Need help for girlfriend

[Twoguns]

My girlfriend is in excellent shape, she works out everday and was a cheerleader all through college. She wants to lose an inch on her waist and I am trying to tell her she cannot spot reduce. I have explained to her that she must dial in the diet an exercise to lean out more. She lifts weights and doesn't do excessive mass building exercises on her abs. She grazes all day and eats well, I believe that she is gaining some muscle and some fat that is making her waist bigger and her pants tighter. Do you have an suggestions for what I can tell her.

We are going to go over her diet and maybe drop her carbs a little. She does like 50 min of cardio per day weather it be stair stepper, treadmill, etc . . .

Any suggestions for me to help her?

 

[florencia]

http://www.exrx.net/FatLoss/HIITvsET.html

 

[Sassy69]

An inch is nothing - optimize the diet for your goals. If you want ot post up her diet we can pick it apart too. Also helpful to use a food counts program like www.fitday.com.

 

[velvett]

Diet and Pilates (yeaaaaaaaaaah I'm the pilates pusher but it really does work and no you don't have to use the machines a tape/cd at home would even work)

 

[Twoguns]

After church tonight I am going to sit down with her and go over her diet and I will post up more info tomorrow. That was an interesting HIIT program that Florencia linked to. Thanks everyone for the input.

 

[Sassy69]

Complete program-wise,The Shadow Project (see the sticky on the top of the board) is really good - lots of girls have done it here the last couple years.

 

[T-Cake]

OMG, I have a carb-up day and gain a few inches in the waist! Maybe she just needs a trip to the bathroom.

Sorry, couldn't resist. But seriously, I think what you said about carbs is smart -- once you put the food into fitday, you may find her carb macro may be a little high. She may have some added muscle, like you said, but maybe it's not fat gain too... maybe she's holding water real easy. Again, something else that is fixable through diet.

I'm a big believer in HIIT cardio too, and if she's not into pilates (which I think is great too, especially if she's been conditioned before in cheerleading), maybe set up a small weights session of 20-rep-sets. This will help to lean her out by burning out the intermuscular fat and give her the definition she's after.

 

[Twoguns]

To me an inch on the waist is nothing, I mean, I can fluctuate five to six pounds throughout the day, sometimes I am holding more water, other times I am not. She is going by pants she wears, I look in the mirror, I can kind of tell what is going on by looking at my abs. In addition, there is water retention during her period that I don't have to contend with. I want to help her with the workouts, but at the same time, I have to be able to gauge if she is being realistic about what is going on with her body i.e. is this fat gain/ muscle gain, or is this just normal fluctuations of her body.

Regardless, I will take a close look at the shadow program and the HIIT, and the fitday site to work on fine tuning the diet. I know that she is not going to like it when I cut chocolate out of her diet !!!!

 

[Sassy69]

To me an inch on the waist is nothing, I mean, I can fluctuate five to six pounds throughout the day, sometimes I am holding more water, other times I am not. She is going by pants she wears, I look in the mirror, I can kind of tell what is going on by looking at my abs. In addition, there is water retention during her period that I don't have to contend with. I want to help her with the workouts, but at the same time, I have to be able to gauge if she is being realistic about what is going on with her body i.e. is this fat gain/ muscle gain, or is this just normal fluctuations of her body.

Regardless, I will take a close look at the shadow program and the HIIT, and the fitday site to work on fine tuning the diet. I know that she is not going to like it when I cut chocolate out of her diet !!!!

Regardless of how you want to measure things (actually I'd suggest getting a caliper / skin fold bodyfat measure done if you want to have something that is sort of a more relative thing than pants fitting or water retention), its worth looking at her diet just to see if it can be optimized. Sometimes some very easy changes can produce very good results w/ almost no impact to lifestyle.

 

[Twoguns]

OK here it is, this is what we came up with.

Here is her food intake for the last two days, and projected today
(projected b/c she has it all with me..and plans to eat it!)

Tues
2 cups wheat bran flakes with 4-6 oz of skim milk
2 pieces of bologna
90 cal granola bar
Apple
Banana
4 pieces of dried fruit
5 pieces of chocolate
Salad with 1/4 cup walnuts, 1/4 cup cheese, 6 cherry tomatoes
Spaghetti with meat sauce (tomatoes, garlic, mozzarella)
40 almonds
2 peppermints (like the restaurants have)
7 ice breaker mints

Gym: 1 hr 40 min of cardio (30 min in morning, 1 hr 10 after work), 10
min abs (300 situps), 15 min weights (legs)

120 oz of water

Wednesday
2 cups wheat flakes with 4-6 oz of skim milk
1 piece of bologna
40 almonds
4 oz coffee with 2 oz of skim milk
1 diet coke
1 protein bar (15 g protein)
1 chocolate and almond slices covered strawberry
Banana
4 pieces of dried fruit
2 pieces of chocolate
4 egg whites with cheese
1 fat free yogurt
apple

Gym: 1 hr 5min of cardio (ran 3.5 miles, walked uphill 2.0 miles)

100 oz of water

Thursday
2 cups wheat flakes with 4-6 oz of skim milk
2 pieces chocolate
4 oz coffee with 2 oz of skim milk
40 almonds
3 pieces bologna
2 slices of fiber bread
Salad with 1/4 cup walnuts, 1/4 cup cheese, 6 cherry tomatoes
Apple
Banana
Protein bar
1 diet coke

100 oz water
Gym: 60 min cardio, 15 min weights (chest), 10 min abs (300 situps)

What do you think Ladies?

 

[Sassy69]

Oh I think there's LOTS of ways to clean this up.

First -- where's the beef??? There's barely any protein in there & what is there is all mega processed shit. Lunch meat like bologna is basically sodium & preservatives. The only "real" protein there is the almonds. But also a pile of almonds in one sitting is a pile of fat as well. Its good fat, but its a lot of fat. I think more in terms of a small handful -- like 15, not 40. The chocolate is pretty obvious. Also not even much in the way of veggies. Fruit is great but its essentially a simple sugar. Not real excited about dried fruit either.

If you want to illustrate just how crappy that diet is, put 1 day's meal into a food counts program like www.fitday.com which will show u how many cals, as well as the break down of protien / fat / carb. There are calories in her diet, but a lot of it is sort of empty calories that could be used much more efficiently. You don't mention her bodyfat, but again based on that diet, she's probabbly more skinny fat than anythign else - not enough good protein to build some quality lean muscle mass.

The easiest way to make some changes is if she looks at the diet laid out in The Shadow Project - its not a boring, rigorous diet, its not limited to just meat, potatos & veggies - IMO its a very balanced & doable diet. At least get the jist of what a healthy, fit diet looks like. If she just follows something like that for 3 weeks I BET YOU she drops that inch around her waist just from cleaning out the shitty carbs and getting some lean healthy protein in there.