T Nation

Any 105 lb. T-Vixens?

Bodybuilding
#1

Hi all,

I’m posting this for my wife. She’s got a T-Vixen on the inside, just waiting to pop out, but needs a bit of help.

I’m trying to wean her off of Weider publications, but the MAIN thing I’m pleased with is that she wants to get more physical with the weights and just more physical in general.

I’m a regular addict of T-Mag, but I’m trying to tread VERY carefully at this point. The wrong word or advice could be “counterproductive” at this point…

Anyways, she’s about 110 lbs. and (at a guess because she’s not looking over my shoulder) about 15% bodyfat. She just needs some advice from other women on “where to start” in terms of nutrition. I’m slowly convincing her that “Massive Eating” principles are the way to go, but I’m unsure how many calories she should be starting with because of her lower size…

Are there any other T-Vixens out there I can ask for advice here? How can I help her without secretly adding more protein to her diet??

thanks very much!

#2

Hi!
Well, I’m a 110 lb vixen that might be able to offer your wife some advice. The first thing I would tell her inregards to your post is to stop buying those shitty mags, and get into the T-mag site/mag, as well as Fitness Rx mag. They are the only decent mags out there. Oxygen and M&F Hers are nothing but advertisements for a product called Hydr****ut (cant say real names here).

And there are other women on this forum that could definitaly offer her some advice. Check out the photo section as well as my reader mail letter in last weeks issue to see what my credentials are and to see what the other t-vixens are all about. I know that Patricia could help her learn how to pull a car!!!

#3

First of all, here’s where you’ll find out how to figure out the caloric requirements for Massive Eating:

Now, how tall is your wife? What’s her background like in terms of physical activity?

Also, have you read the following articles:
“How to Build A T-Vixen” by Sandy, and “Fun with Women” by Christian Thibaudeau. Also read, “The Beginners Blast Off Program” by Chris Shugart. This last article may be of some help with a beginners progam. BTW: it does not matter if you’re female; you’d still train the same as a man. What matters are the elements that set us all apart as individuals: experience, athletic background, etc.

Okay. So, what do you mean by “help”? Help with what? A program?

Does your wife need to be told by a T-Vixen that she need not worry about becoming all manly with additional LBM? Okay. I don’t really consider myself a “Vixen”, but I’ll just say that after 19-20 years of weight training, I’m still lookin’ like a female. And I don’t mean to do any tootin’ of my own horn, but have your wife read another article: www.t-mag.com/nation_articles/240real.jsp

Hope this helps.

#4

If Patricia isn’t a T-Vixen, where does that leave the rest of us?

Eyuzwa: Thanks for stepping up and helping your wife! Maybe getting her the subscription to the paper T-Mag would help the transition from all things Weider. Also, it’s managable chunks of information rather than the huge reference library that is “Previous Issues.”

Even many men find the Massive Eating calories pretty high. If your wife follows the instructions exactly and gets fat, she won’t want to try the rest. I’d recommend following the meal combining info from Massive Eating and the Lean Eatin’ articles, but using personal experience and especially a food log (she’ll probably really like the article “The Missing Ingredient”).

As far as weights–well, you know what to do. Don’t waste her time or wear her out with isolation moves when she’s just starting. Teach her how to squat without the Smith Machine and she’ll love you forever. :wink:

#5

Also: 15% BF is pretty low for a female non-athlete. Is she planning to drop more? If so, you may want to discuss her motives.

#6

Just gonna say the same thing Q,
15% for a girl is quite lean similar to a look of 7-8% for a guy.
Does she want to get leaner, or have you perhaps you are a but off in the BF estimate?

#7

15% is good, but so is 9%. I’m that lean and it works well for me.

In regards to calorie intake, the best way to know how much she should be on is to look at her current intake and then see where you should go from there. If she eats a lot, then you may want to cut back, or if she doesnt eat enough, then you will want to increase it. Do a 3 day food record and check out where she is. If you need help calculating it, send it my way and I will do it for you. Also, remember the famous line: A calorie is not a calorie.

#8

Thanks all for the helpfull feedback!

I’ll send those links to her, and hopefully she’ll pay some attention to other fems.

She’s VERY scared/petrified that she’ll pack on more bulky muscle than a Mack truck with rep ranges of 6-8, rather than “toning” with 15-20 reps.

I already know there’s SO many things wrong with that above logic, but it’s very hard to fight it without turning her off completely from exercise.

She’s been through so many diets and programs that she’s beyond the breaking point when it comes to counting calories, etc. I’m trying to convince her that I’ll do all the leg work (such as weighing, etc), as long as she’ll give it an honest try.

As for her bodyfat percentage, that is an estimate, probably too low. My wife has just recently given birth to our handsome boy, so the majority of it is around her midsection.

One thing that I’m jealous about is that her body responds VERY well to weights. When we were first dating several years ago, I took her to the gym a few times, and saw that it took very little in terms of weight to stimulate a response from her muscle.

So far, she’s ashamed to look at herself in the mirror, which actually spills over into our physical/intimate relationship. Whereas before our son, she loved to cuddle and make love tons, it’s now dwindled to maybe once every 2 weeks or so, and she’s not a huge fan of the cuddling. We’re both pretty exhausted just taking care of our little bundle of energy, so it’s not like I’m demanding/forcing it every night…uh oh, am I getting too Oprahey?

Anyways, as a husband who loves his wife very much and as someone who wants to support her, I’m trying to find a way to get her to open her mind a little more beyond the Weider propaganda, and go in a different direction than the soccer moms who obsess about low-fat bran muffins.

Thanks for the suggestion about Fitness-RX. I’ll pick up an issue on the way home for her.

Thanks All!! Time to catch up on my T-Vixen reading…

(If I could get her to pull the truck then we could take turns on the weekend…heheeh.)

#9

You’ve gotten some great advice here so the only thing I’ll add is regarding the post-pregnancy deal. Myself, E~Pluribus Unum and Solo’s girl (there may be others I’m not familiar with) have been there. While the nuts and bolts of dieting and lifting won’t necessarily change just because you’ve had a kid, the psychological aspects of pretty much everything definitely do change (as you’ve noticed). I’m sure the other girls won’t mind if I include them in this invitation for her to PM any of us for support/advice/whatnot.

#10

I tried guiding my wife many times to this type of fitness through t-mag articles and buying mags I thought had some good info. What I found was that the more I did this, the more she thought I wasn’t happy with the way she looked. She took it as my way of saying that she was ugly and needed to change in order for me to love her. It was completely the opposite of what I was trying to do, but women just think differently sometimes. When I backed off and let her do things on her own she did pretty well for herself. It took a while for her to do it, but it was HER choice with no pressure and that’s what made it work. She made great improvements with diet alone and now I’m hoping for the day she decides (on her own) to start training again. I’m sure everyone is different, but this was my experience in the subject.

#11

GaryE: As one man to another, I HEAR YOU!

This is (unfortunately) how my wife feels about the gym stuff, which is why I’m faced with such a conundrum. I want to help her achieve her goals and improve her health, WITHOUT pushing her to believe that I’m doing it because I think she’s fat and ugly (which she definitely ain’t!).



Women are so illogical!! grin




Sorry T-Vixens, just had to get that out of my system…


Yeah Gary, I’m in the same boat you were on. Any other advice for a fellow t-brethren??



She’s such a hottie, but all of her life her mom/peers were really pounding on her looks. She comes from the Philippines, and if you don’t look like skin and bones, then you’re a nobody (ick! Thank god for muscular/athletic Canadian Women!)


She was 60 lbs. for most of her life, then “ballooned” up to 110 when she moved her 8 years ago.



Right now we’re living in Calgary, and are close to moving into our new house where we’ll have our gym equipment. We can hardly wait! No more stupid lineups at the gym! No more waiting for someone using the squat rack to do curls!



Anyways, my wife will be doing more weights when we get things setup in the new home, so I’m researching a T-Vixen program to put her on.

#12

WHOA! Did you say she was 60lbs?! Are you sure you mean POUNDS not KG? My son is 7 and he’s 49" tall and weighs 68lbs (granted, he’s head and shoulders taller and twice as thick as any of his classmates, but still). How tall is your wife?!

I guess I’m just trying to picture a full grown woman that tiny and I’m having a hard time of it. My nail lady is Vietnamese, skin and bones thin and about 4’8". But I know she sure as hell weighs more than my kid does!

#13

I think the home-gym is probably the best way to go for someone like this in order to get them in shape and feel better about themselves. We have similar but opposite problems, bro. My wife was in fact pretty overweight. All her life, her family would tell her she was fat and she just started believing them. She’s lost about 35 lbs in the last year through diet alone and is looking better than when I first met her, but the bug sort of hit her and she’s still not satisfied… I love that! She’s about 5’6" and 135 or so now and pretty muscular, though soft. She really kicked ass on that diet once she put her mind to it and I had to force myself not to push her if she ever did make a mistake. It always has to come from her with this stuff or she doesn’t give it 100%.
She knows that it’s time to start puting some training into the picture to get more results, but doesn’t feel comfortable enough in the gym, yet. Also like your situation, she responds SO FAST to the weights! It almost makes me jealous of her quick results! We will be getting a small dumbell set for home soon and she will start with that for a while. After thinking it over, I was pretty surprized at the number of exercises to choose from when all you have is a swiss ball and some dumbells. I think that after she gets comfortable with the movements, she’ll be ready to join me in the gym again. I think your wife will probably be the same… if she’s like my wife, she just want’s to look like she knows what she’s doing in there.
Guess that was a little long.
Good to hear that others are in the same boat, though.