, 200ml juice

Meal 2 - Dinner
62g long grain rice, 100g chicken, apple

Meal 3 - 4 O Clock
Turkey 150g, 250g Veg (broccoli, cauliflower, carrot)

7pm cardio

after gym
Protein Shake

Meal 4 - 8:00 - 8:30 ( After Gym)
1 tin of tuna (brine) , 250g Veg (broccoli, cauliflower, carrot)

Meal 5 - Before bed 10-11
1 tin of tuna ( sunflower oil), 100g turkey


Calories ( 1518 )
protein (189 )
carbohydrates ( 113 )
fats (33)
fibre ( 25 )


can somebody please, just quickly write me up a diet or tell me what macro nutrients i have to aim for she burns something like 400-500 calories every day, and she does a few weights 3 times a week

Looks like she functions well on lower carbs.
I'd start with cutting out the apple (sugar)
and cut back on the oats, rice, & carrots.

Originally Posted by Powermaster

Looks like she functions well on lower carbs.
I'd start with cutting out the apple (sugar)
and cut back on the oats, rice, & carrots.

I don't necessarily know if she works on low carbohydrates this was my first shot at writing her a diet, anyhow I've been researching a bit and been looking at how to work out macro nutrients and BMI etc in more detail and I've made some changes to this,


Meal 1 - Before school
1 Oats(water), 3 Scrambled Eggs

Meal 2 - Dinner
72g brown rice, 100g turkey

Meal 3 - 4 O Clock
72 brown rice, Turkey 150g, 150g Broccoli

After Gym
Protein Shake

Meal 4 - ( After Gym)
1 tin of tuna ( sunflower oil ), 150g Broccoli, spoon of peanut butter

Meal 5 - Before bed 10-11
1 tin of tuna ( sunflower oil ), turkey 100g, 8 Almonds


1702 Calories
212 protein
110 carbohydrates
56 fats
25 fibre

Hmm, I was gonna say from the first diet - you're still talking about a 16 year old girl. She's still in her youth & her body should be leveraging carbs. I agree that an apple isn't the best carb source I was going to suggest switching the apples to berries - again going in the direction of a young girl who should be getting a varied diet. I was also going to suggest moving the mid-day carb meal to the one before training so there were some carbs to be used. I would either add more carbs to the mid-day meal or add more fats (I tend to split my meals into protein / fat and protein / carb).

I also like more fats in the last meal - its the last meal of the day and fats help slow down metabolism of that meal so you're going a shorter time (overnight) w/o food in your system.

Another dimension you can explore is upping carbs a little more on lifting days and dropping them a little more on the cardio-only days. I don't think she needs to go "low carb" - that will produce lethargy, and IMO its critical for kids to have the energy they need to get thru a day of school. There's just no reason for someone that age to go on a strict & limiting diet.

Originally Posted by sassy69

Hmm, I was gonna say from the first diet - you're still talking about a 16 year old girl. She's still in her youth & her body should be leveraging carbs. I agree that an apple isn't the best carb source I was going to suggest switching the apples to berries - again going in the direction of a young girl who should be getting a varied diet. I was also going to suggest moving the mid-day carb meal to the one before training so there were some carbs to be used. I would either add more carbs to the mid-day meal or add more fats (I tend to split my meals into protein / fat and protein / carb).

I also like more fats in the last meal - its the last meal of the day and fats help slow down metabolism of that meal so you're going a shorter time (overnight) w/o food in your system.

Another dimension you can explore is upping carbs a little more on lifting days and dropping them a little more on the cardio-only days. I don't think she needs to go "low carb" - that will produce lethargy, and IMO its critical for kids to have the energy they need to get thru a day of school. There's just no reason for someone that age to go on a strict & limiting diet.

thank you for the information and I was wondering if her carb being at the level they are it might cause some problem and make her body maybe not function the way a 16year old girl should, but its not as if she is going to be starving or on this diet for a extended period of time maybe 3 month at the longest as she only wants to drop 2 stone i darsent add to much more food or carbs because she only has a very small frame shes just struggling with a little weight on her legs, and a big toning else where, if i add to many more carbs she would kill me she already spends the whole day stuffed with the food she eats however, i have changed the two meals with brown rice in up to 100g

on cardio days, i dare not move the mid day meal any closer to training cause then it might end up where she burning off the carbs she ate, instead of tapping into fat stores, the normal routine is she eats about 4 - 4:30 ( since brown rice takes ages to cook haha) and then we do cardio at 6 (i recently moved it forward),

however what you said about upping carbs on lifting days say have a few more carbs befores we go over and train she trains back, shoulders and chest, on monday, wednesday and friday, i will add some more carbs to the meal before we do this, and then after the weight her glycogen stores will be lower so when she does cardio shes tapping into fat stores, however i dont know what carbs to add, i was thinking of changing brown rice to white basmati? as it has double the carbs and calories ?

If she has carbs to burn going into the gym to lift, that is going to fuel muscle building. By the time she's burned thru the readily available carbs from training, you then go into the burning fat stores w/ cardio. This is the same concept as early AM empty-stomach cardio - no readily available carbs to fuel the cardio so you go to the next available source. The point here is to put the carbs where they will be used - i.e. for lifting. Keep in mind that add muscle mass is another way of reducing bodyfat, and increasing the muscle mass component of the bodyfat ratio (muscle mass : bodyfat) will improve overall metabolic efficiency. Its not all about "losing fat".

Another comment I wanted to make was, I get the whole "I wanna lose this much weight" - but remember that its really more like you want to drop bodyfat and change your body composition. I.e. the scale isn't the most complete and appropriate way to measure things. Also pay attention to how her clothes fit over time. The scale isn't always going to move the way you want it to, but if it doesn't move, it doens't necessarily mean you're not making progress. Especially for women, and even more so for girls in adolescent stages of life, estrogen is a big contributor to water content - I've seen my weight shift up typically 3-5 lb over the course of a day sometimes. Again, another reason to not get to excited over what the scale says. In fact, I often relate one particular experience I had in 2005 when I started my contest cut from off-to-on-season. Over a 4-5 week period I dropped only 2 lb by the scale, but I actually lost 8% bodyfat. If I judged progress only by the scale, i would've already given up, but the body composition change was very apparent.

^^She seems to have said it all! Well done... Reps! And also remember that she is 16...Don't make the diet to strict at that age as nutrition is important but its more important for her to HAVE food than to AVOID it. Her body needs cals. ;-)

Originally Posted by sassy69

If she has carbs to burn going into the gym to lift, that is going to fuel muscle building. By the time she's burned thru the readily available carbs from training, you then go into the burning fat stores w/ cardio. This is the same concept as early AM empty-stomach cardio - no readily available carbs to fuel the cardio so you go to the next available source. The point here is to put the carbs where they will be used - i.e. for lifting. Keep in mind that add muscle mass is another way of reducing bodyfat, and increasing the muscle mass component of the bodyfat ratio (muscle mass : bodyfat) will improve overall metabolic efficiency. Its not all about "losing fat".

Another comment I wanted to make was, I get the whole "I wanna lose this much weight" - but remember that its really more like you want to drop bodyfat and change your body composition. I.e. the scale isn't the most complete and appropriate way to measure things. Also pay attention to how her clothes fit over time. The scale isn't always going to move the way you want it to, but if it doesn't move, it doens't necessarily mean you're not making progress. Especially for women, and even more so for girls in adolescent stages of life, estrogen is a big contributor to water content - I've seen my weight shift up typically 3-5 lb over the course of a day sometimes. Again, another reason to not get to excited over what the scale says. In fact, I often relate one particular experience I had in 2005 when I started my contest cut from off-to-on-season. Over a 4-5 week period I dropped only 2 lb by the scale, but I actually lost 8% bodyfat. If I judged progress only by the scale, i would've already given up, but the body composition change was very apparent.

okay then so i will up her carbs to say 150g a day on lifting days, would you say thats enough she only does weight 3 times a week and well she has lost 2 lbs in the scale, but we have noticed that she has lost some fat but we havent had a fat percentage check recently as for her clothes not sure ill ask her today,

holy shit, one meal for me is 1500 cals. Feeling bad for you

Originally Posted by Mattywatson

okay then so i will up her carbs to say 150g a day on lifting days, would you say thats enough she only does weight 3 times a week and well she has lost 2 lbs in the scale, but we have noticed that she has lost some fat but we havent had a fat percentage check recently as for her clothes not sure ill ask her today,

My own carb rotations are 3-4 day cycles so I only get a refeed 1-2 x/week. So 3x/week is fine.

Also, as I mentioned, its fine to look at the scale regularly - but don't get hung up on discrete numbers- look at the trend over time, but also factor in days of higher carbs, etc. and keep in mind also her energy levels, quality of sleep and generally how clothes are fitting, again the trend and not discrete changes so much.

She seems to have said it all! Well done... Reps!