Do you have a gauge on how many calories she's eating a day now? Is she maintaining on her current intake? Or gaining or losing?
shell be maintaining or ever so slowly over eating. but some days shell eat 10 cookies from a subway type of fastfood and some days shell eat cereal for dinner...
i wouldnt be surprised if she was slighly depressed. she did get divorced awhile back and i dont think she has come right. but thats a different matter. i think focusing on her wellbeing food and health wise is a good start.
Here's my limited experience working with my wife. 5'4" abt 105-107lbs (48.6kg) thin, but no muscle mass. Last time we did a 7pt caliper test she was just under 20% bf. She could eat pie and ice cream every day and not get fat but is having to make some adjustments to get the body she really wants. With her, diet is the hardest thing to get her to comply with. She'll work legs so hard she can hardly walk, but diet...
interesting, that would put my friend at well above 20%
So here is what has been our process. Advance in stages:
Diet Stage 1) Forget about hitting the exact macros and calories. Focus on getting some actual protein into her body. That's all I have her keep track of right now. Because that will be a big step in the right direction. We don't do 5-6 meals a day, but that's my own thing. I don't buy into that. Some do, not here to argue about it. Just stating my experienc. We do IF where she eats 10hrs a day and fasts for 14. She's seeing results with this alone and we have a ways to go. Still short on protein most days. When she can hit that, we'll move into the other macros and calories. ONE step at a time with diet.
i like the idea of slowly getting into it, but do you think it applies to my friend also, focusing on protein first? as my friend is quite bigger, its almost like my friend will need to focus on everything at once?
Workout Stage 1) She's in the gym on what's very similar to a 5X5. Few little modifications. Mark Rippetoe's Beginners routine (his tweak on 5x5) gave me some of the best results of my life. Right now it's
- Lift 2 x a week
- 2 days cardio/week. One of them Zumba which she really likes doing. Other cardio is HIIT for 16-20 minutes. She'd rather go all out for shorter periods than long and low intensity. Convenient that HIIT is better for fat loss.
- 3rd day with weights if she'll do it. And she's getting the fire enough that she's doing it sometimes now
Diet Stage 2) Once we can hit the protein needs. We'll move on to the other macros and total cals.
Diet Stage 3) Protein reqirements met, macros on point. Then go 20% above maintenance on lifting days, 20% below on rest days, a little bit below maintenance on cardio only days.
Workout Stage 2) Lift 3x/wk. Cardio 2x/wk (combined with any workout other than legs)
But the thing I've gotten through to her recently is the most important single thing in achieving fitness/physique/build goals. ****in consistency. If all you do is 2xlift/wk and one day cardio initially do it and keep at it. I'd bet less than 1 in a 1000 people go from nothing to hardcore eating right and training like they mean it and keep at it for ANY amount of time. Change just 10% and actually stick with it. Then add another 5% change and DON'T backslide. Then another and another. It adds up to close enough to 100% that people get their body they want.
Once you get them to where the fat starts to come off the lower abs (last place it goes away) that's when she'll be hooked for life.
Long post but that's my experience after waiting 10 years for my wife to step up to the plate. Oh and as a 10yr veteran of marriage one last thing, don't try to motivate her... that goes horribly. Let her know "I'ts all on you. I'll lay out the road map and give you any answers and help you want but I can't make you want it."
good advice, i dont think i need to motivate her, she just needs a little bit of guidance. outlining what to do will work i think. shes a bit lazy, we all are. but she wont even attempt to start but since im helping she has shown interest and seems enthusiastic a bout it
Long post but I don't give a shit.
all good bro, been very helpful