Forum Statistics

Threads
27,561
Posts
541,246
Members
28,552
Latest Member
Samson0692
What's New?

Female friend asking me for advice

uphillclimb

uphillclimb

VIP Member
Dec 9, 2011
5,903
1,625
So I have some thoughts in mind, however I'd like to ask y'all what you think.

Here's her message to me:




Ok so diet lately
has SUCKED in terms of consistency because I've been moving and working
like crazy etc... Which means I have put on about 10 lbs from the poor
food choices I've been making and lack of speed work due tk a knee
injury. But typically it looks something like this.
Breakfast: 6
oz plain green yogurt, 2 tbsp rolled oats, 1 tap ground flax, 1tsp
chia, 1 tsp honey dash cinn. Black coffee. 24 oz room temp water with
lemon.
Sometimes I do fasted cardio before this and I do not eat
or drink before. It may be a run or maybe a little HIIT routine with
body weight exercises and kettlebells. Sometimes a little running. But
this would only happen 1-2 per week, on a good week when things are
consistent.
Snack- apple and almonds.
Lunch- spring green salad with a hard boiled egg. Or a black bean burger.
Snack-
I'm friggen starving at this point and ready to kill someone. Maybe a
quest bar or a kashi granola bar. Veggies and hummus don't cut it for me
although I try.
Dinner: 4 oz grilled chicken or beef and 2 cups green veggies and maybe a small baby spinach salad.
I drink about 90oz water a day and maybe throw in a green tea plain with lemon.
When
I was "losing" I ate only 1200 calories a day, avoided carbs like the
plague and worked out at least 5 x per week. About 15 miles perk week
and 2 strength training sessions that incorporated mostly HIIT and
kettlebells and body weight stuff (push-ups lunges squats, etc). I would
allow myself to eat whatever I wanted on Saturday night. This all
seemed to work for me. Until....
I TRAINED FOR THE MARATHON. This
killed my Body in every sense of the word. I was starving 24/7,
exhausted and hurting myself left and right when i would strength train.
I had to stop strength training, lost all my muscle definition and went
from 145-155 pretty quick and was never able to get back under that or
go down in pants size.
Following that phase I went back to 1200
calories and could never be satisfied again hunger wise. I tried protein
shakes but then I was starving an hour later. I was starving all the
time and sluggish. I toyed around with the 1200 calories and running
about 10 miles per week and strength training a lot more (maybe a spin
class too) until about December when I finally said **** IT I'm gonna
eat whatever the hell I want and just lift. So I started following Jaime
easons lifting plan, somewhat watching my diet, but not really, and cut
waaaaaaaaay back on my running (due mostly to a knee injury from
training for a half in November). I would sprint 1-2 x per week but kept
gaining. And gaining.
I still train 3-5 per week but am doing
little to no running because of my knee. I am throwing in random classes
like boxing and kettlebells. The scale keeps creeping up between
160-165 and it's some muscle, maybe, but my pants aren't fitting either.
I legit cannot eat 1200 calories unless I have carte Blanche to punch
people in the face all day.
I LOVE working out. Every workout I
do I love. I love running, I love lifting weights, I love kettlebells
and squats and everything (just not burpees. I refuse to do burpees).
Working out is not my problem. I just want it to produce results. It's
the diet really that I struggle with. And I can't seem to find a trainer
who tells me anything other than to eat 1200 calories and workout 5x a
week. That sounds stupid to me.
Ideally, I would like to run 2-3x
per week. 2 of those days throwing in some sprints. And 2 days of
combined strength/HIIT. Maybe 2days of lifting.
My current weight is 165 and my goal was always 135. Id settle for 140-145.
I just need someone to show me the RIGHT way to do it!!!!
 
sityslicker1

sityslicker1

TID Board Of Directors
Oct 6, 2010
938
437
She is starved, over trained and her diet is severely lacking in protein. It no wonder she's not losing probably feels like shit.


She need at least 25g of protein with each meal. AT LEAST 1g of protein for her lean body mass. 150g should be sufficient and then she can back fill the rest of her calories with healthy fats and slower digesting carbs. If she has been dieting hard for a long time now, she could probably benefit from a carb load once a week with roughly 200g. She should look much tighter the next day after doing this.

She already knows this, but she needs to go back to training like an athlete. HITT sounds like it works much better for her. When her injury heals she needs to do it for 2x a week and graduate increase duration /or frequency through the weeks. This would best be done on her off days. She needs to lift with the same kind of intensity as HITT 2-3 a week. She doesn't need to go long sessions, just bang it out hard and with little to no rest periods. Doing a circuit upper body and alternating lower body may work pretty well for her.

Obliviously she needs to get it out of her head that long training sessions are needed. They are in her case very counter productive and making her body adapt to that kind of training which is soft and doughy...usually because they lack intensity and or do not allow the body to fully recover. You add in a low calorie diet and it just amplifies this effect.
 
woodswise

woodswise

TID Board Of Directors
Apr 29, 2012
4,334
1,339
1200 is too little for when she was training for the marathon.

She is getting quite a bit of fat in this diet. My research has always indicated when you diet on carbs, your fats should be low, possibly as low as 50g per day, but no more than 100g per day. Her metabolism is quite a bit different from mine, but I think she may have metabolic damage from eating so little while training for the marathon. She may want to try increasing her protein and carbs at the same time as she increases her training and watch to see if she is gaining. Cut back after a few weeks if she is gaining weight, until she is at maintenance, then after this re-starting of her metabolism, go back to the dieting.

Without calculating her BMR and maintenance Kcals, I can't be sure about this, but it is my guess for the moment.
 
sityslicker1

sityslicker1

TID Board Of Directors
Oct 6, 2010
938
437
1200 is too little for when she was training for the marathon.

She is getting quite a bit of fat in this diet. My research has always indicated when you diet on carbs, your fats should be low, possibly as low as 50g per day, but no more than 100g per day. Her metabolism is quite a bit different from mine, but I think she may have metabolic damage from eating so little while training for the marathon. She may want to try increasing her protein and carbs at the same time as she increases her training and watch to see if she is gaining. Cut back after a few weeks if she is gaining weight, until she is at maintenance, then after this re-starting of her metabolism, go back to the dieting.

Without calculating her BMR and maintenance Kcals, I can't be sure about this, but it is my guess for the moment.

Good stuff brother.

This is definitely another option is all else fails, but I'd try the carb refeed* once a week first and see if that gets the scale moving before having her take a huge leap backwards. Carb refeeds will not only give her a psychological break from dieting momentarily, but its has many physiological benefits as well when it comes to boosting the metabolism (ie. increase leptin levels, a boost in thyroid hormone production and conversion of t4 to t3 and also temporally blunting of cortisol).
 
sassy69

sassy69

TID Lady Member
Aug 16, 2011
1,067
398
How tall is this person? It's hard to know where she is in terms of bodyfat she may be carrying. But I will agree w/ the above .... waaaaaay too low calories. I'll take myself as a comparable example - I tend to be around 160 off-season and at least at my first show, dieted down to 133 lb (tho I felt like a bag of bones), but more regularly I compete around 145-150. I competition diet on 1750 cals. Anything less than that and I feel like shit and lose muscle mass. I can't imagine trying to run a marathon on 1200 calories... I just can't. The body has absolutely nothing to run on and has no option but to cannibalize itself. I would not be surprised if she has metabolic issues, or at the absolute least, adrenal fatigue.

I would have her step away from specific goals except 1) eating a consistent maintenance diet that allows her body to get to a "normal" baseline before worrying about trying to "diet", and 2) continue to enjoy training along the lines mentioned above. If she is feeling really burnt out (i.e. CNS overload / overtraining / adrenal fatigue), I would take some time off. Do just light stuff or some easy running, but the point is to allow the body to get back to a baseline. If not, train on a regular schedule w/ "some" cardio - e.g. 2-3x/week. And adjust the balance of diet & training to the amount that feels good to eat (satisfying but clean, generally eating when feeling hungry but be sure to not be skipping meals) and training to the level that it feels the food consumed is being used. A simple way to do that is carb cycle - put higher carbs on heavier lifting days (e.g. back, legs) and lower carbs on lighter / cardio-only/ rest days. My personal preference for this type of carb cycle is to replace calories of carbs taken out on 'low' days, w/ the same calories in fats so the total cals /day stays the same, but the macro ratio changes.

It also sounds like this person could use some guidance on dieting in general. I personally like Bill Philips' BODY FOR LIFE book for the diet part - instead of giving a strict and restricted diet, it gives guidelines and a variety of food to choose from so that you can select what YOU like and not just strictly what some trainer puts on a diet for you. IMO the immediate purpose is to get this person to maintenance diet such that her body can work things out and start runnign the way it was designed. Obviously 1200 cals/day is just forcing a "starvation" scenario that the body has to fall back on primordial survival tactics to operate. With a consistent and nutritionally / calorically sufficient diet, it should be able to get to a good place and support what she wants to do in the gym, and subsequently start promoting lean muscle mass and burning off body fat. Really important to just be consistent and patient.
 
G

Geisha

Member
May 4, 2014
43
7
.
.
Ideally, I would like to run 2-3x
per week. 2 of those days throwing in some sprints. And 2 days of
combined strength/HIIT. Maybe 2days of lifting.
My current weight is 165 and my goal was always 135. Id settle for 140-145.
I just need someone to show me the RIGHT way to do it!!!!



It appears that being 135 is her Main goal, but in reality it may not be a weight that will support an active, HEALTHY lifestyle, especially if she is over 5'4" tall. In my personal experience, (and she may have to come to the realization of this too) is ......You have to make a choice,,,, Do I want to be my Strongest, or my slimmest? Do I want to live my life weighing my food and checking my weight? or have the freedom of eating a balanced diet in order to give me the energy to Training Hard, and see results. If her Goal is to be 135 then it may come at the expense of her Athletic performance and a hungry stomach.

If that is still her Main Focus then I agree with everyone else, tell her to add more protein and Fats to curb the hunger. 2-3 cups Cooked spinach in Olive Oil a day worked well when I used to cut weight for comps in addition to appetite suppresants
 
Who is viewing this thread?

There are currently 0 members watching this topic

Top