Im writing this on behalf of my wife. Im trying to help her reach her goals. So far I am incredibly proud of her. Her strength has significantly increased and she is looking amazing. But she is so hard on herself that she cant see the improvements she has achieved.
After our second child she has not been able to lose the weight she wants to lose and get back into the shape she wants to be in. After many long discussions and having her read reference material to back up my points I finally convinced her to adopt weight training as her primary method of exercise.
She is 5’3" and weighing in at about 152 right now. She is a little on the heavy side according to the scale but she has packed on some serious quality muscle so she doesnt look as out of shape as she thinks.
After lifting consistently for a year and a half her best lifts so far are as follows:
Squat 175x3
Deadlift 195x1
Shoulder press 100x5
Flat bench 105x3
Leg Press 315x8
Seated rows 90x8
I could go on but I my point is she is pretty strong. Especially from where she began. She has come a long way.
Currently her training program is as follows:
Mon:
Clean and press 5x5
Back Squat 3x10
RDL 1x20
Seated Cable Row 5x5
Pull ups as many sets as it takes to do 25
Bench 3x5
Hip thrusters 3x8
10 minutes of ab work (supersets of plank variations and the standard ab stuff)
Wed and friday are structured the same with variations in the sets and rep ranges.
Tues she does 15 minutes of sprints in our field at home.
Thursday she has added in:
Cable Pull throughs 3x10
Single leg RDL on cable 3x10
Hamstring Kick back machine 2x15
Treadmill for 15 minutes changing the speed either up or down every minute.
Sat and sunday she chases after our kids and helps me remodel our home.
She is putting a ton of time into getting in shape.
As far as diet she does not count calories but has cut out starches except around training times and reduced portions (not quite enough in my humble opinion). We eat clean and on occasion let ourselves enjoy a cheat meal. But for the most part an over all pretty healthy lifestyle.
Now my opinion:
Her legs have gotten significantly more muscular but not much smaller (her complaint, definitely not mine haha)
Her hamstrings have toned up and she has lost alot of the cellulite she had post baby.
Her Butt has lifted and gotten firmer but again, not as small as she wants.
Her back, shoulders, arms, and chest look incredible. She LOOKS like a girl who knows her way around a barbell.
Her Abs have experience the smallest change. Cant seem to shake the lil Baby pooch and her abs are only partially visible higher up on her torso.
Love handles still an issue for her as well.
I have a theory on why she is having a hard time getting the results she wants. I will preface by saying I have NO claim to being a pro and have only the knowledge supported by what reading material I have been able to find.
I think since our second child her hormones have been out of whack. Her libido is down and she cant lose weight. Her moody temperament is all hers and not to be blamed on our second son haha.
Her doctor recently put her on Birth control for the first time in her life and recommended taking DHEAs for low test.
Is there any advice or critiques you can offer me to try and better help her. Ive devoted a lot of my time trying to help her achieve what she wants so she can be happy again but Im afraid im just not doing a good enough job and I fear she might throw in the towel at some point.
Hoping someone here with far more wisdom than I can shed some light.
Thanks and sorry for the long read.