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I don't understand my body type.....
- Thread starter jennifer BFL chick
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J.
I notice that you seem to alternate between elliptical trainer and treadmill for cardio. These are essentially the same movement. I am gathering that your body has adapted to the form of cardio that you are performing. Essentially, each time your body performs a movement or task, it looks to conserve as much energy as possible. Basically, your body has become a more efficient engine and uses less fuel to complete your tasks. I would do one of 2 things to remedy this.
1)Current research has shown that anaerobic exercise is much better at burning fat than aerobic exercise. go to www.t-mag.com and search for "Fat Meltdown. It details a training method that will totally shock your system.
2)This is a little easier than number one. Basically, switch from a predominantly lower body cardio, to a predominantly upper body type of cardio. Rowing and boxing are the two I would choose from. While rowing tends to use your whole body, you can easily limit the use of the legs and make it a predominantly upper body movement. At first you weill not be able to go all that long, but this is a result of your body getting shocked. You should see immediate results from this.
I don't think your calories are the problem at all. Think in terms of a car, which will work better at burning more fuel:
1)Putting more gas in the car
2)Pulling a trailer behind the car up a hill.
I notice that you seem to alternate between elliptical trainer and treadmill for cardio. These are essentially the same movement. I am gathering that your body has adapted to the form of cardio that you are performing. Essentially, each time your body performs a movement or task, it looks to conserve as much energy as possible. Basically, your body has become a more efficient engine and uses less fuel to complete your tasks. I would do one of 2 things to remedy this.
1)Current research has shown that anaerobic exercise is much better at burning fat than aerobic exercise. go to www.t-mag.com and search for "Fat Meltdown. It details a training method that will totally shock your system.
2)This is a little easier than number one. Basically, switch from a predominantly lower body cardio, to a predominantly upper body type of cardio. Rowing and boxing are the two I would choose from. While rowing tends to use your whole body, you can easily limit the use of the legs and make it a predominantly upper body movement. At first you weill not be able to go all that long, but this is a result of your body getting shocked. You should see immediate results from this.
I don't think your calories are the problem at all. Think in terms of a car, which will work better at burning more fuel:
1)Putting more gas in the car
2)Pulling a trailer behind the car up a hill.
Whoa! Holy cow, girl, you sound EXACTLY like me! I've been on a serious cut now since Aug. 10th and my fat loss is going WAY too slow! I've only lost 1% body fat in the past 3 weeks! I swear I have tried everything! I have tweaked my diet about a dozen times, and I eat VERY clean except for protein bars which I just recently cut out so I'll see if that helps and also just started taking a fat burner this week. I am having as much trouble as you! And I've kept my slow burning carbs at 180 grams a day or lower, have been doing that since I started this diet! This new tweak I'm doing to my diet, I go 60 g carbs for 2-3 days then on the 3rd or 4th day I go back up to 180 g carbs and back to my maintenance calories, I'm trying more of a cycling diet now to see what that does. But I have also played with my cardio, went from none for a while, to twice a week to 6 times a week, and now 3 times a week, and I've done low intensity, high intensity interval, changing aerobics machines, you name it, I've done it. Also played with my training split a bit as well. I swear I've done everything and my body just seems to adapt or something. It just seems to really hold on to the fat and I continue to slowly get stronger as well. I even put on 2.5 lbs in the last 3 weeks while my bf % went down by 1. But 1% is NOT acceptable to me, that's only like 1.5 lbs in 3 weeks! So I feel your pain girl, and am ecstatic that I'm NOT the only one with this problem! On my strict days, I am only about 500 cals below my maintenance cals so I wouldn't think that my metabolism has slowed too much, plus I'm cycling my cals now to help keep it up. But one thing different though, sounds like your cals are WAY too low and that could be one of your problems, your body probably thinks it's starving and is holding on to any bit of fat it can. I am 5'5" 142 lbs, my maintenance cals are 2650 a day and on my strict dieting days, I take in about 2150. So since you are bigger than me, sounds like you might need to actually increase your cals to reset your body's metabolism. You don't want to screw it up like that then you would always be stuck being super strict and low cals just to prevent your body from storing calories. Anyway, just trying to help a fellow BB with the same problem I'm having! If you figure out what kicks you out of your plateau, please let me know! I am desperately trying to get lean. I started at 22% bf on Aug. 9th and am only down to 18.4%, 2 months later. I don't think that is very good progress, does anyone agree? As far as I can tell and I've been told, that my body type is meso-endo. I'm open for any suggestions as well as I am in the same boat!
Chosser, I disagree on both those points.
Upper body cardio is inferior for calorie burning, and anaerobic exercise is likewise not superior if you're trying to use exercise to create a caloric deficit.
That said, I don't believe that more exercise is the answer.
I sent Jen an e-mail, I haven't heard back, so I'm supposing she's either obscenely busy, or not interested in hearing another viewpoint, but I DID recommend she up her cals as well; her metabolism is no doubt rather stagnant right now.
Cheetarah, forget that meso-endo body type crap. really, all it has to do with is genetic predisposition with regards to overall metabolic speed and bone structure. Unless you have a chemical imbalance, your body should be able to drop more fat.
Do me a favor: Post your ENTIRE week's worth of workouts, along with approximate time of workouts, sets done, and minutes spent (and calories expended) on the various cardio machines.
And write down a sample day's diet. There are various ways to break a plateau, more information might help other people find problems or things that might need some altering.
Again, feel free to shoot me a PM or e-mail with all this information for more personalized feedback (provided I have the time).
Good luck to you.
Upper body cardio is inferior for calorie burning, and anaerobic exercise is likewise not superior if you're trying to use exercise to create a caloric deficit.
That said, I don't believe that more exercise is the answer.
I sent Jen an e-mail, I haven't heard back, so I'm supposing she's either obscenely busy, or not interested in hearing another viewpoint, but I DID recommend she up her cals as well; her metabolism is no doubt rather stagnant right now.
Cheetarah, forget that meso-endo body type crap. really, all it has to do with is genetic predisposition with regards to overall metabolic speed and bone structure. Unless you have a chemical imbalance, your body should be able to drop more fat.
Do me a favor: Post your ENTIRE week's worth of workouts, along with approximate time of workouts, sets done, and minutes spent (and calories expended) on the various cardio machines.
And write down a sample day's diet. There are various ways to break a plateau, more information might help other people find problems or things that might need some altering.
Again, feel free to shoot me a PM or e-mail with all this information for more personalized feedback (provided I have the time).
Good luck to you.
Belial, thanks so much for your interest in helping me, I really appreciate it! Only reason I mentioned my body type was cause I believe my genetics make it easy for me to put on muscle and at the same time hard to lose the fat. I have had my thyroid checked recently and all my thyroid hormone levels are within normal range with my T3 actually even on the high side. Anyway, I just started my new current program of diet and training on the 7th so I really will not be able to tell if it's working or not for 2 more weeks which is when I'll get my body fat checked again. I get calipered every 3 weeks on Fridays. So at that time, if it hasn't given me better results than I have been getting, then I will definitely let you know, post my whole program and see if you can offer any suggestions. Until then, I'd rather just stick to what I have til I see if it works or not. But here's the general description.
For my diet, okay, my maintenance calories (checked and averaged back in beginning of Aug) are 2650. With this diet, my average cals per week is 427 cals below maintenance. Sundays ratio is 211g P/123g C/90g F per day (2146 cals) and I have 3 hours of speed skating practice that day. Mon & Tue my ratio is 252/60/102 for 2166 cals. Wed is 210/180/78 for 2262 cals. Thu & Fri same as Mon & Tue. Sat is like a carb-up and closer to my maintenance calories day, day before my 3 hour speed skating practice. My ratio is 210/210/90 on Sat. for a total of 2490 cals. I was actually thinking about going ahead and just making Sat. a maintenance calorie day just to help keep my metabolism up. But anyway, that is my new diet plan I just started on the 7th.
My training goes like this: Sunday - 3 hours of speed skating practice. Monday - hour of cardio and abs. Tuesday - Legs and calves. I will usually pick 4 or 5 different exercises for legs (do the same thing for about 2 weeks) and do 3-4 sets in the 12-20 rep range, reason is cause my legs are way ahead of my upper body mass wise from skating so I do less weight, higher reps. Calves I usually do anywhere from 6-12 sets going heavy one week and lighter more reps the next week. When I go heavy they are sore for 5 days! I pound the heck out of them cause they lack definition. Anyway, Wednesday - chest & tris. I do 3-4 sets of 8-12 reps for each exercise using barbells and dumbbells (usually for 2 weeks at a time) doing incline, flat, and flies. For tris, I do 3 or 4 exercises (whatever I feel like) for 3-4 sets each exercise for 10-15 reps. I've been doing a lot of dips right around the 10 rep range. Thursday - back & bis. I do 4 sets of wide grip pullups right around 10 reps and 3 or 4 sets of close grip pullups (again around 10 reps) sometimes supersetted with the wide grip. Then I pick 2 more exercises to do 3 sets on in the 8-12 rep range. Then for bis, whatever exercises I feel like doing, I do 3 exercises, 3 sets each, in the 8-10 rep range. Fridays - shoulders and cardio. I will do 4 exercises for shoulders in the 8-12 rep range pretty much using exercises to really try to put mass on my side delts right now cause that's where I need work. Many times I will start and end with a good mass builder. For cardio, either an hour or 30 min whatever I have time for. Saturdays are my off days.
And that is the current program I'm using. The training part is based off where I need improvement on my physique. Only other thing I can say is that I eat very clean. I dropped the protein bars just this week. So the foods I eat in my meals are: red salmon, tuna, olive oil, chicken (thighs & breasts), eggs (usually 4 yolks a day at most and two per meal), oatmeal, sugar free syrup, natural peanut butter, natural applesauce (only once per day), spinach, broccoli, green beans, asparagus, brown rice, whole wheat bread (but only in meals 1-3), protein shakes, heavy whipping cream, glutamine, multi-vitamins, whey aminos, liver tablets, just started taking MD6 and Yohimbe on Sunday. Also taking L-carnitine, green tea, sometimes caffeine tablets. I've been eating this clean since Aug. 10th (except I was having protein bars). And I've been training my butt off very consistently. Only cheat I have is a Cookies & Cream Bio Protein bar (26 grams sugar) right before speed skating practice and I just started that. Before this diet, I was keeping my carbs around 100 a day every day then on Sat eve last meal I'd carb up with oatmeal and some fetuccine pasta.
So do you see what I mean? You would think I would be having more sucess than a 1% loss over 3 weeks! So yes I am open to suggestions however, understand that I probably won't incorporate the suggestions until I see if this current plan works, I have to see if this works first, know what I mean? Starting a thermo might even BE just enough to break my plateau, we'll see. But thanks for taking the time to read this novel I posted and offering help. It's so nice to have virtual trainers!
