SMM's first thread!!

[smmprincess]

I've lost 55 lbs over 3 years. I've been at my currant weight for almost a year now although it flucuates 3-4 lbs. which drives me crazy! Im 5'10",116 lbs, 10% body fat, 32/26/34.5.

I hit the gym 5 days a week. Everyday 30-60 minutes of moderate to intense cardio and 3 days of weight training.

I eat a pretty clean diet
1 cup egg whites- breakfast
apple after workout
4 oz turkey on 1 piece of sprouted grain bread
yogurt or cottage cheese
lots of veggies and lean meat for dinner with either quinoa or ww pasta

dont get me wrong I do cheat! i'm only human. I usually cheat with salty foods like crackers or peanut butter...I can't even have it in the house I have NO control!!

OK so even after doing all this and only weighing 116 I still have an ugly roll of fat on my stomach. I has to go. I want to loose 2 inches off my waist. Up to this point it's been impossible. So thats why I'm here. I need help!! Where should I start???? Any suggestions?? I'm open to anything!

 

[Sassy69]

No offense but you're almost 6' tall and just barely over 100 lb??? 10% bodyfat? Wow.... and you want to lose 2".... Wow....

I'm personally kinda confused -- can you post up some pictures or something? First I think you are starving yourself and it sounds like you don't have any muscle? Hun, seriously, not wanting to sound like I'm attacking at all but I compete in amateur bodybuilding at 7% bodyfat and its pure misery getting down to that but I only maintain it for a couple of days. I'm not saying you arent' that, but generally I don't think its healthy to be below 12% for any period of time --- that's a general guideline but I think that you might want to take another look at your goals. You don't need to be starved down to look good. A little extra weight w/ some muscle looks a helluva lot better than less weight and no muscle --- thus you get your marathon runner / skinnyfat look....


What is the context for your goals? Are you modeling or what? I'm just pretty baffled about what you are trying to accomplish -- I get you want to get rid of the little rolls, but I think you could be a lot healthier and look better with a little more muscle and then any fat that you do have looks better.

 

[smmprincess]

I know it sounds a little crazy maybe?? But seriously I have a lot of fat on my stomach. More than you would think for my measurements. I have a small frame. Maybe I just don't have any muscle? I can't lift my own body weight.I do weight train and have for 3 years. I do eat 1800-2000 calories a day. Never less. Thats why I'm here. Maybe I'm just crazy?!? I'll try to post some pics.

No offense but you're almost 6' tall and just barely over 100 lb??? 10% bodyfat? Wow.... and you want to lose 2".... Wow....

I'm personally kinda confused -- can you post up some pictures or something? First I think you are starving yourself and it sounds like you don't have any muscle? Hun, seriously, not wanting to sound like I'm attacking at all but I compete in amateur bodybuilding at 7% bodyfat and its pure misery getting down to that but I only maintain it for a couple of days. I'm not saying you arent' that, but generally I don't think its healthy to be below 12% for any period of time --- that's a general guideline but I think that you might want to take another look at your goals. You don't need to be starved down to look good. A little extra weight w/ some muscle looks a helluva lot better than less weight and no muscle --- thus you get your marathon runner / skinnyfat look....


What is the context for your goals? Are you modeling or what? I'm just pretty baffled about what you are trying to accomplish -- I get you want to get rid of the little rolls, but I think you could be a lot healthier and look better with a little more muscle and then any fat that you do have looks better.

 

[Gymgurl]

Your body won't drop becasue you have nothing more to lose.....sorry

 

[Sassy69]

Phew - I'm glad you are eating a lot but essentially you have no muscle -- its not that you are fat - you have no muscle. Bodyfat is a ratio of lean muscle mass to bodyfat --- just to illustrate how that number (bodyfat ratio) can be the same (nearly the same) number with completely different body composition -- take a peak at The Short One's avatar -- that's what a short, muscular 12% bodyfat looks like. Not much fat there at all - but lots of muscle.

For you I would look more at changing the composition of your body instead of "losing fat". The stuff around your stomach is hard to get rid of as you are female and that tends to be where estrogen likes to deposit fat -- we don't like how it looks but its a survival tactic that nature has established to help increase the chances of bearing and delivering a healthy baby.

You posted up an outline of your diet - can you put a day's meal plan into a food counts program like www.fitday.com so we can see specifically what the total calories are as well as the macronutrient breakdown. My guess is that your protein is very low so you don't have the stuff to build muscle in your diet. If we can start w/ that I'm sure we can put together a program that will get to the goals you want.

Also you mention that you get weight fluctuations of 3-4 lb & it drives you nuts - I think you shoudl throw out your scale. IMO weight is useless as a measure if you don't draw the correct conclusions from it - your weight is a measure of the bone, muscle mass, fat mass and water in your body -- water content can easily fluctuate up to 10 lb over the course of a day or a few days based on what you eat, if its that time of the month or many other things. If you actually get upset because the number on teh scale changed a few lbs then you really need to just toss it out. Its almost irrelevant. In your case the trend is that your weight is very stable around an avg weight. The fluctuations are just a natural part of your body going thru its daily functions. A change does not mean you "got fat".

Also can you post up your training schedule - again so we can talk in specifics and not make guesses at generalizations or things that you may or may not be doing and I'm absolutely sure you can get your routines optimized for your goals.

 

[smmprincess]

I know I have no muscle! I have been working on it though for 3 years!! I even worked with a trainer for a few months. I do eat protien. at least 100 g per day. I religiously eat egg whites in the morning. I entered my daily diet into the site you recommended but i can't seem to uplaod the file or add an attachment of it.
I'm not looking to loose anymore weight but I do want to loose the belly fat. I weight train at least 30-45 min. 3 times per week. I am a cardio junkie. I can't function without it. I'm at a loss I feel like I'm doing all the right things but not seeing any results.

 

[Sassy69]

Well like I said - you need to find the right adjustment to what you are doing to get to the result you want. I don't think you can do uploads or attachments in fitday.com - you have to just enter things manually - you would only need to do it once and then copy / paste or just type what it says into a post here -- w/o that detail I personally woudlnt' be able to make any reasonable comment on what you are doing. Im sorry if it sounds like we're asking for you to do more work, but w/o that detail all the general statements you are making doesn't really give me anything to work with.

If you are a hard-gainer, then maybe you need to do a bulking cycle first and not worry about any bodyfat you gain just so you can get your muscle mass going. Also how much cardio do you do? If its a lot, then you need to make a change in what you "think" you need to do -- too much cardio is catabolic - there's no way around it. 100 g protein - that's probably not enough -- consider eating AT LEAST 1 -1.2 x your weight in grams of protein.

See - you are doing many different things that sound like they should be doign something but since you aren't happy w/ where you are at, something needs to change.

But again, unless we have the specific details I can't tell you anything about how you might be able to change things.

 

[smmprincess]

Hey, thanks so much for your help!!! So, heres what I had time to do....maybe this will give you a better idea.
How long have you been ding this and what body type do you have. I'm just long and lanky....



Calories Eaten Today
grams cals %total
Total: 1770
Fat: 51 461 27%
Sat: 19 174 10%
Poly: 10 90 5%
Mono: 16 143 8%
Carbs: 187 668 39%
Fiber: 20 0 0%
Protein: 145 579 34%
Alcohol: 0 0 0%


1 cup Egg, white only, cooked
20 oz Coffee, regular, NS as to ground or instant
1 large Apple, raw
4oz Turkey, light meat, roasted, skin not eaten
1 slice Bread, multigrain
2 TBSP Coffee Mate Sugar free creamer
2 tspMustard, prepared, yellow
2 tbspKetchup
1 cup Yogurt, plain, nonfat milk
1 smallBanana, raw
3 cups Mixed salad greens, raw
6oz Chicken, boneless, NS as to part, roasted, light or dark meat, skin not eaten
1 cup cooked Rice, brown, cooked, regular, fat not added in cooking
2 tbp Peanut butter
1 tbsp agave
2 tbsp Fruit dressing, made with fruit juice and cream
1 pouch Coffee and cocoa (mocha), made from powdered instant mix, with whitener and low calorie sweetener

 

[*Bunny*]

Saying HI Sassy's got ya covered!

 

[Sassy69]

Its sorta weird - I can't figure out where all the calories are coming from to get nearly 1800.. but anyway -- I think you need more protein first of all - you are close but if you are a hardgainer I'm guessing you can handle more than 30% protein very easily.

Seriously I'd be really interested to see what happens if you followed the Shadow Project - check the stickies at the top of the board for details about it - and if you PM me an email address I can send you the documents listed in the sticky - the site I keep trying to host them at doesn't work very well.

Basically that diet will keep you probably near to your current total calories, but changes the macronutrient ratios a little bit to 40% protein / 30% carbs / 30% fats (you are currently more like 30/40/30).

You said you lift 3 days /week -- have you been following the same routine or do you change it up? Also I don't really have a feel for the intensity of your lifts so that would be a place to focus during your routines. I think mostly you just aren't eating enough protein to support muscle building in general. Also can you tell us how much cardio you do? For you it might take a little change of mindset to step back from doign a lot of cardio and instead putting your energy into lifting and doing just some maintainence cardio to keep things tight. Even though you love doing cardio, I think its exactly that cardio that is doign a lot to keep you from building muscle, in addition to not enough protein.

I'd follow the Shadow Project for 3 weeks and see how you feel - you can always change what you do - but you need to do soemthing other than what you are doing and to verify if any change is really doign anything you need to be consistent w/ it and let it run for 3 weeks anyway. You can consider it a challenge to see what it does because it is probably a bit different from what you are used to but I can point to several different ladies w/ different bodytypes who have gotten fantastic results from it.