Calling all female lifters.....

ruggedBear

Just finishing up stage 1 of NROLFW, after having spent over a year with a personal trainer doing everything from running, biking and hiking to kettlebells, sandbags, ropes and TRX bands. A solid mix of 3 days strength training, and 3 days cardio every week. I lost almost 70 pounds in the first year, and started lifting to finally trash the remaining 10-15 pounds of fat without losing any of the hard-won muscle. I tackled NROLFW on my own after my last training sessions where I was coached on many of the lifts I would be doing.

I lift M/W/F, run 4-5 miles T/Th and take a 75 minute yoga class on Sundays.

I am 44, 5'2" and about 164 lbs. I eat 1800-2000 calories per day, averaging 110g of protein per day, the rest is balanced between fats and carbs.

I've been on this routine for about a month, and have not had any trouble dumping the holiday weight gain and losing an inch off my waist and hips.

For the sake of perspective - here are the stats from my last workout (weight values are from the last set completed (6-8 reps):

Warm-up: Running (HIIT - 1min@7 or 8 mph, 2 min@5mph, 12 minutes total)
Deadlift: 145
Dumbbell Shoulder Press: 60 (30 each arm)
Lunges: 60 (30 each arm)
Lat Pull down: 90
Swiss Ball Crunches (with a 12lb medicine ball overhead): 3 sets of 20
Finisher: Running (HIIT, same as above, 22 minutes - some days I finish this, rest for 5 minutes, then run another 2 miles at an easy pace)
Yoga streches: 10 minutes

Muscles_Curves

*peaks in to see the women lifters*

Procrastinates at work to stare at your abs.

BTW: Matt_Wild I would love some advice. I'm trying to cut body fat and build muscle.

letjog

This does not compute!

I eat very varied number of calories depending on how hungry or fat i feel, ranging from 1100-2500 caories per day. Always high protein.

Neither does this!

Agreed.

How can one build muscle with a deficit in calories?

I'm not claiming to have the perfect calorie intake. Some days I eat at a defecit, if I'm feeling like I need to lose more fat. The days I eat towards 2500 are because I've been snacking on biscuits at work... so not ideal for bulking either. I know what i'm doing wrong but can't plan myself to eat excess right at the moment. Maybe one day. Until then I will have to make do with not building too much muscle at all due to insufficient calorie intake. I have made great changes though so far (as in - bigger quads, biceps and better definition). And my protein intake is always around 150g/day, so a good start.

Kelly_Runs_NC

My macros are 40-40-20 and I lift 6x a week with 30 mins of cardio 6x a weeks. I eat about 1800 cals a day. I get good resutls

sarahaldinger

I'm just starting to get into a cycle routine. (This topic has greatly helped me to develop how I want to go about it!)
Currently, I work out 4-5 times a week.

25 minutes cardio
30-45 minutes full body lifting

I'd love to have some other lifting friends for motivation and advice. Feel free to add me!

kmsairam

I started lifting heavy in September following the New Rules of Lifting for Women. I initially lifted 3X/week, for about 40 minutes each time (with a 10 minute warm-up). I didn't do much else and lost weight doing that. In December, I switched to 2X/week lifting and 2-3X/week running with one of those being HIIT. I like to exercise as little as possible and quite honeslty aside from lifting, 2X/week right now (60-75 minutes/session), nothing else is set in stone (even though I'm supposed to be training for a 1/2 marathon).

With that semi-routine of exercising 3-4 days/week, I've steadily lost 20 lbs since I started lifting heavy. And I can also lift real heavy stuff now, which is cool.

Oh, I eat 1550/day on non-lift days and eat back my exercise calories on lift days (so 1750 or more).