• Hi, I am the owner and main administrator of Styleforum. If you find the forum useful and fun, please help support it by buying through the posted links on the forum. Our main, very popular sales thread, where the latest and best sales are listed, are posted HERE

    Purchases made through some of our links earns a commission for the forum and allows us to do the work of maintaining and improving it. Finally, thanks for being a part of this community. We realize that there are many choices today on the internet, and we have all of you to thank for making Styleforum the foremost destination for discussions of menswear.
  • This site contains affiliate links for which Styleforum may be compensated.
  • We would like to welcome House of Huntington as an official Affiliate Vendor. Shop past season Drake's, Nigel Cabourn, Private White V.C. and other menswear luxury brands at exceptional prices below retail. Please visit the Houise of Huntington thread and welcome them to the forum.

  • STYLE. COMMUNITY. GREAT CLOTHING.

    Bored of counting likes on social networks? At Styleforum, you’ll find rousing discussions that go beyond strings of emojis.

    Click Here to join Styleforum's thousands of style enthusiasts today!

    Styleforum is supported in part by commission earning affiliate links sitewide. Please support us by using them. You may learn more here.

Help Me Help a Woman

db_ggmm

Distinguished Member
Joined
Dec 8, 2008
Messages
2,512
Reaction score
111
I need advice for a female friend of mine.

5'4, maybe 160. Curvy and attractive, but seriously intent on losing more weight. At least another 15 lbs. Carries a lot of weight on hips and thighs. Zero muscle tone. She lost 80 lbs over a year and has been plateaued for a year.

Current exercise consists of something like 90 minutes of steady state cardio every other day. Sometimes every day. During the period where she lost the weight performed a wider variety of exercises. Some complexes and strength training, intervals.

Diet... below what one would consider maintenance. I think. She doesn't eat a lot, but there might be cheating. All carbs. No meat, no fat, all carbs. Fruit, fat free yogurt, cereal, fat free granola bars, vegetables.

She's been getting desperate over the past couple of months. Had been taking it a little easier and gained 10 of the lbs she is now currently looking to lose and is finding it impossible. She ran 14 miles the past two days. She's talking about cutting out sodium completely thinking it's causing her to "hold a lot of water". And from past discussions I know she is ragingly hungry all the time. She's ready for a change and I'd like to help.

Here's what I'm thinking in regards to her situations.

The steady state cardio isn't doing her any good at all any more. I think her body is dumping cortisol into her system from the stress every time she runs for more than 30 minutes, causing storage over the next 48 hrs. She also runs at night after an entire day of carb loading. She needs to shock her system with a completely new exercise routine.

She needs strength training, but I remember 'why' saying that squats for chicks is probably too much thigh work. I only know Stronglifts / SS. What kinda lifts should a woman be doing? What's the trick to keep thighs down? Should she just take a more cardio approach to squats... less weight, higher reps?

She needs to recalculate BMR and reset the whole starvation mode she has going. She has finally gotten desperate enough that she is going to let me recommend a complete diet. She isn't going to accept ketosis, but I want to turn this 0fat, 10prot, 90carb thing into 50-100g carb and 50 50 prot / fat. Please recommend a good ratio for women. I need a cutting diet scheme for women.

Start at 1600 kcal / day?

Breakfast - 1 cup egg beaters on whole wheat tortilla 240cal

Late morning - 1 lb greek yogurt 320cal (18g carb, 48g prot kind)

Late afternoon - 1 lb frozen broccoli 250 cal

Early evening - chicken / tuna / pork

Work Out

Post WO - chicken / tuna / pork



I know this is a lot of ****, but I could use advice regarding any piece of it.
 

longskate88

Distinguished Member
Joined
Oct 4, 2006
Messages
1,218
Reaction score
6
Bump for ideas...my gf is in the same boat. She's slowly lost about 20 lbs over the past year.

She's stopped eating beef, milk products, and most gluten I believe.

Ideas also welcome for ways to talk about the issue without making it overly personal. I'm naturally skinny, so I don't know what it's like to be unable to lose weight...meaning sometimes I'm a little blunt. To me, "eat less and move more" seems simple enough, but she's always looking to complicate things.
 

Flambeur

Distinguished Member
Joined
Mar 19, 2008
Messages
4,787
Reaction score
68
All the skinny bitches I know survive on wine and cheese and sometimes some meat or something.
 

rjacobs

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 10, 2009
Messages
183
Reaction score
0
Originally Posted by db_ggmm
She has finally gotten desperate enough that she is going to let me recommend a complete diet.

It's a nice thought, but when she hears your recommendation, she will ignore it. Guaranteed.
 

Davidko19

Distinguished Member
Joined
Aug 6, 2008
Messages
2,268
Reaction score
4
As a doctor, I cant recommend a specific diet program without seeing pictures of said woman.

Bikini pictures preferred.
 

philosophe

Distinguished Member
Joined
Oct 20, 2004
Messages
5,082
Reaction score
379
Refer her to a qualified nutritionist for advice about how to eat.
 

milosz

Distinguished Member
Joined
Oct 16, 2008
Messages
3,883
Reaction score
11
Who the **** can choke down a pound of greek yogurt or broccoli?

Isn't "cortisol makes you fat" pretty much bullshit? More likely that her 90 minutes of cardio is the equivalent of walking and she needs to ramp up the intensity.
 

longskate88

Distinguished Member
Joined
Oct 4, 2006
Messages
1,218
Reaction score
6
I'll throw in, say one piece of cake is equal to a 6 mile run worth of calories.

Obviously, the 'easier' thing to do, cake vs. run, is to not eat the cake. To me, the conclusion is that losing weight is more based on diet than exercise, and lots of exercise will NOT counteract a poor diet.

Unless you're running marathons, you'll never burn off the calories gained through unhealthy or excess eating.
 

db_ggmm

Distinguished Member
Joined
Dec 8, 2008
Messages
2,512
Reaction score
111
Originally Posted by longskate88
Bump for ideas...my gf is in the same boat. She's slowly lost about 20 lbs over the past year.

She's stopped eating beef, milk products, and most gluten I believe.

Ideas also welcome for ways to talk about the issue without making it overly personal. I'm naturally skinny, so I don't know what it's like to be unable to lose weight...meaning sometimes I'm a little blunt. To me, "eat less and move more" seems simple enough, but she's always looking to complicate things.


Don't think you can pull it off unless she consistently approaches you directly for dietary advice.

Originally Posted by rjacobs
It's a nice thought, but when she hears your recommendation, she will ignore it. Guaranteed.

Maybe. She has before. This is the first time she's literally asked for help.

Originally Posted by philosophe
Refer her to a qualified nutritionist for advice about how to eat.

Body building methods of cutting seem light years ahead of anything they teach a nutritionist. I'd recommend her to a female body builder (figure) and am trying to find one.

Originally Posted by milosz
Who the **** can choke down a pound of greek yogurt or broccoli?

Isn't "cortisol makes you fat" pretty much bullshit? More likely that her 90 minutes of cardio is the equivalent of walking and she needs to ramp up the intensity.


She says she runs seven miles an hour and sweats like a pig, dunno about intensity, but you are surely right in that running is easier for her today than it was 80 lbs heavier.

I eat those things. I even enjoy it. I throw cayenne and salt on the broccoli and eat the greek plain. I try to make all my meals weigh a pound. When I want a snack, I grab a pound of greek yogurt.
 

dcg

Distinguished Member
Joined
Nov 2, 2007
Messages
3,991
Reaction score
506
Honestly, if it was that important to her, wouldn't she be doing the research herself?

I'm not sure how much it'll help to recommend a daily meal plan like you've outlined above. No one wants to eat the same thing day in and day out. She needs to do the research and come up with a variety of healthy options that work for her.

My recommendation would be for her to start tracking (meticulously) everything she eats. It can be a shock to see what you end up with. Keep in mind that most people are terrible at estimating portions - a kitchen scale is your friend here.

Agree with you that most "nutritionists" are pretty worthless. I'm not sure that bodybuilding-style cutting should be the goal here - she's looking for a long term weight loss, not short-term competition loss. If she's close to her goal weight she might consider calculating an estimate for her caloric needs at her ideal weight and sticking to that number.

I personally couldn't stand doing that much cardio, but if she enjoys it I wouldn't worry too much about how she's getting her exercise. Weight training would be a good addition if she likes it, but diet is what she needs to work on.
 

why

Distinguished Member
Joined
Oct 7, 2007
Messages
9,505
Reaction score
368
She needs to stop ******* eating so goddamn much. She won't lose weight exercising because her body is trying to adapt to the exercise. It has nothing to do with cortisol or gluten or any magic voodoo horseshit that people talk about. It's simple: she eats a shitload and then exercises. The method of exercise doesn't really matter much. Overeating and then exercising will not allow for weight loss because the body adapts to the exercise with the food given to it. And if she's put on 10lbs. through "stress" you know full well she self-medicates with a tub of ice cream.
 

vinouspleasure

Distinguished Member
Joined
Jul 16, 2007
Messages
1,289
Reaction score
25
for the most part, what a cruel set of posts. Why don't you try something like weightwatchers?
 

imatlas

Saucy White Boy
Joined
May 27, 2008
Messages
24,694
Reaction score
28,395
Originally Posted by vinouspleasure
for the most part, what a cruel set of posts. Why don't you try something like weightwatchers?

+1. At this stage she probably needs support more than anything else, and it's difficult for a skinny male friend to provide that support - she needs to hear it from women who are in her position.

Her diet doesn't sound very healthy - 100% carbs? Really? The diet you outlined seems more balanced to me, although I agree with the "1LB of yogurt, 1LB of broccoli WTF" comment.

She has probably plateaued on her exercise regime, maybe she'd consider meeting with a trainer a couple of times to review her goals and reset her program.
 

Featured Sponsor

How important is full vs half canvas to you for heavier sport jackets?

  • Definitely full canvas only

    Votes: 55 36.2%
  • Half canvas is fine

    Votes: 59 38.8%
  • Really don't care

    Votes: 17 11.2%
  • Depends on fabric

    Votes: 26 17.1%
  • Depends on price

    Votes: 26 17.1%

Forum statistics

Threads
505,152
Messages
10,578,810
Members
223,881
Latest member
nor77man
Top