Before & After - 2 mo. Pic TDEE-20% & Lifting Heavy

Melissa22G

Great job! Love your progress! Keep it up girlfriend!

earvizu92

YOu look amazing!! Good job!! :flowerforyou:

justjenny

Congrats on your progress!

bzmom

Congrats!! Keep up the good work!

Quick question how many times a week and how log do you lift for? and what is your height?

Healthy_4_Life2

You look amazing!! I wish more people realize that they don't have to starve themselves in order to lose weight!!

MumOfADuo

love it! helloitsdan is AMAZING!!!! Everyone MUST read his roadmap plan!!!!!! Check out his page and read his blog!!!!!

taylorckt1

Congrats!

JenRun1

Amazing progress. Congrats to you for trying something new! It paid off, thats for sure.

OtiWanKenobi

Wow... love the responses. thank you so much!

I'll try to answer everyone's questions....

I followed "helloitsdan" In Place of a Roadmap otherwise known on here at IPOARM.

I did read the whole book "New Rules of Lifting for Women", however, for me I found it to be too restrictive and hard to follow for some reason as I'm a person that loves to run. HOWEVER, it's a great book to read if you're just starting out because it gives you a lot of background of how lifting works and it's easy to read. I do recommend you read this because it may work for you and if not at least you'll gain knowledge and confidence.

I ended up following Jamie Eason's livefit plan which is free. I followed her plan but modified in the sense that I ran on one or two of the rest days in the first phase. I also didn't go by her diet...followed my own, but with some of her tips and recipes.
I found her plan easy to follow and she also post pics and videos of the sets in case you're not sure of the proper form.

I also went to my personal friends who lift for advice and encouragement as this was really scary and intimidating for me.

***I GAINED WEIGHT THE FIRST TWO WEEKS. After raising my calories I gained and I was discouraged. HIDE THE SCALE!!! My husband hid it from me while I was at work. So be patient, you're body will eventually let go. IT TOOK A MONTH TO SEE AND FEEL ANY CHANGES (**this was the case for me because I was eating at high deficit for over a year!!!). & if you're lifting weights you definitely don't want to weigh yourself everyday because your muscles repair themselves by retaining water and glycogen.

Make sure you take measurement and pictures. You really don't notice the changes until you see it in pictures. I found a great app on the iPhone called Body Shot that helps keep track of your measurements and pics and does the whole comparison thing for you.

I work out at my home gym where I have several heavy hand weights and I work out at my work gym...they have free weights, a smith machine, etc.

However, right now I'm in the process of finding a local gym that has all free weights because as I've been learning from other lifters is that the smith machine doesn't give you the full benefit because you're not learning how to balance the bar when squatting or pressing.

I was actually kind of shocked at how quickly my body changed. I was working out 5 days a week, doing rigorous exercises where I was burning like 500 - 700 cals and hour and my body just did not want to budge. Now I workout 1/2 as much.

I think a combo of eating more and lifting definitely got my metabolism going. I'm much more happier now that I am eating more because I see it as fuel not as something to fear.

Hope this helps some of y'all!

melaniecmajors

Check out this program - stronglifts.com 5x5 I just switched to TDEE and this program. I haven't gained any weight in fact today I lost 1.5 lbs. It's really easy to do and you won't have to spend a lot of time in the gym.

RobinsEgg

Thank you so much - you're quite an inspiration!

pilarter

I have a question here, because I don´t like lifting heavy. I read that lifting lighter would eventually work out well too, and I really love cardio. I am at a stall for the last 4-5 weeks. I recently purchased a Fitbit Zip (10 days ago) and since then I am eating at TDEE -20%.
The question is: Would this work for me, not lifting heavy, just very light weight, and doing lots of cardio? Do I have to lift heavy if I only want to lose 5 more pounds and decrease 5% BF?

OtiWanKenobi

Check out this program - stronglifts.com 5x5 I just switched to TDEE and this program. I haven't gained any weight in fact today I lost 1.5 lbs. It's really easy to do and you won't have to spend a lot of time in the gym.

I will. I'm currently looking into starting strength which seems to be a similar program. Thanks for the tip!

OtiWanKenobi

I have a question here, because I don´t like lifting heavy. I read that lifting lighter would eventually work out well too, and I really love cardio. I am at a stall for the last 4-5 weeks. I recently purchased a Fitbit Zip (10 days ago) and since then I am eating at TDEE -20%.
The question is: Would this work for me, not lifting heavy, just very light weight, and doing lots of cardio? Do I have to lift heavy if I only want to lose 5 more pounds and decrease 5% BF?

Well you should lose weight with TDEE-20% and working out regardless. I say try the light weights and more reps and see how that works for you. I've heard and from personal experience that it does help with endurance. That's the type of workout I was doing before I started lifting weights.

I did a lot of cardio ( running long distances, yoga sculpt which is like insanity with yoga and 5lb weights, ryder -spinning class). So I will say that it did build my endurance. But because I was at such a high deficit I wasn't seeing the weight come off. I would do an hour or more of each 5 times a week. my arms and legs were still flabby...jiggly.

I started lifting weights because I wanted to become stronger and lose body fat. I also wanted to tone my arms and lose the flab. After lots of researching I learned that in order to lose body fat, I needed to build muscle and the only way to do that was to lift heavy and to lift heavy you need to eat more, etc.

My personal advice is to try it for several weeks and see how it works for you! The key here is to eat more to properly fuel your body for those exercises.

Naturally_EB

Congrats on your success so far! :flowerforyou: Your story is very motivating!

I've recently started eating my TDEE-20% as well. It's only been a week and I'm very nervous that I won't see any results. Usually, I would go to the gym and only focus on cardio 3x/ week, but now I know I was going about everything all wrong. I'm now determined to incorporate strength training into my regimen 3-4x/week with some cardio after I train.

angy67

Thank you so much for posting and congrats on your progress!! I feel that the same has been happening to me. I have eaten too little for too long trying to lose and only to stay the same or gain while working out hard!! I am on week two of eating 20% of my TEE feeling leaner and better all around. Congrats to you for keeping the faith and trying something new You look great!!

gangstagirl625

what is TDEE it is driving me crazy that i don't know what it stands for????? plz help

nagniho

what is TDEE it is driving me crazy that i don't know what it stands for????? plz help

TDEE stands for Total daily Energy Expenditure

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/654536-in-place-of-a-road-map-2-0-revised-7-2-12

257_Lag

HA! You rock woman!

snowmanluv

Thanks for posting especially this pics. I started with the lower numbers not losing any. I went to tdee and gained after 1 1/2 weeks. I was a little discouraged but I didn't know about the learning curve per say. Had a friend lose 22 with way, way low numbers. . I went back down to 1200 with 20-25% fat. Lots of people have lost tons of weight eating 1500-1700 calories and working out. (50-100 pounds lost). It can be done.