here you go. i cut and pasted brickgirl's response to diet and cardio questions:
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....about 3 months later I was weighing in at 151.2lbs, I was a big girl for only being 5"3. But I had then acquired the muscle I needed. Then came the cutting down while mainting the muscle. The protein comes down to about 190grams and the carbs and fat are in check, everything is measured to the T and there are no cheat days and every day is the same, that is the way I like it. Water offseason is about a gallon a day, when getting ready for a show, goes up to about 2 gallons a day. So I started peeing like a race horse and lost 10 lbs that first week, just water weight.
Well, on my base diet I take in 29 grams of fat, and that stays consistent the whole diet. I take in about 90 grams of carbs through the whole diet and when I get closer to the show, if I need to drop some more I will go to 1/2 carbs for 2-4 days and see if that gets me there, if for some reason, I messed up somewhere, I would go to 1/4 carbs for 2-4 days. whenever I go to 1/2 carbs and then go back to base carbs, my abs shine out, just like in my avatar, that was a day after a carb
deplete cycle.
Here is what my diet looked like when I was dieting down. Same food every day, no cheat days, plenty of ruffage at the beginning and have to get that water up real high. Miss a day of that water and you screw up your diet.
7:00am
1/2 cup Dry Oatmeal
1 Protein Shake
10:00am
1 chicken breast
1/2 potato
1:00pm
1 chicken breast
1/2 cup Dry Oatmeal
4:00pm
5oz Sirloin
1/2 potato
7:00pm
1/2 cup rice
1 Protein Shake
9:00pm
1 Protein Shake
Now remember, this is what works for me, I would seriously doubt someone be able to take the exact same diet and get the exact same results, too many variables.
to me, cardio only works when you are already lean, when I see people in double digits doing cardio, I just shake my head, because I think, sure, it will work for 6 weeks or so, and get you down to a certain level, but then your body will get used to it and you will have to jump it up into stupid levels and then when you want to get leaner, what are you gonna do? You have used up your ammo already, unless you are single digits, I would stop the cardio all together, and wait until your diet works and cutting carbs and whatnot. Cardio sucks for losing weight unless you are already lean, then it's great to get you to the next level, but if you are bigger and start doing cardio, it works for a short while, then you are stuck and have to resort to some other means, you should easily be able to get single digits with just diet, it controls everything
and whenever you do decide to lean down, please keep that protein high, I have seen chicks in the gym have awesome looking bodies and lean down and look like shit because they starve themselves, I mean, when I start leaning down, the carbs are cut and then cut again and then cut again, but the protein is never cut, preserve that muscle, don't let it burn away, thats why you want to do it slow, slowly add in more and more things, don't start it all at one time and shock your body into thinking it's gotta drop weight no matter what, "so lets drop some muscle to", make slow continous drops, don't let is speed up, and don't let it slow down, just CONSISTENCY is what works, if it starts to slow down, decrease the carbs, or if you are at the cardio stage, raise the cardio, but make it like a system, not a hit and miss thing, make everything controlled and don't rush it. have a plan setout totally before hand, about how much of what you are going to add and when, I mean, there are so many things you can do to slowly keep the process going, like cutting carbs, but you shouldn't cut carbs on monday and by wednesday you arn't down, you don't go cut again on wednesday, you have to give it time to kick in, such as clen, if you are taking 1 in the morning and 1 at night, when I increase, I would increase to 2 in the morning and 1 a night, not both at the same time, that way I still have that ammo left to increase at night next time. Also take weekly pictures, because sometimes, my physical weight would not drop, but my abs or whatever body part, looked so much better, you could tell the lines were etching in further and further, so there was no need to increase or decrease anything, because it was still working. Have patience when you do it and do it right and slowly, and you will look a lot better than doing some sort of crash diet that burns all that hard muscle you have worked your ass for.
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love the way you phrased that.
now its my turn 
