telophase | (no subject)

Crossposts: http://telophase.livejournal.com/1959543.html

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OMG tired. At least the weights seem to be doing some good! :D I got The New Rules of Lifting for Women, after seeing several recommendations for it online, and decided I liked enough of its philosophy to follow along with the program. (The trainer guy prefers to do fewer exercises that work a whole lot of muscles at once, rather than concentrating on one muscle or muscle group at a time, unless you're training for bodybuilding. I am all about getting it over with as fast as possible!)

It came on because of the need to strengthen my bones, plus wanting to build more muscle up as it burns more calories. :) But I will be happy as long as I make my bones stronger, although that will take months, I think, as I believe bones take a very long time to respond to repeated stresses like weightlifting.

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*tempts you over to

lifting_heavy_things*

Various people there are doing NROL and seem to be very happy with it.

Ooh, thanks!

Thanks for the book rec - I hadn't heard of that one before.

I'm not following their diet recs, but I'm impressed with their EAT! EAT! You need to EAT! mantra.

I need to do that again. While I never noticed it happen to me, I am plagued by the "lifting weights will make your muscles swell big!" mental. I am not my brother (who can do 90 degree push-ups. I feel so inadequate).

I read the few pages that were available on Amazon from this book and the trainer guy points out that it's very hard for men to put on a lot of muscle (while having more testosterone, which makes it easier to put on muscle) so women aren't going to get super bulky without a huge amount of effort -- you'd have to be trying, and even if you are trying, it's still hard.

It looks pretty cool -- I've requested the book from the library and will see if I like it enough to buy it later.

I'm not following their diet recs, just the weights, but I am very impressed by their EAT! EAT! You need to EAT! mantra.

Yeah. I entered my weight, height, age, and activity level into one of those calculators that tell you how many calories they think you burn each day and how many calories you can eat if you'd like to lose weight at a reasonable rate and discovered that if I want to lose a pound a week, which is a goal that I always felt was reasonable before, it says that I may only eat like 1250 calories a day, which is ridiculous. (I mean, on the other hand, I'm pretty sure I was eating 1500-1700 a day and working on the eliptical 20+ minutes every day for the past few months with no noticeable weight loss at all, so clearly I need to be doing something different, but.) So, more heavy weights for me!

I've been listening to the Fat 2 Fit Radio podcast - the hosts' attitude is that if you want to be a thinner, fitter person, what you need to do is to start eating and acting like a person of the size you'd like to be. And that you shouldn't eat below your basal metabolic rate, or you risk going into starvation mode -- and 1200 calories/day is the BMR for a 30-year-old woman who is 5'4" and weighs 89 pounds.

So (making up numbers, because I don't know your stats), if a 30-year-old 5'4" woman weighed 150 pounds and wanted to weigh 125, but isn't getting any exercise (sedentary), the calories she'd be eating at her goal weight are 1604, so she shouldn't eat any less than that. And they admit that because of the vagaries of personal metabolism, fat/lean body mass composition, etc., you may need to tweak that up or down to find the sweet spot for you. They've got three bodyfat percentage calculators that can give you an estimate you can plug into the BMR calculator and get a better estimate on that.

It's a fairly interesting, sensible philosophy. Their site and their various calculators are at http://www.fat2fitradio.com/. Of the two hosts, one's a PE teacher from Canada who lost some weight himself following that, and the other is a guy from California who has lost over 100 pounds slowly, and is near his goal weight now. He'll probably be moving into maintenance before too long.

And in addition to

weirdquark's reassurance - Amie, the ConDFW director, has been hardcore bodybuilding for well over a year in prep for eventual competition in a natural bodybuilding competition (natural = no drugs). You couldn't tell it by looking at her when she's not posing or flexing - she looks petite and delicate and thin.

I think I've got a photo of her from ConDFW on my iPhone - if I've got it, I'll send it to you so you can see.

Edited 2011-04-01 16:31 (UTC)

Fair deal. Yeah, while I intellectually understand that women don't generally bulk out without actively trying to, I'm paranoid about it since I'm already tall and broad-shouldered to begin with. I just need to mentally whap myself upside the head to stop making excuses and get after it. :)

I sent a couple of things to your @LJ address - let me know if they get there. :)

Yeps, I got them. Reply sent to you. :)

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