Question about Weight loss

[lilia]

Hey girls,
What is your advice to lose about 15 stubborn pounds? I do cardio 5 days a week (45-60 min) and have a big bone structure, 5'6, 140 pounds and having almost all the fat in my lower extremities. I was told about Clen+T3 cycle, also the Caffeine+Ephedrine+Aspirin. Which one works better?
Thanks
Lilia

 

[Sassy69]

Hey girls,
What is your advice to lose about 15 stubborn pounds? I do cardio 5 days a week (45-60 min) and have a big bone structure, 5'6, 140 pounds and having almost all the fat in my lower extremities. I was told about Clen+T3 cycle, also the Caffeine+Ephedrine+Aspirin. Which one works better?
Thanks
Lilia

Hi Lilia -

First I suggest you read the stickies at the top of the board:

Are You New to EF Ladies' Board - START HERE!

TOP THREADS - MUST READ!


So far all I hear is that you do a pile of cardio and someone told you about some drug combinations that will help you lose weight? I'm not trying to sound bitchy or anything -- I just want to back up and set a couple items straight to give you some solid advice.

When we talk "weight" - it consists of your skeleton, your lean muscle mass and your bodyfat. I think what you really mean is that you want to drop bodyfat while preserving or building your lean muscle mass. Lots of girls say they don't care about losing muscle because they think muscle is somethign women shouldn't have because they don't want to look like The Hulk. Muscle is actually what makes an amount of bodyfat look pretty damn good. If you don't care about your muscle mass, think in terms of a marathon runner's body - that's the extreme. You really do want to preserve your muscle.

What else do you do besides cardio? What does your diet look like? Cardio is good, but lots of cardio can actually consume some of your muscle - thus you see cardio bunnies who have jiggles because they again have no muscle mass. Do you do any resistance training? If not I'd recommend you start if you have access to a gym.

Diet - can you post up one day's meal plan -- specifcially when you eat (time) what you eat and portion size. E.g.

Meal 1 - 7 am
4 egg whites
4 oz chicken
1/2 c oatmeal

Meal 2 - 10 am
etc


If you aren't eating for what your goals are, all the cardio in the world won't get you there.

BTW don't worry about "big bone structure" -- I can practically palm a basketball at 5'7", I can reach nearly 3 keys above an octave on a piano and I can probably rip the shoulders / back out of most shirts of jackets because fo the size of my shoulders. This is before we talk about my muscle mass. Off season I'm 155-160 lb which isn't all that big for a bodybuilder and I can diet down to 130 and 7% bf for competition but I can still rip the shoulders out of a shirt or jacket.

Supplements - DO NOT TOUCH CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES. t3 is a thyroid medication and clen is a bronchodilator. Competitive bodybuilders sometimes use this combination to cut for competition. Just because you may have access to these things does not mean you should use them. T3 will consume both fat AND muscle indiscriminantly - thus you are back to the losing fat and muscle. And both of them are still only SUPPLEMENTS to an already tight diet and trainign program - which I'd need to hear more about anyway.

ECA is ok if you want a little kick to get things going, however don't expect it to make the difference in dropping your bodyfat if your diet isn't tight.

If you can post up a little more detail about your training and diet, I'm sure the girls here will give you some good pointers on ways to tweak what you eat to get better, more reliable and maintainable results.

Welcome to the boards!

 

[velvett]

More weights, less cardio and more food.


Seriously, listen to Sassy and post up what you eat, how you train and when.

 

[Daisy_Girl]

I agree totally and completely with the above two ladies.

Give us more info, do some more research, and we can help you reach your goals.

 

[lilia]

Ladies, you are great, Thank you
I did read the "Are You New to EF Ladies' Board - START HERE!", but I wasn't sure how precise my info should be. And yes, my muscles are real important for me and I totally don't want to lose them.
Well, staring with my diet, I know it needs some work. I have a real busy schedule during the week, therefore I don't have much time to cook or anything. In the morning (around 7) I eat a bowl of high protein cereal with low carb milk. Some days if I feel hungry in between I drink a protein shake (around 10 am). For lunch (12:30) I either have a salad or soup, and I have to say somedays when I don't have time for lunch, just a bagel and cheese or peanut butter (I know it's bad). And then it goes until 5-6 pm , which is another bowl of cereal, or some fruit, or nuts. And I try not to eat after 8 pm. I know I don't have a good diet, but I like the high protein diet, with more fruits or nuts. I have to mention that some weekends I may eat something I shouldn't, but I try to limit it to that weekend only. I don't have a planned diet, all I do is try to avoid white flour, sugar and too much starch.
OK. About my body fat, I don't know how to measure it. I know it might sound silly, but this is my first time really trying to do it in a systematic way. I only do cardio, but some days I MAY workout with my dumbells, or with "Billy Bands" and tape at home.
I am totally open to suggestions and again I appreciate all your help and time.
Lilia

 

[Sassy69]

You are eating WAAAAAAY not enough food. I understand that you probably have a really busy life, but a little planning will allow you to get a good meal plan laid out, prepared, packed and ready to go each day. There are ladies on here who are single moms doing a job, controlling the kids, getting to the gym and doing fantastic on their goals. I've done contest prep with nearly 12 hrs away from home every day between 5 am cardio at my gym 30 min away from the house, another 30 min commute to work, never leave my desk for anything like "lunch break", another 30 min back up to the gym, train + cardio, 30 min home, collapse for a minute, play w/ the cat, check email, pack food for the next day and start it all again for 3 straight months.

So it sounds like you don't have access to a gym? At a gym you could find someone who could do a skinfold bodyfat test for you. Another way to measure progress is with the scale + watchign how your clothes fit. If you feel them loosening up but the scale number isn't moving, you are dropping bodyfat, preserving muscle. This is a good thing! For comparison, between 12/04 and 3/05 I dropped 9% bodyfat but the scale only showed a 2 lb weight change.

If you do have access to a gym, I'd suggest getting a copy of Bill Phillips' Body for Life book. Excellent introduction to nutrition and training w/o takign up all your time or giving you a boring meal plan.

I'd start w/ just your diet though -- you want to eat 5-6 small meals, each with some protein in it, some clean carbs & fats, veggies. From what you listed, you are essentially starving yourself so your metabolism has slowed itself way down to minimize the amount of energy it needs to consume for you to go about your daily acitivities. Instead you would want to eat just enough at each 2-3 hour interval that would be metabolized, refeed at the next meal, metabolize that, repeat all day.

Your body WANTS to run efficiently, but if you don't eat enough to allow it to run efficiently, it will slow down and you just won't see results.

 

[lilia]

Thank you Sassy, I'll start as of today.

 

[Gymgurl]

All these women have great advice and Daisy transformed her whole body with diet and exercise........if your big boned like you saw you might be close to where you should be