female, trying to lose bodyfat

[peteefs]

This is for my girlfriend

she is 5 foot tall, 23 years old at 121lbs and has been training for just over 10 months.she has a pettit frame. but seems to hold bodyfat and water still on the abs.

Training (afternoon training after work)
monday, wednesday, friday Cardio mixed styles. 60 minutes
Tuesday, thursday, saturday. weights, intense, short rest, circuit style

she has been able to obtain slight muscle definition in places.

Diet
5 meals per day
breakfast porridge
Snack protein shake
Lunch meat salad
Snack protein shake
dinner meat and vegetable

a total of 1200kcal per day, once a week cheat meal, i.e saturday night.
she drinks 2litres of water per day.

any ideas of how to change things to lose the last section of bodyfat?
she is on the pill and i have read up that these can make you hold water.

 

[xrsist]

has she given am cardio a go?
does she do squats during her weight training sessions?

 

[poysyn]

I think she needs to consume more calories for the amount of exercise shes doing..her metabolism is probably non-existant if shes been running that regime for a while. eat to little your body just turns catabolic..which is pretty counter productive for looking "lean"

 

[peteefs]

Cheers guys for the input
The leg routine:squats, lunges and swiss ball hamstring curls (sometimes negatives)
AM cardio is difficult due to work, sometimes on sat she will do cardio am and mix her weights day around.

As for calories. one day a week she eats about 2200kcal after having a cheat meal.
would you recommend maybe a high, medium, low 3 day approach? for a few weeks

 

[Mandy Polk]

I second that she needs to eat more.

 

[KickNitRight]

I second that she needs to eat more.

I'll third it - 1200 cals seems way too low

 

[Tatyana]

Fourth that, calories are too low. Her body will hold onto fat doing all that cardio on such low calories.

Stress, which overtraining and low calories will cause, releases cortisol, which in turn releases insulin, and that whole hormonal response is thought to have more fat deposited on the abdomen.

I have also seen a few pics of women who say they have 'fat abs' and they have very little fat on their abs, they just don't seem to have much muscle.

I don't think that protein shakes on their own are really a good 'snack'.

There are a few threads on diet in the women's section, have a peak at those and work out what she actually needs to be eating.

 

[Nick_Escalantes]

Get her on a stairmill, preferably a Stairmaster 7000 PT and have her do interval training.

Forget the treadmill, bike and the other cardio equip. I've yet to see a woman that regularly uses a stairmill overweight. These women are thin, curvy, and shredded. They have the best bodies in the gym.

It will take time for her to adapt to this type of cardio workout b/c its a totally different animal than the treadmill or bike. Take it slow, and have her increase the stories she does daily in a specific time.

Put it on level 10 for a 2 min. interval, trust me, that will burn off that 'water weight' as you describe. But be near b/c you will probably have to catch her at the end.

 

[Sim882]

Recumbent bikes are crap, but a treadmill on a really steep incline is a wortwhile exercise IMO, I find intervals on it I can get the HR up to 180-185, which is as good as I generally get on a machine.

I'd also consider oval sprints. I would do say a 200 metre sprint, followed by 15-20 second rest, and repeat this for 15-20 minutes. Then, when u think ur bugged at the end, do 2 400 metres sprints (not really a sprint), with a 20 second rest between them. This will get ur HR as high as u can go

For a stationary bike, intervals standing is the way to go. Just don't use the recumbent bike

Get her on a stairmill, preferably a Stairmaster 7000 PT and have her do interval training.

Forget the treadmill, bike and the other cardio equip. I've yet to see a woman that regularly uses a stairmill overweight. These women are thin, curvy, and shredded. They have the best bodies in the gym.

It will take time for her to adapt to this type of cardio workout b/c its a totally different animal than the treadmill or bike. Take it slow, and have her increase the stories she does daily in a specific time.

Put it on level 10 for a 2 min. interval, trust me, that will burn off that 'water weight' as you describe. But be near b/c you will probably have to catch her at the end.

 

[Tatyana]

I think you lads are failing to notice she has been doing shed loads of cardio already and it hasn't made the difference she would like it too.

Being a cardio-queen can be counter-productive.

Women do that moving from one cardio machine to the next and having to do more and more and more cardio.

You are suggesting the same thing.

I would look at diet and how she is training with weights, not more freaking cardio.