Your Input

Hello everyone,
I am a female, 5’9 200 lbs and I have been going to the gym with no real progam for almost 2 years.

I started working out and I did lose 30 lbs, I just started watching what I was eating and just simply by getting active I started losing weight, i did do a lot of cardio. Now I been up and down, and have read a lot and honestly felt a lot more confused now than what I did before.

Ok, so I have finally adopted a clean diet, I cook on sundays and pre pack my meals for the week. I am eating about 1600-1800 calories. I work out 5 days a week. 3 of those days i do weight training and 3 of the 5 days I also add cardio after weight training. Now from what I have read, i should be doing the same type of exercise a man would do.

How do I know i have enough exercises to make a change. I honeslty have been working hard for the last 6 weeks and my cloths feel tighter, my weight has not changed however. i have attached a pic of me.
Thanks

Ok. Lets see. So you go to the gym five days a week. Consistency is good and high frequency is good. Yes, you should do “man” exercises, but there is no such thing as “man” exercises. Ladies should do the same exercises as men do.

Lift heavy, there is no other option. Now, how do you run? If you dont run fast and spend an hour doing cardio, then thats bad. Try to make a weightlifting day and a cardio day. Why? After lifting weights you feel fatigued and exhausted, therefore cardio becomes less useful.

So separate the days. Run fast, very fast, but progress in speed. Try and google HIIT (high intensity interval training). Pretty much run fast for short periods of time (1 min) then slow down (for another 1 min), do that 4 times. So your cardio should be 20-25 mins.

On weight training days: you need to cause hypertrophy (muscle growth), therefore your rep range is going to be 6-12 and set range is going to be 2-4. Use multijoint exercises since they recruit more motor units than singlejoint exercises do. Make your weight training day out of 5 exercises.

Another thing you can try is to do complexes. Take a muscle group or a muscle and run around the gym and perform different exercises that target that muscle or muscle group without a rest between the exercises. Do 3-4 of these complexes with a 60 sec. rest. Then switch to another muscle group. Dont do this unless you are used to high volume. FISH OIL is a NUMBER ONE on nutrition list.

Summary:

  1. Consistency
  2. Separate days (1 for weight training, 1 for cardio)
  3. Run fast for short periods of time (HIIT)
  4. Lift heavy and do the exercises that a man would do.
  5. Cause hypertrophy, since the bigger the muscle the more fat it burns.
  6. FISH OIL! There is no other option.

Thank you very much for the input. Fish oil, now when i go to the health food store, i just ask for that. I do have flax seed oil that I add once a day, I normally have 2 servings of Good fat, natural pb on a slice of ezekial bread with my egg whites in the am and if I dont add it to a salad (olive oil or avocado) i will add the flax seed to my protein shake that I make.

when you mean 5 exercises you mean in total.
Like
bench press
squat
deadlift
pull down
shoulder press…
is that what you mean. or should i split them and do more of each body part and do 5 exercises?

Split them. So for example you have a squat day and the first exercise is going to be squat. After the first exercise you are going to have some exercises that target hamstrings, glutes, lower back, etc.

Also I would increase over time(progress)the intake of oils.

Welcome to T-Nation!

You might like to check out these articles geared towards women:

http://www.T-Nation.com/readTopic.do?id=645666

Have patience, and you’ll find what you need.

Good luck!

Bump…

[quote]Mufasa wrote:
Bump…[/quote]

She doesn’t like what you’re tellin her huh? =]

Thanks for all the suggestions…:o)

Could I ask for a bit more detail on what you’re eating? I have a feeling you may be going too low on your overall fat intake, but getting plenty of carbs which can actually work against you as counter-intuitive as that may sound.

I will post a few days,

4 egg whites 1 yolk
1 slice of ww bread
1 banana
1 cup of water
1 cup of coffee
2 packs of equal

6 cherry tomato
5 oz chicken
sun dried tomato
romaine lettuce 2 cups
3 cups of water

1/2 cup of oatmeal
1/2 skim milk
1 scoop of whey protein
1 small orange

protein shake about 5:30
1 banana
1 cup of skim milk
1/3 cup of oats
protein powder

4oz of turkey 9pm
brocolli /2 cups

work out - cardio 45 min

1/2 cup of cc before bed
1tbps PB

1 cup of egg whites
Green and red peppers with onions 8:30am
1 slice of cheese
1 slice of ww bread
1 banana

1/2 cup of cottage cheese 11:30 AM
1 pack of equal
1 tbps PB
1/2 apple
2 cups of water

5 oz of beef 2:30 PM
3 cups of veggies - brocolli califlower/ cucumber/sprout, combined
1/2 yam
Water

.42 cream mint- Andes I know not clean?that time of the month…lol

1/2 cup of cc 5:30 PM
hand full of walnuts

1 apple right before work out

20 min cardio - Treedmill 8pm
chest/back work out
25 min cardio - stair master

protein shake 9:30pm
1 scoop of protein
1 cup of skim milk
flax seed oil
1 banana

1 protein shake
1 scoop of protein made with water
2 capsules of fish oil

1 slice of ww bread
1/2 cup of egg whites
spinach, onions and pepper on my eggs
1/2 string cheese
2 cups of water

5 oz of chicken brest with sun dried tomato
2 cups of lettuce
1/4 cup of grape tomato
2tbsp of light balsamic vinagrette
10 craisins
1/2 yam
2 cups of water

1 slice of ww bread
1/2 cup of egg whites
spinach, onions and pepper on my eggs
1/2 string cheese
2 cups of water

45 Min Spinning class
Lower body work out - Legs
1hr 30 min total at the gym

I was straving when I got home. don?t know why I had a good meal before work out. I was so hungry I could not wait. I stop at the market and got a whole chicken

1 cup of brown rice
6oz chicken
1 1/2 brocolli
1 fudge bar ;o(

Assuming this all you eat lemme give you a lot of credit for discipline though I believe you may not think so yourself.

You may think I’m nuts, but I bet if you did little more than replace all the lowfat versions of the things you mention with the “regular” stuff you would get better results.

Spreading the meals out is good and you’re not eating anything bad, but you’re pushing the real low end for overall calories and as crazy as this may sound you need more fat if you plan to get rid of any.

You’re getting a decent amount of protein for a lady, but you’re almost entirely fueling your energy systems with carbs which means you have the insulin yo yo going and that also explains your being hungry.

The small amount of calories also has your metabolism running fairly slow which means your body will hang on to fat stores.

If you eat more fat (whole eggs, regular milk etc.) you won’t hang on to it as tenaciously. Not necessarily a ton more, but the only real fat I see is a tablespoon of peanut butter, 1 egg yolk a bit of beef and some flax oil.

I’m no expert on advising woman on these things and they could probably tell you better, but in short that’s the main thing I see from what you’ve said and never having seen you train.

thanks for the suggestions, I am going to start taking in some more good fat. I been taking some fish oil capsules recently, the dont have significant fat but i hear they are good. I just recently upped my cardio within the last 2 weeks and I lost 5 lbs, but I just dont want to have to keep increasing my cardio in order to lose weight.

Also, you can try the source of omega 6 - flax seed. Fish oil is the source of omega 3.

About cardio. I would not do anything if its working so far. You are doing lots of cardio though. Fast pace cardio is very hard on your nervous system and since you are doing a lot of cardio, I would take every 4th week off as a rehabilitation week.