Help someone please

[nsashbl01]

My gf and I met Elana at the gym today. This little woman has some serious muscle. She has a very good foundation from gymnastics and must have great genetics. Since she is new to all this, she really has little knowledge of nutrition and how it relates to body building. For the interim, we layed out a diet till she can learn a little more. Hope you ladies can critique it. It is what my gf used to get from 13% to 9% bf in a short time.

7 AM 1 Trex, 1/2 cup Oatmeal 3/4 scoop Whey PP
9 AM 1/2 Cup Egg Beater 1/2 cup Oatmeal
11 AM handfull almonds
1 PM several cups of Romain Lettuce and Spinach, broccoli, green pep, cucumber, etc and 1 Chicken Breast and Lemon wedges
3 PM (Pre Gym) 1/2 cup Oatmeal + Creatine + Trex
5 PM (Post) 6 oz Apple Juice and Protein Powder
6:30 PM 1 chicken Breast, Fish or Tuna + some steamed green leafy Veggies
9 PM Protein Shake.

I come up with 1200 cal, 20 Fat, 116 Carbs, 135 Protein. Don't know how she will respond, but it worked for my gf.

I also think Elana needs to cut down her gym time. She is there for more than 2 hours per session.

 

[Elana]

Hey Sassy,

I am in my last 6 weeks to the show..and I need to cut...do you have any suggestions?? A very good friend gave me an example of what she eats:

5am Flakes n fiber, 1/2 cup of oatmeal with 1 scoop of whey
8am: 1/2 cup of oatmeal, 1/2 cup of whey sf syrup, 1/2 egg beaters
10:30 same as 8am
12:30 chicken breast and whole wheat tortilla and spinich
3:00 1/2 cup of oatema and 1/2 cup of protein
Work out
4:30 Apple juice and pure protein
6:30 chicken breast and sweet potatoe/veggies
9:00 Cottage cheese

She is in amazing shape but she is not cutting on this diet.....How can Ialter this diet so I can cut..do you have any diets that I can follow to cut....Thanks!

 

[Sassy69]

I"m not sure that's the diet you want - lots of carbs in it. I apologize again - can you put this diet into fitday.com to get the cal & macronutrient breakdown? I'm in my last 3 weeks of contest prep & I really dont' have the time to enter it myself as I find myself suffering mostly in lack of sleep.

The one nsash post up looks like a decent diet cal-wise, etc. A concern I have is that you haven't been eating much in the way of carbs & if you throw a bunch in now, you might blow up some.

NS - did your gf follow that diet every day or did she do some carb rotation or anything?

 

[nsashbl01]

I"m not sure that's the diet you want - lots of carbs in it. I apologize again - can you put this diet into fitday.com to get the cal & macronutrient breakdown? I'm in my last 3 weeks of contest prep & I really dont' have the time to enter it myself as I find myself suffering mostly in lack of sleep.

The one nsash post up looks like a decent diet cal-wise, etc. A concern I have is that you haven't been eating much in the way of carbs & if you throw a bunch in now, you might blow up some.

NS - did your gf follow that diet every day or did she do some carb rotation or anything?

She did sub some stuff, but not that much in nutritional values. I entered a bunch of it in fitday and it all worked out basically the same. She would eat a little more carbs on hard days like legs, and cut back a bit on days off or light days. I averaged it out. I think Elana just started her very low carb deal, so she may not rebound too much. She will also be able to train harder. She is running out of gas before she's done. I also belive she trains too long and needs to bring the intensity up by getting in and out in an hour or less. My advice is low to moderate carbs for the first half of the day on most days. Higher on leg days, and lower on off and days like arms or shoulders. That is what my body respondes to at least.

Elana, a few things P may not have emphasized. Other than cutting out the process stuff. Cut out Cafeene and pop if you can. Basically, if you know it isn't in some way good for you, don't put it in your mouth!

 

[Sassy69]

I need to look at this a little more & also I'm gonna see if Shadow can throw in some suggestions. Generally I agree w/ you nash - carb cycling means essentially going on a low carb / high carb alternating diet, usually 2 days low carb, 3 days high carb. The low carb days amount to replacing all the starchy carbs in the meal plan w/ the same calories in fats, e.g. flax seed oil or almonds. You keep the total cals about the same, but the macronutrient content changes. Match up your less intense workout days to the 2 low carb days, then do the heavier work on the high carb days when you need more energy. I also was able to get from 12% to 8% on a carb rotation at around 1700 cals.

I was gonna comment about getting rid of the sugary veggies like cucumbers & green peppers in the 1 pm meal - however elana is doing fitness and she probably burns thru those simple carbs like crazy. Might consider tossing them after say the 3 week point though. Also elana, see how you respond to oatmeal - if you bloat or not from it. If you have issues with it you can also substitute say a 4 oz sweet potato or regular potato for those starchy carb servings. On the high carb days you should also not only feel more full but look more full, i.e. your muscles should be more filled out while on the low carb days you might look a little flat - but you are supposed to.

As far as other stuff that you eat or drink -- at 6 weeks out I'd start getting rid of any coffee, soda (diet or otherwise) and make sure you are getting more than 1 gal of water/day. If you *need* to have a cheat food, sugar free ice pops & sugar free jello are good. Also Crystal Lite for a little taste in your drinks - but not in every drink.

I would try that diet for a week, match up your training accordingly and see how you feel. The point is not to starve yourself or not give your body the fuel it needs to perform.

Training-wise, is there a purpose to doing abs 6x / week? Abs are mostly about diet. If you have the fat pulled off your abs, THEN you can start workign them, I'd say MAX 2x/week to get the cuts deeper.

Also a thought on the training - elana how long have you been following that split? If more than 6 weeks you might want to consider changing it up so you might be trainign only ONE body part per day w/ 3-4 sets of reps. That way you aren't really in a position to overtrain and I assume you are also doing the tumbling / fitness work as well as the posing? This just adds to the work you are doign on your body and the sum total of all that training on a 4 day on / 1 day off split has got to be brutal. Just some thoughts...

 

[Elana]

Hey to Sassy69 and nshahblol....

Thanks for the advice and help...I do have a couple of questins that I hope you don't find silly.

My friend P is using that workout that you suggessted Sassy69, the only questin I have is when you said 3-4 sets reps.....what do you mean...I always think 1 set is one achine and then 3 reps is like 10, 8, 6 ( that's what I go by)...so are you saying do 3-4 machines with a 10,8,6 lifting style and just load the weigt on..

Now abs..I still have fat on my tummy..and I don't see the abs really there...shoud I still only work then 2x times a week

Cardio sill cinfuses me too..... now that I am putting theoatmeal back in...what am I supposed to do with cardio...

I wasn't doing any before(byt someone said that now that I am cuting I need to add cardio)...how much and how many times a week

For the diet...I will put the oatmeal in the morning (yum!) and try to follow p's plan minus some carbs??

I'm trying my best to take in all of both Sassy69(your) and nsashbl0l advice.....but I'm still lost withthis diet thing nd exercise( I am so frustrated and at this point am discouraged to do this contest)..If It wasn't for P and the other person..I think I would have quit.....I'm just very very confused( and plus all of these supplements cost so much!) Thanks again for everything

P.S MY age is 21

 

[nsashbl01]

Hey to Sassy69 and nshahblol....

Thanks for the advice and help...I do have a couple of questins that I hope you don't find silly.

My friend P is using that workout that you suggessted Sassy69, the only questin I have is when you said 3-4 sets reps.....what do you mean...I always think 1 set is one achine and then 3 reps is like 10, 8, 6 ( that's what I go by)...so are you saying do 3-4 machines with a 10,8,6 lifting style and just load the weigt on..

Now abs..I still have fat on my tummy..and I don't see the abs really there...shoud I still only work then 2x times a week

Cardio sill cinfuses me too..... now that I am putting theoatmeal back in...what am I supposed to do with cardio...

I wasn't doing any before(byt someone said that now that I am cuting I need to add cardio)...how much and how many times a week

For the diet...I will put the oatmeal in the morning (yum!) and try to follow p's plan minus some carbs??

I'm trying my best to take in all of both Sassy69(your) and nsashbl0l advice.....but I'm still lost withthis diet thing nd exercise( I am so frustrated and at this point am discouraged to do this contest)..If It wasn't for P and the other person..I think I would have quit.....I'm just very very confused( and plus all of these supplements cost so much!) Thanks again for everything

P.S MY age is 21

Elana, check your personal email. I am emailing my cell #. P and I are going to that nanbf show in Rockford tonight. I'll keep my cell on and we can straighten this out. Don't get discouraged, we all learned somewhere. In no time, you will laugh at all this.....

And Sassy, you are very generous and it's appreciated. We'll send ya a pizza after your show!

 

[Elana]

Hi everyone,

I have another question to ask......

When I am supposed to cut( whiich is right now) does that just mean keep the diet and add cardio? How much cardio?

Lastly, I am cutting right now..so do I cut down on calories? Can I start taking a pm protien now, or no?

Thanks once again for EVERYONE'S help...and of course P!!!!!!!( I will call later nsahsblol)

Good luck Sassy on your own competition too

 

[Sassy69]

When you say you are "cutting", it means you are dieting & training to lose bodyfat and not build muscle. "Bulking" is when you are dieting & training to build muscle. Whatever is your goal you first need to FUEL your body to achieve that goal. This is where diet comes in. Diet is 80% of what you are trying to accomplish.

For example. the fat on your stomach - the first thing to understand about losing bodyfat is that you CANNOT SPOT REDUCE. This means that no matter what training or whatever you do, you can't expect to target fat in a specific spot. Your body holds its fat where it tends to - generally for women, they teld to hold their fat around the middle, hips, butt, thighs. Men tend to hold more of their bodyfat around their stomachs. So when you start dieting to cut bodyfat, especially women will notice that they are getting noticeably leaner around the upper body but it may appear that thte butt, stomach, hips just aren't responding.This is where you have to understand that you may have lost say 5% bodyfat. Since you have a smaller concentration of fat cells in your upper body, that 5% will be much more noticeable there. On the lower areas where you tend to hold a higher concentration of fats cells, 5% is less noticeable. That means to make the results noticable in the lower areas, you need to just keep dieting consistently.

This is why doing abs 6x/week is counterintuitive and instead you need to look to your diet to achieve the 6-pack. Once you've reduced the bodyfat deposited around your stomach, then you can start hitting your abs harder with training to get the muscles deeper. Until you have the bodyfat reduced, doing crazy amounts of ab work will realy only get you thicker around the waist. So yes, no point doing abs more than 2-3 x/week. Look to the diet to get your abs to show.

Cardio - in your case elana, I assume you do a lot of aerobic activity wiht your fitness training. Throwing in some cardio will help you - but in your case I would keep it to just a couple times / week - preferably on the days when your lifting is lighter, explicitly NOT on leg day, and also when you aren't doing your aerobic fitness training ( gymnastics). For me, I need to do ALOT more, but for your competition, you are already very aerobic.

Please don't equate the need to do cardio with the fact that you have added oatmeal to your diet. The diet you were doing w/ no fats & no carbs was going to run your metabolism into the group. You will probably notice that with the better diet now you will have lots more energy when you train, but you are only giving your body exactly what it needs to have that energy & run efficiently. Not any extra that could be deposited as fat. I.e. what you are feeding yourself is all being burned in your training.

 

[Elana]

Hey Sassy,

For my fitness routine I practice that 1- 3 times per week and run through it 3 times each session..is that enough to count as a cardio?

Thanks!