How did you get so skinny?? (ladies only)

I've been doing pretty well with my fitness lately. I've been eating 1200 calories a day as often as I can (with a couple cheat days on the weekends) and workout around 5 times a week. I do cardio, boxing, and weight lifting. I have more endurance, can run faster, have lost inches, gained muscle, and best of all, feel great! I still have a lot more work to do to get where I want, and sometimes I'm a little lost as to what I need to do to get there.

You need to eat more than 1200 calories, especially with all that cardio and lifting you are doing. Can't give you an exact number since your height/weight isn't given but look up IPOARM : http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/654536-in-place-of-a-road-map-2-0-revised-7-2-12

Every one and each body is different depending on build and past but since you ask, this is what I do:

• Priority is lifting heavy with compound movements 3 days a week - assists if I have time.
• Cardio (Spin class, run sprint intervals, run steady 3-4 miles, skiing, hiking, etc) 0-3 times a week. Depends on how my body/mind feels and don't feel guilty if I can't do anything on these days.
• Sleep - at least 7 hours a night. I stay on schedule even during the weekend (sometimes stinks when I want to sleep past 7 or 8 on a Sat/Sun and can't!) so that I'm not thrown off once Monday comes as I wake up at 5am to train.
• Eat whole, clean foods for most of my meals and snacks during the work week when I practice intermittent fasting (14-hr fast broken at lunch). I logged food for a couple of years and that kind of made me neurotic so I stopped. Practicing IF over the last 6 months has really taught me about what real hunger feels like and has given me an incredible insight into intuitive eating. When I did track cals and macros I think I kept at 1750, 20/20/60.
• Allow myself to eat processed foods every once in a while. The husband and I eat out once during the week and from Friday afternoon to Sunday morning, I allow myself anything that I want. This keeps me sane during the week. I drink a lot of high alcohol beer and wine and it's not uncommon for me to put down some deep dish pizza or a pint of B&js every week or so.

Congrats on the progress!! Up your cals and focus a little more on lifting, easing up on the cardio. Give it a couple months and see how your body responds. Track everything from weight, bf%, reps/weight, etc and then re-*kitten*. I'm a huge Excel chart nerd and it's super helpful and cool to see progress this way.

1. Lift
2. Protein
3.?????
4. Profit!

But seriously, just lift and eat protein.

Same here with eating 1800 to 2300 calories, 100 grams of protein. Lifting weights. No running for me. I dance and do yoga.

How do you manage your protein vs. carbs? I have been playing around lately with monitoring how many grams of protein I am getting and am finding that the more I get complex carbs from non-starchy vegetables (cucumbers, celery, fresh green leaves, etc.) and focus on eating lean protein, I am losing weight more easily and not craving the carbs as much (unhealthy carbs, like bread, pasta, etc.).