Reasonable Weight Loss Goal for Women

[Dustin07]

I'm working with a woman who is 45 and trying to lean up while working through some major life schedule changes. She has a history of many years of hard lifting. She has experience and good form in power lifting, oly lifting, and had years of crossfit from a facility that had very very good coaches (I know many of you think good coaching and crossfit don't belong in the same sentence).

She's struggling with weight loss now and I'm wanting to help her set reasonable expectations.

I know for men, the idea of losing 1-2lbs a week is fairly normal (although 2lbs is quite accelerated).

For a woman around 5'3", 130ish lbs and estimated 22-25% bodyfat, what is a reasonable weekly weight loss goal?

Eating our elephant one bite at a time we are setting very small goals of 2 weeks short term to develop the new schedule, and 2 months for seeing what type of progress we can make.

She already has experience in good nutritional practices and lifting. She just needs some guidance in reshaping her routine to match her new schedule and goals and I'm trying to set some baseline expectations.

anyone with experience in this age group and gender that can provide feedback?

 

[jdwaca]

I think for any age group, 1-2 lbs a week is attainable. It’s just a matter of what measures she needs to go through to get those results. Some people can lose weight through diet alone, others have to incorporate varying levels of cardio, and/or more extreme diets. I have seen the strongest results with keto diets. Keep carbs extremely low, fats moderate, and protein high. That and cardio should put your body in fat burning mode. There’s more than one way to reach the finish line. You just have to see what works through trial and error. I would for sure watch carb intake though. If it were me, and my client, I would start with low carb diet, and cardio 30 min., 3x/week. Go from there. Stay at that level until progress stops, then adjust cardio and/or diet as needed.

Just my opinion. Like I said, there are many routes to reach the end goal. Others may have different opinions, and those may work as well. You just have to work with her to find the best fit for HER!

 

[Dustin07]

She's very good at competitive hard work, that's her crossfit history. Since her schedule doesn't allow for that anymore she has found other groups/classes she can drop into at our new gym but they do not challenge her enough. She struggles with staying interested in old school cardio (30+ minutes of treadmill or spin bike is mind numbing for her) and I totally understand that. She and I both tend to suffer from what I call Crossfit-induced A.D.D. we like that constantly varied approach to HIIT training.

So my thinking for her is to develop a more regular 'starting strength' (press/squat/deadlift) program 3 x's a week for strength development and add in complimentary WODs twice a week. The wod's would give her that added 20-30 minutes of HIIT style cardio. Then aiming for a 'bonus' day on the weekend of just LISS type cardio.

we have to play it smart though and not risk burnout or injury. She's capable of going very hard, we just need to craft a schedule around her that allows her the very hard days and rest/recovery days.

She does incredibly well on low carb. I do not. low car kills me. for cutting I do much better on high protein/moderate carb/ low fat. So that's a difference I've noticed in she and i, cutting out carbs doesn't seem to have a negative effect on her.

 

[Aust]

With the history I am surprised at 22-25%. She must of had a good break between.
For me at 55 I went from 26% down to 18% in five months 220 down to 182lbs with min 30mins 5-6 Days a week cardio and throw in a good amount of ads workout. Being older I really had to take a direct effect on my diet. I would think CrossFit would keep her skin tight, as we all want that in the end.