Relatively light people trying to get leaner

myofibril · February 2011

For the love of god, why hasn't this thread been stickied yet?

chrisdavey · February 2011

For the love of god, why hasn't this thread been stickied yet?

agreed!

ceebs9 · February 2011

I obviously need to find time to go back and read this whole thread. I've been able to get relatively lean but have a hard time reaching that next level.

jlsAhava · February 2011

Bump!

stroutman81 · February 2011

I completely agree.

People get some caught up in the minutiae or the latest fangled theory that they seem to completely forget just how far they can get using the fundamentals. Sure the basics like good old fashioned consistency, good diet the majority of the time, and realistic timeframes may not be fashionable, marketable or sexy but boy do they work.

I also think that overly rigid guidelines (you must eat 6 times a day, carbs are the work of the devil and hours and hours of cardio are necessary for fat loss) sets most people up for failure and takes the fun out the process. Yes, it can be fun and yes, it can be enjoyable. People are obsessing so much about some elusive end result that it strips the joy out of living life healthily.

Right-o.

I always say, people would laugh if they saw my own exercise and nutrition. I'm a contrarian by nature who puts a huge premium on simplicity. I know what works, carve out the stuff that doesn't (all the fluff that most people focus on), and focus on consistency.

stroutman81 · February 2011

34/5'10ish/267

experience meaning what???

Don't worry about the experience part.

Honestly, I'd keep it real simple. I'd focus on being consistent with my nutrition. I'd shoot for 1800-2200 calories per day. Don't worry about "1980 calories." You're not accurate enough to worry about it to the nearest 10 calories. The basics that we all know should comprise the majority of your diet - solid amount of protein from lean sources, some healthy fats from things like olive oil, nuts, fish, etc. and plenty of fibrous veggies and fruit.

Stick with that 80% of the time (the good old Pareto Principle) and be honest with yourself about how consistent you are. Things will fall into place.

I wouldn't worry about "body sculpting" right now. Get your body fat lower first.

On the exercise front focus on 2 full body focused strength training days where you're using big compound exercises like squash variations, deadlift variations, pulling and pressing.

Do cardio as necessary. How you should do it depends on your current conditioning.

Like I said, it's tough to get into specifics.

But definitely apply the KISS principle.

meanness67 · February 2011

WOW...bumping this as it seems to have a lot of great info that may take me a couple days to get through.

Just_Dot · February 2011

bumpity-bump-bump!

mrniceguy84 · February 2011

34/5'10ish/267

experience meaning what???

Don't worry about the experience part.

Honestly, I'd keep it real simple. I'd focus on being consistent with my nutrition. I'd shoot for 1800-2200 calories per day. Don't worry about "1980 calories." You're not accurate enough to worry about it to the nearest 10 calories. The basics that we all know should comprise the majority of your diet - solid amount of protein from lean sources, some healthy fats from things like olive oil, nuts, fish, etc. and plenty of fibrous veggies and fruit.

Stick with that 80% of the time (the good old Pareto Principle) and be honest with yourself about how consistent you are. Things will fall into place.

I wouldn't worry about "body sculpting" right now. Get your body fat lower first.

On the exercise front focus on 2 full body focused strength training days where you're using big compound exercises like squash variations, deadlift variations, pulling and pressing.

Do cardio as necessary. How you should do it depends on your current conditioning.

Like I said, it's tough to get into specifics.

But definitely apply the KISS principle.

Thanks!
KISS?

Whats squash and dead lift variations?

Do cardio as necessary. How you should do it depends on your current conditioning..can u go into more detail on the current conditioning part?

Pareto principle??

I have the eating the right amount of cals a day and trying to eat the right thing down!! Guessing I need more help with the working my body and how much to work it part.. is there such a thing as too much work??

pamp1emousse · February 2011

I have another question for you

So I'm slowly upping my calories as I've only got 1lb left to lose, and when I reach my maintenance calories I'd like to gain some muscle mass. I've heard that to do that you should eat over your maintenance - is that true? And if so, by how much? (FYI my maintenance will be somewhere in between 1600 and 1750 calories - I'll experiment until I find it).

Although I've been doing some strength training (15-25 minutes 4-5 times a week, after my cardio) and I've been slowly upping my reps to 15 in a set then upping my weight and lowering reps back down to 8 (so I know I'm making some sort of progress) I wouldn't exactly call myself dedicated

For someone who has only been gymming for 6 months but will be new to taking strength training seriously, what kind of time do you think I should be spending on weights? I know that's probably a hard question to answer, but looking at the women on the cardio machines versus the women on the mats I can see that to get the look I want (nice and toned) I should be changing how I'm spending my time, cutting down on the cardio (atm it's 40-50 minutes, usually high intensity 5-6 times a week). Any ideas?

chrisdavey · February 2011

my 2c

MrNiceguy84:
Re current fitness level: if you are just getting back into it, take it easy, listen to your body. See a lot of people go all out or nothing. They go all out and then get injured and then do nothing. Start with brisk walks, then jogging. Then try some HIIT (google it). Lift weights 2-3 times a week (never 2 days in a row). Full body compound exercises, squats, deadlifts and bench press work well.

KISS is keep it simple stupid principle.

Cardio: do whatever you enjoy and will continue to do. I like mma training so I do mma training

xmaxine89: Yes you generally need to eat above maintenance level to build muscle. As Stoutman has said, you can adjust it if need be. I am aiming to put on some good weight at the moment and eating 500cals above maintenance. Doing this while aiming for 1g/lb bw of protein and consuming the majority of carbs either for breakfast or peri-workout.

Re workouts. I do this one which is a beginners program. Do as you said and up the weight when you reach the desired reps. (throw ego out the door and start at light weights so you can progress for a bit, bar only if need be)

If you do that first and then if you feel the need you could do some cardio after. (I am generally pretty dead by then but might chuck in 5-10mins of HIIT) Do this 3 times a week and do cardio on other days. You will see results

Squat 3 x 10
Bench press 3 x 8
Bent row 3 x 8
Standing overhead press 3 x 8
Stiff leg deadlift 3 x 8
BB curl 3 x 8

(I do weighted chinups instead of bb curls as it's more of a compound exercise and good for mma) Get a PT to check your form on these exercises while doing light weights.

jadedjade24 · February 2011

Ok, I just read through most of this and I have to say that I am very impressed with the fact that you are responding to everyone that you can. And, as many have said, this is an awesome post!

Now, on to business lol. I am 24 years old, 190-ish (scale goes from 185-190) lbs, 5'7" and female. I have started watching what I eat, drink all the water that I can stand to get at last 3 or 4 cups in minimum a day, work out everyday for 120 minutes on cardio... is that too much? am I pushing too hard? I feel great, and at night I have never slept so well in my whole life. Cardio has always been my thing, I may be a little on the heavy side but I can still run a 12 1/2 minute mile. I eat a lot of fish and rice and try not to eat any junk, and when I do its like a 100 calorie snack, so I dont feel bad about having it lol.

I do not scale watch. I weigh when I feel like it, and only at the gym. I dont want one in the house because I dont want to be stepping on it all the time and freaking out because I gained a pound and that pound happens to be water weight and nothing more. Also, is it a bad thing to be eating before I go to the gym? is there like a time after I eat dinner that I can go? Because I usually eat dinner first then about an hour or so later I go to the gym with the boys. One person told me this is not good and I am just working off everything I just ate...but this cant be right, can it? I mean, I would end up working it off anyway, right? or just eating back the calories I just ran off? Not saying eating calories back is a bad thing...but you get the idea, right?

If you could help me understand any of this, I would be so greatful!

Jade

jlsAhava · February 2011

stroutman81 - Thanks for much for all the advice you've been giving - it seems like you really know your stuff. That said, I was hoping you could help me out as well. :flowerforyou:

I'm a 4'11", 36yo female who weighs approximately 154lbs. I'd eventually like to get down to 115/120. Because I'm so short I'm trying to figure out if the calorie goals accurately reflect my true needs.

I lead a sedentary lifestyle, but have incorporated the C25K and JM 30 day shred on alternating days. Like many other women, I have a 1200 daily cal goal (before exercise). However, since my BMR is only at 1,620 cals/day this reduction only calculates to .8 lbs a week. :grumble:

I've been on here for a month, and while I've been losing, I've been losing v. slowly. I tend not to eat all my exercise cals, in part, because I'm not convinced my initial calorie goal should be as high as 1200 in the first place. I also assume I am underestimating my intake to some extent (and the burn calories are somewhat overestimated - I'm relying on MFP and not an HRM), so I want to give myself some leeway (though I'm not sure how much I should leave). Is this the right approach to take?

My questions for you are:
-Should I maintain the 1200 cal daily goal? If not, what would you recommend?

-How much of my exercise calories should I eat? In time I'll be increasing my time/intensity, but I'll still have the confusion about how much of the exercise cals(percentage wise) I should be eating. :frown:

I've made my diary public for the time being in case you have a chance to take a look.

Thanks in advance for any insight you're able to provide! :flowerforyou: :flowerforyou:

stroutman81 · February 2011

KISS?

Keep It Simple Stupid

Obviously not calling you stupid. My point is, don't get hung up on over-analyzing this. The vast majority of progress comes from some very basic principles that many people overlook.

Whats squash and dead lift variations?

Did I say squash? I meant squat. Although I do love squash.

Squat variations would be things like goblet squats, front squats, barbell squats, lunges, leg presses, etc.

Deadlift variations would be things like conventional deadlifts, rack pulls, romanian deadlifts, etc.

You could also break it down as quad dominant vs. hamstring and glute dominant movements.

Do cardio as necessary. How you should do it depends on your current conditioning..can u go into more detail on the current conditioning part?

Well what sort of "shape" are you in currently? One half decent metric would be to measure you're resting heart rate.

But the point is, you don't want to fling yourself into crazy high intensity sprints and the like if you're conditioning isn't ready for that sort of stuff.

Pareto principle??

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle

I have the eating the right amount of cals a day and trying to eat the right thing down!! Guessing I need more help with the working my body and how much to work it part.. is there such a thing as too much work??

There certainly is.

You don't have to be as careful with lower intensity type activities (think circuit training and slow long distance running) as these things don't tap into your recovery capacity as much. It's worth noting that you can still over do it on this lower intensity front.... it's just a lot less likely.

But the fact is proper programming is centered around balancing stress and recovery. If all you focus on is stressing your body without ever paying attention to recovery... things can get crappy pretty quick.

stroutman81 · February 2011

So I'm slowly upping my calories as I've only got 1lb left to lose and when I reach my maintenance calories I'd like to gain some muscle mass. I've heard that to do that you should eat over your maintenance - is that true? And if so, by how much? (FYI my maintenance will be somewhere in between 1600 and 1750 calories - I'll experiment until I find it).

Yea, generally speaking you should be running a surplus if muscle growth is the goal. Of course there are many examples of people who add muscle while dieting. But in theory, you can't create something out of nothing so in order to fuel the cellular processes that go into muscle growth, you need to eat.

Although I've been doing some strength training (15-25 minutes 4-5 times a week, after my cardio) and I've been slowly upping my reps to 15 in a set then upping my weight and lowering reps back down to 8 (so I know I'm making some sort of progress) I wouldn't exactly call myself dedicated

Eventually your emphasis should start to shift from the conditioning side of things to the strength training side of things. Of course keeping some semblance of conditioning work in the mix is a good idea... but it shouldn't be prioritized in my opinion unless you need a very high level of conditioning for a sport or job.

Remember, this is all about compromises. Our bodies have a limited ability to manage stress.

For someone who has only been gymming for 6 months but will be new to taking strength training seriously, what kind of time do you think I should be spending on weights?

Sorry, I'm replying as I read along. Bad habit of mine! You can disregard what I said above, lol.

I know that's probably a hard question to answer, but looking at the women on the cardio machines versus the women on the mats I can see that to get the look I want (nice and toned) I should be changing how I'm spending my time, cutting down on the cardio (atm it's 40-50 minutes, usually high intensity 5-6 times a week). Any ideas?

Smart lady. Most women are too married to the concept of logging mile after mile on the treadmill to objectively look around and deduce that "to get different results I need to try different things."

Good on you.

Very generally speaking, 3-4 days per week would be ideal. Ideally you're hitting each major muscle group at least twice per week.

Definitely read this from my blog as it pertains to you very much:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/stroutman81/view/resistance-training-foundation-19725

Might as well read this one too:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/stroutman81/view/more-random-thoughts-on-resistance-training-19945

stroutman81 · February 2011

So I'm slowly upping my calories as I've only got 1lb left to lose, and when I reach my maintenance calories I'd like to gain some muscle mass. I've heard that to do that you should eat over your maintenance - is that true? And if so, by how much? (FYI my maintenance will be somewhere in between 1600 and 1750 calories - I'll experiment until I find it).

Oh, and I missed your "how much?" question.

Truthfully, that's unanswerable. Some people need very small surpluses - it's as if their genetic proclivities are chomping at the bits to build some muscle. Others need pretty substantial surpluses.

Besides, maintenance is a moving target. So this is and always will be a process oriented approach. Meaning you'll never be able to pick a surplus number and stick with it indefinitely and get the results you're after.

I'd start at maintenance and change your program to suit muscle growth.

Track your progress every 2-4 weeks (pictures, measurements, weight, etc) and make small adjustments as needed. 10% increments is probably where I'd start, personally.

stroutman81 · February 2011

Now, on to business lol. I am 24 years old, 190-ish (scale goes from 185-190) lbs, 5'7" and female. I have started watching what I eat, drink all the water that I can stand to get at last 3 or 4 cups in minimum a day, work out everyday for 120 minutes on cardio... is that too much? am I pushing too hard?

Too vague to say. For instance.... you could walk 2 hours per day and never think twice about worrying about recovery. But if you're doing more intense work, you can run into some issues down the road. How intense? It's tough to say. If you're actually doing cardio for 2 hours straight, it can't be very intense.

That said, I'd ask yourself, "Why?"

You need to "back into" this. What's your goal? Once your goal is identified, you can figure out where you currently are and what sort of exercise needs to be done to reach the goal.

If a goal is vague, like, "lose weight," pretty much anything will work. But if you're looking to optimize your physique and health, a more balanced approach is called for.

I eat a lot of fish and rice and try not to eat any junk, and when I do its like a 100 calorie snack, so I dont feel bad about having it lol.

I eat a lot of junk food, so who's counting, lol.

Also, is it a bad thing to be eating before I go to the gym? is there like a time after I eat dinner that I can go? Because I usually eat dinner first then about an hour or so later I go to the gym with the boys.

I wouldn't sweat it. As long as it's not messing with your gastric system causing you distress, go with what you like. I'm happy that you're eating ahead of time. All that cardio isn't conducive to keeping muscle around. Doing it on an empty stomach would more than likely be worse.

One person told me this is not good and I am just working off everything I just ate...but this cant be right, can it?

This person is misinformed.

When it comes to fat loss, what you're burning as fuel is much less important than how much energy you're burning. For instance, the lower the intensity, generally speaking, the greater the percentage of fat is burned. So why don't we sit all day to burn the most fat?

Point being, energy expenditure trumps everything else.

For completeness though, I'll say if you're an athlete, what's fueling your work is very important as for as programming goes. This is where alactic anaerobic, lactic anaerobic and aerobic power and capacity development comes into play - what some people are terming ESD standing for energy system development.

cris12 · February 2011

Wow... I sincerely applaud you for your commitment to helping people out on here. I read 8 pages of this in one sitting and am so happy I found this.

I knew I needed something more than cardio to get these 10 lbs off of me, so I started looking into strength straining, slightly afraid of bulking up, but knowing if I ever started to look too bulky I could just stop.

I've started to do exercises targeting my whole body (core, chest, back, arms, quads, calves, glutes & hamstrings) - like you, I've never believed in heavily marketed packages for the masses, since everyone is different. Most of my workout relies on body weight and a pair of 2.5 lb dumbbells, since I don't have access to a gym for now.

As far as my workout routine goes, I know I need to invest on heavier dumbbells (it's already too easy to do 12 reps, and I end up doing 24 to make up for it). I usually warm up pre-workout and jog 1 mi on the treadmill post-workout (it takes me about 15 mins, sometimes stopping for brisk walking breaks). The whole deal takes me an hour and a half, depending.

(background info: I'm 22, 5'2", and 123 lbs. I have a small frame and have been retaining fat waist-down, so all I want is to lose the lovehandles and thigh fat, although numbers on the scale are satisfying, I just want results)

As far as nutrition goes, I did start counting calories MFP-style, and thought (naively) 1,200 cal. makes sense for me. I was slightly confused as to what my maintenance levels would be. I saw your calculations and calculated 123 x 14 = 1722 cals, so for a deficit I calculated 1476 cals (123 x 12). So, from my understanding, I need to stay within 1400 cals in order to be losing fat. Am I on the right track? I've always felt smaller people naturally need to eat less, and I am small.

If maintenance for me is 1722 cals then as long as I create the 300ish deficit (either with weights or diet on any given day, or both), then I should be good? Maybe a 400 cal deficit would be more effective... hm.

I'm sure that's enough babbling/questions, :blushing: I'd just love to know if I'm on the right track, doing this solo could lead to misjudgments...

stroutman81 · February 2011

I'm a 4'11", 36yo female who weighs approximately 154lbs. I'd eventually like to get down to 115/120. Because I'm so short I'm trying to figure out if the calorie goals accurately reflect my true needs.

Height isn't so much reflective on calorie needs, unfortunately. Body mass, body composition, and lifestyle are the primary indicators.

I lead a sedentary lifestyle, but have incorporated the C25K and JM 30 day shred on alternating days. Like many other women, I have a 1200 daily cal goal (before exercise). However, since my BMR is only at 1,620 cals/day this reduction only calculates to .8 lbs a week. :grumble:

I've been on here for a month, and while I've been losing, I've been losing v. slowly.

That's usually the best way to go about things when you aren't obese.

I tend not to eat all my exercise cals,

Quite honestly I wouldn't get into calculating how many cals you expend exercising and whether or not to eat them back or not. There are too many very loose estimates involved. Which is why I don't allow ANY of my clients to play that game. Typically leads to unnecessary frustration. Instead, as noted previously, I keep things extremely simple...

Pick a reasonable estimate of maintenance calories using some formula.

Fill said calories with the appropriate "blend" of nutrients and foods.

Exercise using sane parameters.

Be consistent. Don't diet and program hop unless you've spent enough time doing something and realized it's ineffective.

Track progress via pictures, weight, reflection, fit of particular clothes, measurements, bf% readings, and whatever else you have at your disposal. Do this at 2-4 week intervals.

Adjust as necessary based on your tracking.

This eliminates the worry about burning too many or too few calories for a given amount of exercise, as if most people's estimates were at all accurate anyhow. It removes the concern of worrying about if your calories are "right" or "wrong" right now. Because right now doesn't matter. What matters is where things are when you "test" or track and if they're not where you'd logically expect, the only thing that needs adjusting, generally speaking, is your calorie intake since exercise is already set at optimal or sane levels.

Follow me?

in part, because I'm not convinced my initial calorie goal should be as high as 1200 in the first place.

If you're exercising almost daily for an hour or so... without knowing more about you and actually sitting down and interviewing you... if you were my client I'd actually have you at 1500 calories per day. Might surprise you but I very rarely take non-obese (by that I mean they don't have 50-150+ lbs to lose) below 8 calories per pound when they're exercising almost daily.

My goal is always to get the client eating as many calories as possible while still driving them toward their goal at reasonable rates.

I also assume I am underestimating my intake to some extent

Almost without a doubt.

Once doubly labeled water hit the research scene, it became very evident that humans absolutely SUCK at estimating calorie intake. Here are some links to abstracts that delve into this fact...

This one even references the inaccuracy reported by dietitians:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12396160

Then there's:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18313427

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9741036

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7594141

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20010905

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20010905

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15251058

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19226926

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15251058

Just to name a few. If you actually read these abstracts, some of them are very interesting. I've the full papers around here too for most of them.

(and the burn calories are somewhat overestimated - I'm relying on MFP and not an HRM),

Which would be another likely fair assumption.

My questions for you are:
-Should I maintain the 1200 cal daily goal? If not, what would you recommend?

You can see above that I mentioned given the information I have I'd start you at 1500 calories if you were my client.

But here's a twist for you...

You already mentioned that you might be underestimating your calories, which I respect your objectivity and honesty. I'd bet the vast majority around here and everywhere else are as well. If you took my advice and bumped your intake up to a supposed "1500" calories, your true intake might be significantly higher and thus my advice would backfire.

Your current "1200" is probably a bit higher. And you're losing weight. So in reality, I probably wouldn't change anything. The movement towards your goal is the final arbiter dictating what, if any, action should take place.

Which is why that whole process thing above works. It doesn't matter how "off" your calorie intake and expenditure estimates are - the process will move you closer to your goals.

-How much of my exercise calories should I eat? In time I'll be increasing my time/intensity, but I'll still have the confusion about how much of the exercise cals(percentage wise) I should be eating. :frown:

See above.

stroutman81 · February 2011

Wow... I sincerely applaud you for your commitment to helping people out on here. I read 8 pages of this in one sitting and am so happy I found this.

Well thanks. This is fun for me. I mean the most I have in front of me at my gym is 20-30 people when I'm training teams and they're on autopilot for the most part. It's neat being able to reach so many people at once using this medium of exchange.

I knew I needed something more than cardio to get these 10 lbs off of me, so I started looking into strength straining, slightly afraid of bulking up, but knowing if I ever started to look too bulky I could just stop.

Heck, I've had female clients coming to me begging me to help them get the last 5-10 lbs off of them. Fast forward 1 year and often times they're heavier then when they came to me and happier than they could have ever imagined. Mind you, these are the relatively small women who come to me looking to "tone up" as they like to say. But the fact remains... by and large this is the experience they have.

I've started to do exercises targeting my whole body (core, chest, back, arms, quads, calves, glutes & hamstrings) - like you, I've never believed in heavily marketed packages for the masses, since everyone is different. Most of my workout relies on body weight and a pair of 2.5 lb dumbbells, since I don't have access to a gym for now.

As far as my workout routine goes, I know I need to invest on heavier dumbbells (it's already too easy to do 12 reps, and I end up doing 24 to make up for it). I usually warm up pre-workout and jog 1 mi on the treadmill post-workout (it takes me about 15 mins, sometimes stopping for brisk walking breaks). The whole deal takes me an hour and a half, depending.

At the very least, if a gym membership isn't in your future anytime soon, I'd pick up some adjustable dumbbells. There are some very expensive sets out there, but I know I've seen a set at ****s Sporting Goods for a reasonable price. Here's a link:

http://www.****ssportinggoods.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2173649

Not the greatest but they'll do the trick for the time being.

The problem with sticking with a very light weigh and adding more volume with it is this - our bodies require a stress above and beyond what they're accustomed to to elicit change. Right? We force our bodies to change for the better hopefully by making it keep up with an ever-increasing challenging environment (the gym, the treadmill, or whatever).

In research, rank novices have shown increased leg muscle size simply by walking. But that's because moving their own body weight walking was sufficient enough (overloading enough) at the time to warrant biological changes within the muscle cells. Eventually, once their body "catches up" or adapts to that overload, walking will no longer provide enough of a challenge to justify further change in regards to muscle cell size.

So right now you don't have the ability to increase load since you've static dumbbells. I'd argue you could find ways to make certain exercises more challenging but lets not go down that road right now. So in its stead, you're increasing volume or reps. Here's the issue with that...

Not only do you need to overload the body - the overload also has to be specific if particular adaptations are to be realized. Meaning, we can't go out and run further and further and expect to grow lots of muscle simply b/c we're increasing the challenge to our bodies. Sure, something is adapting since we're progressively overloading our bodies by running further... but that overload isn't specific to muscle size. What's changing in this example? Our bodies are becoming more aerobic centrally and locally - meaning our hearts getting bigger, it's pumping more blood, it's beating slower at rest, out cardiorespiratory systems are getting more efficient and effective at delivering oxygen to the muscles and removing waste byproducts, etc, etc.

In terms of hypertrophy (the growth of muscle cells), not only do you need to be lifting weights (which generates tension in the muscle), you need to be lifting sufficiently heavy weights. If you're not, the only thing you can do is do more reps, as you are, with the same load and eventually this turns into an endurance exercise. You might derive adaptations (such as better oxidative qualities of the muscle being trained) but that's not going to do much of anything for you in terms of muscle growth.

Which, I might add, is what most relatively light women looking to get leaner are looking for, unbeknownst to them.

Rambling a bit... but hopefully you followed that logic. If not, simply say so and I'll try and explain it differently.

(background info: I'm 22, 5'2", and 123 lbs. I have a small frame and have been retaining fat waist-down, so all I want is to lose the lovehandles and thigh fat, although numbers on the scale are satisfying, I just want results)

Welcome to being female, lol.

Unfortunately thanks to the evolutionary course we, as humans, took (not so unfortunate since we're still alive, lol), women generally have biological differences of where particularly stubborn fat cells reside - generally hips, booty, and thighs.

As far as nutrition goes, I did start counting calories MFP-style, and thought (naively) 1,200 cal. makes sense for me. I was slightly confused as to what my maintenance levels would be. I saw your calculations and calculated 123 x 14 = 1722 cals, so for a deficit I calculated 1476 cals (123 x 12). So, from my understanding, I need to stay within 1400 cals in order to be losing fat. Am I on the right track? I've always felt smaller people naturally need to eat less, and I am small.

Smaller people definitely need to eat less.

Read the above post of mine about the process.

14 calories per pound for calculating maintenance works out for many people. For others though (due to lifestyles, non-exercise activity thermogenesis levels, genetics, etc), their actual maintenance is higher or lower. For females who are light, in general, it tends to be a bit lower. Especially if they've a history of dieting.

But no reason for concern, if you read the process. The process will fix it in 2-4 weeks. If things aren't changing in the right direction and you can honestly say you were accurate and consistent, you know, more than likely, that 14 was too high for you and you need to bump it down.

I'd say for most people 10 calories per pound tends to be the sweet spot in my experience.

pamp1emousse · February 2011

So I'm slowly upping my calories as I've only got 1lb left to lose and when I reach my maintenance calories I'd like to gain some muscle mass. I've heard that to do that you should eat over your maintenance - is that true? And if so, by how much? (FYI my maintenance will be somewhere in between 1600 and 1750 calories - I'll experiment until I find it).

Yea, generally speaking you should be running a surplus if muscle growth is the goal. Of course there are many examples of people who add muscle while dieting. But in theory, you can't create something out of nothing so in order to fuel the cellular processes that go into muscle growth, you need to eat.

Although I've been doing some strength training (15-25 minutes 4-5 times a week, after my cardio) and I've been slowly upping my reps to 15 in a set then upping my weight and lowering reps back down to 8 (so I know I'm making some sort of progress) I wouldn't exactly call myself dedicated

Eventually your emphasis should start to shift from the conditioning side of things to the strength training side of things. Of course keeping some semblance of conditioning work in the mix is a good idea... but it shouldn't be prioritized in my opinion unless you need a very high level of conditioning for a sport or job.

Remember, this is all about compromises. Our bodies have a limited ability to manage stress.

For someone who has only been gymming for 6 months but will be new to taking strength training seriously, what kind of time do you think I should be spending on weights?

Sorry, I'm replying as I read along. Bad habit of mine! You can disregard what I said above, lol.

I know that's probably a hard question to answer, but looking at the women on the cardio machines versus the women on the mats I can see that to get the look I want (nice and toned) I should be changing how I'm spending my time, cutting down on the cardio (atm it's 40-50 minutes, usually high intensity 5-6 times a week). Any ideas?

Smart lady. Most women are too married to the concept of logging mile after mile on the treadmill to objectively look around and deduce that "to get different results I need to try different things."

Good on you.

Very generally speaking, 3-4 days per week would be ideal. Ideally you're hitting each major muscle group at least twice per week.

Definitely read this from my blog as it pertains to you very much:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/stroutman81/view/resistance-training-foundation-19725

Might as well read this one too:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/stroutman81/view/more-random-thoughts-on-resistance-training-19945

Thank you for your help! The blogs were great

So if I did something like the following...
A: 2 tricep exercises, 1 bicep, shoulder and chest exercise (each), lat pulldown, pushups
B: Squats, lunges, glute kickback, leg press, leg extension, abductor (is that the inner thigh one? if not, adductor)
C: 2 oblique and 2 ab exercises, supermans/hyperextensions

adjusting the sets weights and reps as I progress, doing A and B twice and week and C once a week would that be alright? Any suggestions? I know things like deadlifts and rows are really important exercises but I can't do them with good form! (my squat form is still a bit dodgy..) I think I need to strengthen my quads and lower back first (according to the coaches at the gym anyway)

Thanks so much for your time :happy:

bodyrocks365 · February 2011

Thank you for this post, it is really helpful. I spoke with a nutritionist who told me about the water 'weight' and imbalances. I know cognitively that the scale saying a number isn't my body composition, but it's so hard to break that idea. I probably would gain 5lbs if I got leaner, I have very little muscle tone and leaner is where I want to be.

stroutman81 · February 2011

Thank you for your help! The blogs were great

Glad you enjoyed. And for anyone following a long with this thread... if you've not read those links, be sure to do so. I get loads of emails from people about this thread and if they had read those two links, they would have had the answers to their questions before emailing me.

Not that I mind receiving emails.

So if I did something like the following...
A: 2 tricep exercises, 1 bicep, shoulder and chest exercise (each), lat pulldown, pushups
B: Squats, lunges, glute kickback, leg press, leg extension, abductor (is that the inner thigh one? if not, adductor)
C: 2 oblique and 2 ab exercises, supermans/hyperextensions

Hmmm, I can't say I'm a fan of your exercise selection and priority. To be specific... you've too much redundancy and isolation type movements.

Put it this way... beginners who come to train with me at my gym might get placed on something like this:

Day 1:

Squat
Bench
Row
Core

Day 2:

Squat
Bench
Row
Core

Seriously. That's how simple some of my programming is. They don't need, for instance, squats, leg extensions, adduction and abduction, etc. Squats hit everything already and as long as you do sufficient volume with them... why do anything else. More is not always better and you certainly don't have to hit muscles from a multitude of angles to get them to grow. That's "bro science" handed down from years of steroid using bodybuilders.

Granted, the above program isn't sexy. But when applied correctly and paired with individualized prehad/rehab stuff... it gets people healthier and more mobile as well as stronger and leaner.

One of the most popular, time tested programs out there goes by the name of 5x5. You can read its history here and notice how simplistic it is:

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/training/the-5x5-program.html

I'm not saying that you need to go and follow 5x5... but I'm trying to get you to see what basic strength training looks like.

adjusting the sets weights and reps as I progress, doing A and B twice and week and C once a week would that be alright?

Are you saying A gets done twice per week and B gets done twice per week? Please clarify.

Any suggestions? I know things like deadlifts and rows are really important exercises but I can't do them with good form! (my squat form is still a bit dodgy..) I think I need to strengthen my quads and lower back first (according to the coaches at the gym anyway)

I've people send me videos of them executing exercises all of the time. It's how I go about some of my online personal training to assess the form of my clients. If you're up to filming yourself, you can surely send me it for review. If you upload to something like youtube, you can make the video unlisted to anyone except those who have the link.

I can typically trouble shoot most issues I see with good video. If that's something you'd consider, drop me an email on here.

If not, no big deal.

I agree though, if you can't do something right don't do it at all. It's so much easier to learn correctly from the get go than it is to learn over top of a wrongly learned movement pattern that has been ingrained.

cris12 · February 2011

Wow... I sincerely applaud you for your commitment to helping people out on here. I read 8 pages of this in one sitting and am so happy I found this.

Well thanks. This is fun for me. I mean the most I have in front of me at my gym is 20-30 people when I'm training teams and they're on autopilot for the most part. It's neat being able to reach so many people at once using this medium of exchange.

I knew I needed something more than cardio to get these 10 lbs off of me, so I started looking into strength straining, slightly afraid of bulking up, but knowing if I ever started to look too bulky I could just stop.

Heck, I've had female clients coming to me begging me to help them get the last 5-10 lbs off of them. Fast forward 1 year and often times they're heavier then when they came to me and happier than they could have ever imagined. Mind you, these are the relatively small women who come to me looking to "tone up" as they like to say. But the fact remains... by and large this is the experience they have.

I've started to do exercises targeting my whole body (core, chest, back, arms, quads, calves, glutes & hamstrings) - like you, I've never believed in heavily marketed packages for the masses, since everyone is different. Most of my workout relies on body weight and a pair of 2.5 lb dumbbells, since I don't have access to a gym for now.

As far as my workout routine goes, I know I need to invest on heavier dumbbells (it's already too easy to do 12 reps, and I end up doing 24 to make up for it). I usually warm up pre-workout and jog 1 mi on the treadmill post-workout (it takes me about 15 mins, sometimes stopping for brisk walking breaks). The whole deal takes me an hour and a half, depending.

At the very least, if a gym membership isn't in your future anytime soon, I'd pick up some adjustable dumbbells. There are some very expensive sets out there, but I know I've seen a set at ****s Sporting Goods for a reasonable price. Here's a link:

http://www.****ssportinggoods.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2173649

Not the greatest but they'll do the trick for the time being.

The problem with sticking with a very light weigh and adding more volume with it is this - our bodies require a stress above and beyond what they're accustomed to to elicit change. Right? We force our bodies to change for the better hopefully by making it keep up with an ever-increasing challenging environment (the gym, the treadmill, or whatever).

In research, rank novices have shown increased leg muscle size simply by walking. But that's because moving their own body weight walking was sufficient enough (overloading enough) at the time to warrant biological changes within the muscle cells. Eventually, once their body "catches up" or adapts to that overload, walking will no longer provide enough of a challenge to justify further change in regards to muscle cell size.

So right now you don't have the ability to increase load since you've static dumbbells. I'd argue you could find ways to make certain exercises more challenging but lets not go down that road right now. So in its stead, you're increasing volume or reps. Here's the issue with that...

Not only do you need to overload the body - the overload also has to be specific if particular adaptations are to be realized. Meaning, we can't go out and run further and further and expect to grow lots of muscle simply b/c we're increasing the challenge to our bodies. Sure, something is adapting since we're progressively overloading our bodies by running further... but that overload isn't specific to muscle size. What's changing in this example? Our bodies are becoming more aerobic centrally and locally - meaning our hearts getting bigger, it's pumping more blood, it's beating slower at rest, out cardiorespiratory systems are getting more efficient and effective at delivering oxygen to the muscles and removing waste byproducts, etc, etc.

In terms of hypertrophy (the growth of muscle cells), not only do you need to be lifting weights (which generates tension in the muscle), you need to be lifting sufficiently heavy weights. If you're not, the only thing you can do is do more reps, as you are, with the same load and eventually this turns into an endurance exercise. You might derive adaptations (such as better oxidative qualities of the muscle being trained) but that's not going to do much of anything for you in terms of muscle growth.

Which, I might add, is what most relatively light women looking to get leaner are looking for, unbeknownst to them.

Rambling a bit... but hopefully you followed that logic. If not, simply say so and I'll try and explain it differently.

(background info: I'm 22, 5'2", and 123 lbs. I have a small frame and have been retaining fat waist-down, so all I want is to lose the lovehandles and thigh fat, although numbers on the scale are satisfying, I just want results)

Welcome to being female, lol.

Unfortunately thanks to the evolutionary course we, as humans, took (not so unfortunate since we're still alive, lol), women generally have biological differences of where particularly stubborn fat cells reside - generally hips, booty, and thighs.

As far as nutrition goes, I did start counting calories MFP-style, and thought (naively) 1,200 cal. makes sense for me. I was slightly confused as to what my maintenance levels would be. I saw your calculations and calculated 123 x 14 = 1722 cals, so for a deficit I calculated 1476 cals (123 x 12). So, from my understanding, I need to stay within 1400 cals in order to be losing fat. Am I on the right track? I've always felt smaller people naturally need to eat less, and I am small.

Smaller people definitely need to eat less.

Read the above post of mine about the process.

14 calories per pound for calculating maintenance works out for many people. For others though (due to lifestyles, non-exercise activity thermogenesis levels, genetics, etc), their actual maintenance is higher or lower. For females who are light, in general, it tends to be a bit lower. Especially if they've a history of dieting.

But no reason for concern, if you read the process. The process will fix it in 2-4 weeks. If things aren't changing in the right direction and you can honestly say you were accurate and consistent, you know, more than likely, that 14 was too high for you and you need to bump it down.

I'd say for most people 10 calories per pound tends to be the sweet spot in my experience.

Makes a lot of sense, so just making more repetitions of the same thing will just have the muscle adapt to those small bits of tension, instead of adapting to larger bits of tension. The way I'm seeing it is if you yank something elastic with a bigger force, it would take fewer repetitions to make it stretch out than if you're just doing small yanks over and over which would be inefficient. I'll look into those adjustable dumbbells, $50 does seem reasonable.

So say I start at a middle ground and use 12 calories per pound for now, that would set me at 1400 for maintenance so I could stay at 1200 for deficit. Would those 200 really make that much of a difference? Right now eating 1400 and exercising 200 seems easy, almost more or less what I've been doing already (and have lost 4 lbs give or take). Granted I still have to modify what sorts of things I eat... but this I'm aware of.

stroutman81 · February 2011

Makes a lot of sense, so just making more repetitions of the same thing will just have the muscle adapt to those small bits of tension, instead of adapting to larger bits of tension.

Well sort of.

You have to define the adaptation you're talking about or seeking.

In the case of muscle growth, there are a number of parameters that must be met. One of them, the most important, is something known as tension overload. When we "ask" our muscles to overcome an external force, tension is created similar to a stretched rubber band in our muscles.

There's also a threshold of tension (generally expressed as intensity defined by % of maximum effort in a particular movement) that must be met or surpassed in order to trigger muscular growth. Which is why once your body adapted to the 2.5 lb dumbbells.... doing reps until you're blue in the face isn't going to do much as far as getting you over this tension threshold.

Which is why progressive overload is required.

Granted, there are many ways of overloading the muscles besides increasing the load. But by and large, this is the primary mechanism.

And like I was saying, doing high rep, light weight lifting will elicit adaptations assuming they're above various thresholds. But that's just it - all adaptations have their own unique thresholds and specific stress applications that they need in order to be realized. High rep, light weight lifting is best suited for adaptations associated with local muscular endurance - not strength and/or muscle growth.

Does that make any better sense?

The way I'm seeing it is if you yank something elastic with a bigger force, it would take fewer repetitions to make it stretch out than if you're just doing small yanks over and over which would be inefficient. I'll look into those adjustable dumbbells, $50 does seem reasonable.

Replying as I read along, but you're on the right tack as far as your thinking goes.

To improve your example... follow this line of thinking. You say "a bigger force would take fewer repetitions to stretch out the rubber band." And that's right. But the logical progression from that statement would imply something like, "so a smaller force would require more repetitions to stretch out that same rubber band."

And that's not the case. The smaller force would never stretch out that band as it's below the threshold I discussed above.

It's better to think of it not in terms of repetitions but as tension alone. Picture a very thick rubber band hanging from a hook. If you tie the other end to a 50 lb dumbbell, it stretches. If you tie a 10 lb dumbbell to the other end though, it does not. In this example the stretch is required for strength and mass to increase. And no matter how many times you tie that 10 lb dumbbell to the end of the band, it's not going to stretch.

Make better sense?

Now you are onto something though. Intensity and volume are inversely related. Think of intensity as weight on the bar and volume as reps per set. The heavier the weight, the lower the reps and the lighter the weight, the higher the reps. We can use this logic to conclude that we want to be using weights in any given exercise that keep us in the 6-12 rep range, generally speaking, assuming muscle growth is the goal.

And you don't want to be going so heavy that you're failing either.

So say I start at a middle ground and use 12 calories per pound for now, that would set me at 1400 for maintenance so I could stay at 1200 for deficit. Would those 200 really make that much of a difference? Right now eating 1400 and exercising 200 seems easy, almost more or less what I've been doing already (and have lost 4 lbs give or take). Granted I still have to modify what sorts of things I eat... but this I'm aware of.

Here's one of the most important things I'm trying to get across to people in this thread. Calculations and estimations should not be dictating which direction you take your calories. The process I defined above should. If you're moving toward your goals (per the tracking mentioned above) at a reasonable rate, don't consider moving your calories simply because some formula says you should be eating X.

For starters, the formula may not fit you well. Secondly, your estimations of intake and expenditure may be significantly "off." Which is why you can't make judgment calls based what should or shouldn't be - you can only do that based on what's really happening.

I've female clients, for example, who swear they're eating 1200 calories. They're maintenance cals are around 2000. And the long term trends in data show they've lost nowhere near what they should have if they were truly eating 1200 calories, implying they're eating much higher, but still in enough of a deficit to trigger about a 1% rate of body weight loss per week.

I'm not going to tell them to eat more since they're "eating 1200" and by my calculations should be eating more. For all I know they're really eating 1500 and bumping them up would throw them too close to maintenance to realize any sort of progress.

Catch my drift?

Oh, and you asked will 200 calories really make a difference? Well, to put it succinctly, yes. The smaller you are, the more significant and impacting calorie variations become. Which is why for small women, like yourself, it's usually not the "starvation mode" that's causing them to stall in weight loss. Rather, it's some seemingly small oversight in calorie consumption that keeps them too close to their maintenance.

When you're 300 lbs with a maintenance of 4000+ calories per day... small oversights won't make that much a difference. When your maintenance is under 1500 though... all of a sudden small variances really matter. You've less room to wiggle so to speak.

Debx12345 · February 2011

Hi

I've been reading through most of this thread, and would like some advice please, if that's ok.

I'm 43 years old, 130 lbs, 5'2", I've given up trying to lose a few more pounds, so ditching my scales as they so demotivated me. My body fat is coming out as 33.7 at the gym and at home. I want to tone up and reduce body fat. At current I have set my goal at 1370 cals per day (set mfp to lose 1/2 a week). I try and do some sort of workout each day, gym three times a week and then the rest is cardio, like turbo jam. Burning about 200-300 cals each time. So do I eat my cals burned as well ? Do I need to burn more cals.

Just looking for the right direction to get that body fat down and tone up.

Oh and thoughts on protein shakes please.

If you get to read this and give me a few tips that would be great.

stroutman81 · February 2011

Hi

I've been reading through most of this thread, and would like some advice please, if that's ok.

I'm 43 years old, 130 lbs, 5'2", I've given up trying to lose a few more pounds, so ditching my scales as they so demotivated me. My body fat is coming out as 33.7 at the gym and at home. I want to tone up and reduce body fat. At current I have set my goal at 1370 cals per day (set mfp to lose 1/2 a week). I try and do some sort of workout each day, gym three times a week and then the rest is cardio, like turbo jam. Burning about 200-300 cals each time. So do I eat my cals burned as well ? Do I need to burn more cals.

Just looking for the right direction to get that body fat down and tone up.

On the topic of eating back your exercise calories, I've discussed this extensively in this thread and others. The gist is this:

There's obviously a lot of confusion with the concept of eating your exercise calories back and to be honest, there isn't a universally accepted answer.

Probably because it truly does depend.

Let's try to make this real simple:

Maintenance is where calories in = calories out, right?

We know that a calorie deficit is required if fat is to be lost, so calories in < calories out.

Large deficits can have negative effects such as increased cravings, muscle loss, irritability, unsustainability (I made that word up), etc.

So we want a moderate deficit, which I'd label as 20-35% off of your maintenance.

So if your maintenance is 2000 calories, anywhere from 1300 to 1600 calories would be realistic for fat loss.

That's a deficit of 400-700 calories per day.

Said deficit, in theory, could come from many, many combination of factors.

On one end of the spectrum you could simply eat 400-700 calories less per day.

On the other end of the spectrum you could keep eating 2000 calories but increase calories expended via exercise to 400-700 calories per day.

If you went with this later scenario, you wouldn't have to eat back your exercise calories because the expended calories from exercise put you in the sweet spot, calorically speaking.

Now if you cut calories by 400-700 AND increased activity by 400-700, then you'd be running too large a deficit unless you ate back your exercise calories.

Follow that logic?

All of this confusion is why I don't allow my clients to worry about how many calories they expended. I set a sane amount of exercise for their individual goals and I set what should be a proper deficit based on reasonable estimations. If, using the process above, things are heading in the right direction, I simply alter calorie intake as needed using minor adjustments.

With your stats I'd be aiming for around 1300 calories per day for starters. That should be adjusted on an as-needed basis based on results.

I'd be doing conditioning work 3-6 times per week.

I'd be doing resistance training 2-3 times per week as described above.

Then I'd be patient and consistent.

Oh and thoughts on protein shakes please.

What specifically are you asking?

They're a fine supplement. No magic. They're just protein. If you get sufficient amounts of it in your diet from whole foods, you don't need powders. If you don't and you're having problems getting it, then adding a protein powder is a great solution. I eat protein powder because on most days I've an insane schedule.

You can get into the different kinds, speed of digestion, etc. but that's futile if you ask me.

cris12 · February 2011

Makes a lot of sense, so just making more repetitions of the same thing will just have the muscle adapt to those small bits of tension, instead of adapting to larger bits of tension.

Well sort of.

You have to define the adaptation you're talking about or seeking.

In the case of muscle growth, there are a number of parameters that must be met. One of them, the most important, is something known as tension overload. When we "ask" our muscles to overcome an external force, tension is created similar to a stretched rubber band in our muscles.

There's also a threshold of tension (generally expressed as intensity defined by % of maximum effort in a particular movement) that must be met or surpassed in order to trigger muscular growth. Which is why once your body adapted to the 2.5 lb dumbbells.... doing reps until you're blue in the face isn't going to do much as far as getting you over this tension threshold.

Which is why progressive overload is required.

Granted, there are many ways of overloading the muscles besides increasing the load. But by and large, this is the primary mechanism.

And like I was saying, doing high rep, light weight lifting will elicit adaptations assuming they're above various thresholds. But that's just it - all adaptations have their own unique thresholds and specific stress applications that they need in order to be realized. High rep, light weight lifting is best suited for adaptations associated with local muscular endurance - not strength and/or muscle growth.

Does that make any better sense?

The way I'm seeing it is if you yank something elastic with a bigger force, it would take fewer repetitions to make it stretch out than if you're just doing small yanks over and over which would be inefficient. I'll look into those adjustable dumbbells, $50 does seem reasonable.

Replying as I read along, but you're on the right tack as far as your thinking goes.

To improve your example... follow this line of thinking. You say "a bigger force would take fewer repetitions to stretch out the rubber band." And that's right. But the logical progression from that statement would imply something like, "so a smaller force would require more repetitions to stretch out that same rubber band."

And that's not the case. The smaller force would never stretch out that band as it's below the threshold I discussed above.

It's better to think of it not in terms of repetitions but as tension alone. Picture a very thick rubber band hanging from a hook. If you tie the other end to a 50 lb dumbbell, it stretches. If you tie a 10 lb dumbbell to the other end though, it does not. In this example the stretch is required for strength and mass to increase. And no matter how many times you tie that 10 lb dumbbell to the end of the band, it's not going to stretch.

Make better sense?

Now you are onto something though. Intensity and volume are inversely related. Think of intensity as weight on the bar and volume as reps per set. The heavier the weight, the lower the reps and the lighter the weight, the higher the reps. We can use this logic to conclude that we want to be using weights in any given exercise that keep us in the 6-12 rep range, generally speaking, assuming muscle growth is the goal.

And you don't want to be going so heavy that you're failing either.

So say I start at a middle ground and use 12 calories per pound for now, that would set me at 1400 for maintenance so I could stay at 1200 for deficit. Would those 200 really make that much of a difference? Right now eating 1400 and exercising 200 seems easy, almost more or less what I've been doing already (and have lost 4 lbs give or take). Granted I still have to modify what sorts of things I eat... but this I'm aware of.

Here's one of the most important things I'm trying to get across to people in this thread. Calculations and estimations should not be dictating which direction you take your calories. The process I defined above should. If you're moving toward your goals (per the tracking mentioned above) at a reasonable rate, don't consider moving your calories simply because some formula says you should be eating X.

For starters, the formula may not fit you well. Secondly, your estimations of intake and expenditure may be significantly "off." Which is why you can't make judgment calls based what should or shouldn't be - you can only do that based on what's really happening.

I've female clients, for example, who swear they're eating 1200 calories. They're maintenance cals are around 2000. And the long term trends in data show they've lost nowhere near what they should have if they were truly eating 1200 calories, implying they're eating much higher, but still in enough of a deficit to trigger about a 1% rate of body weight loss per week.

I'm not going to tell them to eat more since they're "eating 1200" and by my calculations should be eating more. For all I know they're really eating 1500 and bumping them up would throw them too close to maintenance to realize any sort of progress.

Catch my drift?

Oh, and you asked will 200 calories really make a difference? Well, to put it succinctly, yes. The smaller you are, the more significant and impacting calorie variations become. Which is why for small women, like yourself, it's usually not the "starvation mode" that's causing them to stall in weight loss. Rather, it's some seemingly small oversight in calorie consumption that keeps them too close to their maintenance.

When you're 300 lbs with a maintenance of 4000+ calories per day... small oversights won't make that much a difference. When your maintenance is under 1500 though... all of a sudden small variances really matter. You've less room to wiggle so to speak.

Yep, so any weight that allows me to do 6-12 reps would be doing the trick, any less would be too heavy and any more would be too light for muscle growth. So say I keep increasing my weights over time as needed, and three months from now I finally have ''toned up'' to my desire and wouldn't want muscles to get any larger, would I then need to stop increasing my weights? Or do hormones take care of the female non-bulkiness?

Calories calories... it does make sense that it is too inaccurate to tell how much I'm actually consuming. So what I'm catching is to play it by ear and continue strength training, if there is progress then I'm at the right deficit range, and should just calculate 400-700 cal. more for maintenance, probably lower in the range because of my size. I could stay at ''1200'' for deficit since it has been working so far and continue from there. If I feel tired/irritable/hungry then I know I'm consuming too little and it could be slowing down the process. Hm.... on the right track?

stroutman81 · February 2011

Yep, so any weight that allows me to do 6-12 reps would be doing the trick, any less would be too heavy and any more would be too light for muscle growth.

Not absolutely but it's a good rule to follow.

I'll have of my clients go heavier, and thus use lower reps. I linked above to a classic workout that goes by The 5x5 Program, which means 5 sets of 5 reps. There can be utility in going heavier... but most people around here probably shouldn't venture into that territory unless they've significant experience "under the bar" and they've confirmed that their form is safe.

Newcomers can also get away going lighter, and thus using higher reps. Here's why. That tension threshold I mentioned above, in itself, is adaptable. So the threshold is lower in novices and raises with experience and strength. So where a novice may be able to generate muscle growth using a load that's 35% of her maximum ability, a more seasoned lifter might need 80% or more for the same adaptation.

So there are no absolutes, but again, a good general rule.

So say I keep increasing my weights over time as needed, and three months from now I finally have ''toned up'' to my desire and wouldn't want muscles to get any larger, would I then need to stop increasing my weights? Or do hormones take care of the female non-bulkiness?

The latter. You're not going to bulk up like that. But suppose you did because you have some freaky genetics going on... then yea, you'd simply move to maintenance loads where you're not focusing on getting stronger. I doubt you'll have to worry about it.

Calories calories... it does make sense that it is too inaccurate to tell how much I'm actually consuming. So what I'm catching is to play it by ear and continue strength training, if there is progress then I'm at the right deficit range, and should just calculate 400-700 cal. more for maintenance, probably lower in the range because of my size. I could stay at ''1200'' for deficit since it has been working so far and continue from there. If I feel tired/irritable/hungry then I know I'm consuming too little and it could be slowing down the process. Hm.... on the right track?

I'd say you're on the right track.

kimi233 · February 2011

Wow, this post is great!! You are a great person helping out all of us. I need to go through here and read more, I read your very first post and it hits right at home. I'm down to my last 5 pounds or so, and its been a struggle and very frustrating!!

Relatively light people trying to get leaner

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