I have been sniffing around ..

[Luciano_]

.. to help my sister to clean her diet, at least a bit.
Although I have reed some interesting post, I am still a bit lost and I don’t want to give her advices based on what I know is good for me.
I would appreciate if you give me a starting point where I can do some research, links, threads, whatever.

Basically my sister is a quite small and lean woman with a fast metabolism. She is 29, 5’4”, ~100lbs. She has been training for about 3 months but not very hard nor constant. She hasn’t been eating clean at all.
I think she can have 3 wholes meals during the day: breakfast (some days she will have enough time for a proper one, others not), lunch (microwaved in the office) and dinner, but, I don’t think I can touch her dinner too much because is the only time she has with her husband. In-between those three meals she can have snacks, shakes, etc.
She use to feel very tired and weak and both of us believe that is because of her disordered diet.

Her goals, to loose some fat in her legs and gain some muscles.

Can you please help me?

Thanks girls.

 

[Dakotah]

this may or may not be right but i wanted the same goals as her but i weigh alot more and im a godd few inches taller but have her try lots of squatting aqt different weights
i warm up with the bar and work my way up i now squat 145 for 3x3
that works well for me but like i said everyone is different

 

[adrenalinegrl]

.. to help my sister to clean her diet, at least a bit.
Although I have reed some interesting post, I am still a bit lost and I don’t want to give her advices based on what I know is good for me.
I would appreciate if you give me a starting point where I can do some research, links, threads, whatever.

Basically my sister is a quite small and lean woman with a fast metabolism. She is 29, 5’4”, ~100lbs. She has been training for about 3 months but not very hard nor constant. She hasn’t been eating clean at all.
I think she can have 3 wholes meals during the day: breakfast (some days she will have enough time for a proper one, others not), lunch (microwaved in the office) and dinner, but, I don’t think I can touch her dinner too much because is the only time she has with her husband. In-between those three meals she can have snacks, shakes, etc.
She use to feel very tired and weak and both of us believe that is because of her disordered diet.

Her goals, to loose some fat in her legs and gain some muscles.

Can you please help me?

Thanks girls.

Is she planning on training with weights and cardio, in addition to cleaning up her diet? Do you know what her bodyfat percentage is? Has she trained before?

 

[Luciano_]

She has been on and off during the last 4 years, I don't think she has trained for more than 6 months in a row, always cardio and weighs (not to high). Her body respond very well to training, but she has never been on a diet. She is the type of girl that can eat whatever and don't put on weight, but now she is almost 30 and her metabolism is changing.
I will tell her to run a BF test as soon as possible. She doesn’t have a 6 pack, but the muscles in her arms and back can be seen, not much fat there. Her legs are not lean as the rest of her body, she want to focus her training there (is that ok?).

What about this start point, please correct me because I am guessing.
Cal 11xBW.
Proportions 35 prot / 45 carb / 20 fats.
I will try to make her eat clean carbs and good fats. <-- I believe the key is here.

Thanks for your posts.

 

[adrenalinegrl]

She has been on and off during the last 4 years, I don't think she has trained for more than 6 months in a row, always cardio and weighs (not to high). Her body respond very well to training, but she has never been on a diet. She is the type of girl that can eat whatever and don't put on weight, but now she is almost 30 and her metabolism is changing.
I will tell her to run a BF test as soon as possible. She doesn’t have a 6 pack, but the muscles in her arms and back can be seen, not much fat there. Her legs are not lean as the rest of her body, she want to focus her training there (is that ok?).

What about this start point, please correct me because I am guessing.
Cal 11xBW.
Proportions 35 prot / 45 carb / 20 fats.
I will try to make her eat clean carbs and good fats. <-- I believe the key is here.

Thanks for your posts.

Sounds about right, but you may want to switch the carbs and protein percentages around. Def make sure her carbs are clean and make sure she doesn't eat any starchy carbs after 4pm. Get rid of all sugar. I also stay away from dairy and wheat, when trying to cut. Use I Can't Believe It's Not Butter spray, instead of butter or margarine and use it very sparingly. Use fat free dressings. Diet drinks are ok, but you may want to stick to Crystal Light, Diet Iced Tea, and diet sodas that use Splenda and have no sodium (Diet rite is what I drink). Aspartame sweetener tends to cause bloating. Allow one cheat meal per week.

Examples of some good starchy carbs: Brown rice, white rice, white potatoes, sweet potatoes, plain rice cakes, cream of rice, oatmeal

Some good fibrous carbs: Spinach, Broccolli, green beans, asparagus

As far as her training, I also tend to hold weight and gain muscle easiest in m,y lower body and legs. When I first started training some years ago, I thought that if I focused more on training my lower body... I would fix my problem. So, for a couple years, I trained legs 3x per week... hard. I did my upper body training about 2x per week, but didn't focus as much. The result... bigger, muscular legs and spindly upper body. It made my lower body look even bigger. These days, I use very high reps (25-30 per set) and low weights and I train them 1 day per week. This helps tone my legs, since they already have quite a bit of muscle. I do lower reps and heavier weights when training my upper body. Believe me... this method has transformed my body symmetry! Also, knowing her BF% is important, so that you can know what intensity she needs to perform her cardio at and how much she should do. Without knowing, I would say you could start her doing 25 minutes of cardio first thing in the morning and 25 minutes after her training, in the afternoon. Have her monitor her heart rate and keep it between 140 and 150, to burn fat.

 

[Sassy69]

You can't really spot reduce so there's nothing she can do to specifically make changes in bodyfat deposited on her legs. Since you lose fat proportionally around your body, probably just getting a good clean, consistent diet for a couple months will get her some results in her legs. If she's losing bodyfat, she'll be losing it proportionally around her body, so her upper body will look leaner than her lower body because there (generally for women) are more fat cells to lose on the hips/legs area. Also if she hasn't really consistently trained, she can probably tighten up the look of her legs by increasing the muscle portion of the muscle to fat ratio.

 

[Luciano_]

Thank you girls, I'll tell her all what you have said.