Question for Ladies who lift

FitChick_40 wrote: »

Hi,

I am very new to lifting and am following Jamie Eason's LiveFit program at the moment, but am not super content with it. I have following questions for you guys:

1. Do you use a program?
- if yes, which?
- if no, what exercises to you do?

2. If you are cutting or for newbies just started out losing weight, what are your macros. (please tell me, if the macros ably to you as fit, overweight or obese. I am obese.)

3. What calorie deficit did you use? Again for losing weight/fat. I am eating 1440 kcals right now. Is that too high?

4. How much weight did you lose in your first 3 months? I am 6 weeks in and have only lost 2 kg / 4.4 lbs.

5. Any tips to accelerate my weight loss?

Thank you very much for your help.

1. I follow Wendler's 5/3/1 program. My plan is loosely based on the simplest strength template but doesn't follow it exactly. I did Strong Curves (great program) earlier this year and like a lot of the glute-specific exercises like barbell hip thrusts and glute bridges so I include them. Right now I'm doing:
- Squat day: squat, walking lunges, hip thrusts, RDL/leg curl supersets
- OHP day: overhead press, underhand lat pull downs, close grip bench press, one arm dumbbell rows, end with curl/bench dip/band pull apart supersets
- Deadlift day: deadlift, front squat/lateral step-up supersets, back raise/glute bridge supersets, seated and lying band abductions
- Bench day: flat bench press, chest supported rows, incline bench, overhand lat pull downs, end with zercher squat/curl/single leg glute bridge supersets

2. I use the same macros all of the time: .8 gram per pound for protein (rounded to the nearest 10 to make it easy), .4 gram per pound for fat. Those are minimums. Everything else is carbs or more fat or protein.

3. I'm not currently eating in a deficit. When I am, I use a 150-500 calorie deficit. When I was losing most of my weight, I used a 20% deficit, which was about 440 calories at the time. I usually ate between 1750 and 1860 calories total per day.

4. I lost something like 30-35 pounds in the first three months. I wasn't logging calories then so I'm not sure how much I was eating. At that point I ate one dessert per week and one serving of bread or pasta per week. No other grains, just fruit/veggies/meat/dairy. Tons of raw fruit and veggies. My guess is that my calories were somewhere in the 1400-1500 range. Once I started exercising more, I ate more and my weight loss slowed down.

5. My tips would depend on your height/weight/activity level/exercise habits. Overall, I would focus on health and fitness, not just weight loss and speeding up weight loss. Eat your exercise calories. Get a digital kitchen scale and weigh your food whenever possible, use measuring cups/spoons when it's not possible, get good at estimating portion sizes when you're away from the scale and measuring cups/spoons. Log accurately (use USDA entries or entries matching food labels.)

Okay. These are my answers to the questions. I started lifting almost a year ago and have been on a deficit almost the whole time, with a few small breaks. I started obese at over 200 lbs and am now have a little less than 20, so weight loss is much slower now, which is perfectly fine.

1. Do you use a program? Yes
I started with stronglifts, followed by new rules of lifting for women and now I'm doing PHUL and plan to keep with that one for at least 6 months, if not longer. I also have done cardio during the time and am at the end of training for a 10k.

2. I try to get roughly .8-1 gram of protein per lean body mass, so around 80-100 grams whenever I can. Some days are better than others. I try to get my fat up closer to 50 grams as I can often be a little low on this one and carbs just end up where they do at this point.

3. I started with around 1.5 lbs a week loss, then 1 as I didn't want to drop to 1200 before exercise. (note: I'm 4'11.5" height wise and have a somewhat active job on my feet, which has helped a little as sedentary would have a slightly different base point) I'm going to be closer to .5 a week now though since I'm closer to goal range.

4. How much weight did you lose in your first 3 months? Around 9 roughly. Had some ups and downs but things are in general going where I want them.

5. Any tips to accelerate my weight loss? Honestly, not focus too much on the scale or try to go too quick. I'd actually recommend some non-scale goals to focus on as well that you can see progress with, whether it's certain lifts or activities you want to do. That has helped me the most so that I'm not constantly obsessing over the scale numbers as they are just a factor among many.

FitChick_40 wrote: »

Hi,

I am very new to lifting and am following Jamie Eason's LiveFit program at the moment, but am not super content with it. I have following questions for you guys:

1. Do you use a program?
- if yes, which?
- if no, what exercises to you do?

2. If you are cutting or for newbies just started out losing weight, what are your macros. (please tell me, if the macros ably to you as fit, overweight or obese. I am obese.)

3. What calorie deficit did you use? Again for losing weight/fat. I am eating 1440 kcals right now. Is that too high?

4. How much weight did you lose in your first 3 months? I am 6 weeks in and have only lost 2 kg / 4.4 lbs.

5. Any tips to accelerate my weight loss?

Thank you very much for your help.

1. 5x5, New Rules, 5/3/1, 5/3/1 for PL (in that order)
2. I have my macros at 40p/30f/30c; I often run over on fat/protein under on carbs (but not by a huge amount) during the week (I still have 1 cheat meal/day on the weekend).
3. I wasn't trying to lose much fat at first. I ran about 100-200 calorie deficit. Now, I'm at maintenance-ish now. You probably need to eat MORE than 1440 calories/day.
4. 3 months...probably did not lose weight/fat. I've been doing this for 2.5 years, and I'm down from a size 8 to a size 2 (same scale weight).
5. Keep doing cardio; preferably some kind of interval activity or HIIT.