I'm working on helping her out here. I try to explain to her that she needs to eat more often but smaller portions. She's having trouble comprehending more = less. And since I'm bulking on PH cycle right now, I can't help illustrate that to her.
Get her to read this!!!
ROSIE'S DIET TIPS FOR FAT LOSS
1.
First, you need to work out what your MAINTENANCE calories are (There are various methods and equations that you can use to calculate this; most take into account current body mass, height, and activity level). Then, to lose fat, you need to make sure that you’re having up to 500 calories LESS than maintenance. Depending on how fast or slow you lose the fat, you can adjust and tweak your calorie intake each week.
2. Eat every 2-3 hours after waking. This helps keep the metabolism going throughout the day, as well as keeping insulin levels stable (so, you can see that 3 meals is simply NOT enough, even small portions).
3. EVERY meal should have complex carbohydrates [CHO] (i.e. kumara, rice, oats, etc.), QUALITY LEAN protein (chicken breast, fish, tuna, salmon, lean beef, egg whites, etc.), and FIBROUS CHO (i.e. vegetables, green ones in particular).
4. Drink 4.5 litres of water per day. This will help keep the system clean.
5. It has been proven that TWO servings of DAIRY per day helps lose MORE fat than if one avoids it altogether.
6. Do NOT avoid fat (The only fat she should be avoiding is Saturated fat and Trans fats). You NEED fat in your diet, as fat plays major roles in energy metabolism and other parts of your body (Wardlaw & Hampl, 2007). Make sure to have at least 30 grams of GOOD fats (i.e. flaxseeds or flaxseed oil, fish oils, peanut butter, nuts - especially almonds and walnuts, hempseed oil, olive oil, etc.) per day (i.e. this is ~2 tbsp of flaxseed oil or peanut butter).
7. Don’t drink tea or coffee. Try drinking GREEN tea instead; it helps with thermogenesis, and is especially good if you take it one hour before doing cardio first thing in the morning.
8. Don’t drink alcohol. Alcohol has NO nutritional value and is full of calories.
9. Minimize adding salt to food. Instead, flavour a meal with herbs and spices (i.e. ginger, cumin, cayenne pepper, curry powder, chilli powder, and garlic all help thermogenesis a bit).
10. The only sugar needed on a regular basis is the NATURAL sugars found in food; these are mostly found in fruit. Too much sugar plays havoc with insulin levels and these should be as stable as possible throughout the day. The best time to be having sugar is straight AFTER a RESISTANCE workout, when the body is trying to replenish muscle glycogen stores (Burke, 2006).
11.
Do NOT avoid CHO. You NEED at least 50-100 grams of CHO per day for your body to burn fat effectively. A good guideline is to have at least 1 gram of CHO per kg of body mass per day as a MINIMUM (Burke, 2006).
12. Eat most food as 'natural' as possible. This means fresh fruit and vegetables, meat, grains, etc. Try not to eat too much packaged food, as it is full of extra calories and sugar.
13.
Most importantly, remember that it IS OK TO CHEAT every now and then. Actually the body NEEDS cheat meals and day. By throwing all the guidelines I have just mentioned above out of the way and having a day where you eat what you want it helps, and will also help prevent your body from going into starvation mode (where the body battles you to hold onto the fat as much as it can). If you prefer NOT to ‘cheat’, then adding in 1-2 higher CALORIE days (i.e. go up to Maintenance, or even Bulking, or even slightly higher), with the extra calories coming from quality COMPLEX CHO, you should be ok.
Supplements should NOT be a big deal, as most fat loss can be done through simply eating the right food at the right time. And unless everything that you’re doing is already done to ensure the maximum results in the timeframe that you want to achieve it in, and then supplementation should not be the focus. However, there ARE a few supplements that I think are important to any regime:
1. A multivitamin. (Although you should be eating as much of a variety of food as possible, in order to meet the RDI/AI of most nutrients from actual food).
2. Creatine monohydrate. Creatine helps the body to recover faster, as well as aiding in increasing strength levels and lean body mass [LBM].
3. Flaxseed/Hempseed/Fish Oil. This is the GOOD fats. Flaxseed or Hempseed oil is great with breakfast or in protein shakes.
4. Protein Powder. This just helps for the in-between meals, or after the gym, and to make sure that you get enough protein in (You should be having 1-1.5 grams of protein per kg of body mass per day; this is so that muscle loss is prevented, and can even assist in small gains in LBM).
Apart from these 4 ‘base’ supplements, you don’t need a lot (supplements are just a way for companies to make money. You can do everything without them!). And
forget about using fat-burners or thermogenics; they are a waste of time unless you are ALREADY lean and are looking for that ‘extra edge’ to lose the last 1-2% bodyfat (i.e. like a fitness competitor, etc.)
Plus she's afraid of carbs. That drives me nuts. I try to explain that whole grains and oats are great for the first half of the day. After that high fiber veggies are best...
Well you need to drill it into her that carbohydrates (CHO) are NOT the enemy. You CAN eat CHO and LOSE bodyfat (BF). In fact your body NEEDS CHO (glycogen is the ONLY fuel your brain uses). Low CHO diets or cutting out CHO is as stupid as low calories, IMO. C'mon, I eat as much as most of you guys here and I have no problems (even when I'm NOT able to do resistance training) staying lean.
I'm not going to lie, she has a rather different body shape. Kind of egg-shaped if you will. Very petite up top (small shoulder frame, arms, neck, rib-cage, etc.) and down low as well (mid to low thigh down - very petite). Her mid-section (stomach, sides, upper thighs and ass) is where she holds most of her size. But it has definitely shown tremendous progress with her recent weight (fat) loss.
If that's the case, then she REALLY needs to get her diet in check, because that last lot of BF is NOT going to go until she does. And at 5'9" at 145lb I doubt that she has much size ANYwhere, to be honest (she will be petite and slender all over).
That brings me to another point. She's one of those people that's stuck on the idea that WEIGHT is so important to go by. I try explaining to her that there isn't necessarily ANY correlation between losing weight and dropping body fat. You can lose weight and gain fat. Alternatively, you can gain weight and REDUCE body fat. Granted she's more concerned with body fat in regards to physical appearance. She just attributes fat loss to weight loss, which is a common misconception. I'm just trying to instill these important pieces of knowledge into her mind so that she can do all this properly and live a more healthy lifestyle overall...
Weight should NEVER be the focus (I may be lean, but on the scales I am heavier than I look). Body composition should be the concentration. Weight loss is not ALWAYS fat loss (and for many females, it often is a lot of muscle as well as fat, especially if they are dieting; and considering that most do NOT have much muscle to begin with; well, you get the picture...)
How often would you recommend full-body lifting per week? How many exercises, sets, reps per body part? And I absolutely love HIIT for fat loss. It's straight and to the point. Nothing compares IMO. I'll have to explain the idea to her and when I get a chance, head over to her gym with her to show her how to successfully do HIITs...
I would recommend full-body 2-3 times per week, with a day (at least) between each session. Stick to the compound, multijoint lifts (i.e. power clean squat, deadlift, bench press, pull-ups, bent over row, dips, shoulder press), as they use more than one muscle, and are the most effective for not only building muscle, but also in burning fat, because they are recruiting more of the body to perform the exercise than isolation exercises (these are a waste of time unless you are looking for a pump close to competition, really). I'd recommend 1 exercise per body-part per session, with 2-3 sets of 6-15 reps. Look through my log (the start) for a ideas on Full-Body sessions (don't copy them, since she wouldn't do that; but you can adapt some); the circuit sessions would be good for her.
(Just means I have to wait until I am over there to try it)...But yeah, if the diet is not right, a fat burner is just a waste of money...
