jayd3e

Hi Nerdfitness! Long time lurker, first time poster. I'm posting this for a friend. Here is her situation: I'm a 5' 1"(and a half :)) indian female. I've been a fitness/diet fanatic for a while, and love finding new ways to be more healthy and spur weight-loss. My journey in the fitness world started when I was 21 at 167lbs. Over the course of 3-4 years, I lost 40lbs and got down to a weight I was pretty content with at around 125lbs. I have fluctuated between 130lbs and 140lbs for the last couple years, through yo-yo dieting and working out sporadically. After putting in a lot of work and seeing very little for it, I decided I needed to be much more rigid in my efforts. The last few months I've been going to crossfit regularly(4-5 days a week) and really controlled my diet. Over the last month I've lost 5lbs and went from 135lbs to 130lbs by doing the following things consistently: Counting calories, staying under (900-1300). * More on this later I eat very healthy foods. Usually a salad for lunch and a chicken/vegetable dish for dinner. I also eat 10 almonds every day. My biggest indulgence is alcohol. I usually go out one night a week, and will have around 5-7 drinks. A few times this summer, I've gone out 2-3 nights of the weekend(but this definitely isn't the norm). Doing crossfit 4-5 days a week Walking 10,000 steps a day Low-carb diet. I've been in ketosis for the greater portion of the last month, and eaten less than 25g of carbs a day. I've only broken this on a couple weekends. My biggest question is around my diet. I don't seem to be seeing any results by keeping my calorie intake at around 1100-1300 as a number of nutritionists/fitness experts say. I've been incredibly consistent with my calorie intake and I only lose weight when I'm eating 600-800 calories a day. I know I know, pick your jaw up from the floor :). But as a person who has been very strict with herself and has only seen results in a certain calorie range, you have to be a little empathetic for me just doing what works at the end of the day. The problem, as you can probably guess, is that this calorie range is much less maintainable over the long run. It's not like I ever have huge binges, but I will just return to my 1100-1300 range and see no progress. To give you an indication of what's working for me. Of the 5lbs(from 135 to 130) I've lost in the last month, 4 of those pounds were lost while eating 600-700 calories a day. Could this just be a combination of my genes and size? Could that range really be the amount I need to eat at a deficit of my BMR? At a more macro-level, can you guys see any holes in what I'm doing? I'm definitely putting in a lot of work and being very strict myself. I would anticipate losing at least one pound per week, but so far the only thing that has worked is more rapid weight loss. What gives? Also, since it will likely be asked, my goal weight is 115lbs. So I'm right at the last 15 lbs of my journey and it's proving to be much trickier than the 40lbs I lost early on.

I'm 6'0"". Myfitnesspal actually didn't ask that this morning, but they may have it in my profile. Edit: Checked, they do.

Thanks for both of your replies. Ultimately, I'm going to track my diet today and see how many calories I'm consuming. I downloaded myfitnesspal and was allotted 3,470 calories when I put in a goal of 200lbs from 183lbs. That seems a little high, but that's what I'm going to try and eat today just to feel it out. I'll workout at around 6pm with the 3 compound lifts detailed in the nerdfitness mass guide. Will post about what I find out.

So the great majority of your reply talks about gaining a caloric excess as the key part I'm likely missing. How do I determine the amount of calories my body burns naturally on my days off and workout days? Thanks btw for such an awesome response.

So my goal is to weigh 200lbs, so pack on 18-20lbs of muscle, and get down to 12% body fat. I messed up the description of the eggs, I actually eat 2 egg yolks and 8 egg whites. How many should I be eating would you say? I usually don't workout on the weekends, as I'm trying to stick with the 3 day workout mentioned in that article. My diet on weekends is not as rigid as during the week, but I'm really good about not eating unhealthy besides drinking and maybe a single cheat meal on saturday night. I totally agree I could be getting far more scientific about this, but I just wanted to see if I was being unrealistic with my expectations. My goal is pretty ambitious, so I'm beginning to think that I need to be even more drastic on both aspects.

Good to know, I am a little on the high side for most of my lifts. I'll check those lift schedules out.

So since the beginning of the year, I've started a pretty solid workout schedule that I've followed through with. Every week I've made meals on Sunday for the whole week, and I work out three times a week, using the workout plan mentioned here. My meals every week day consist of. Morning 10 egg whites Bowl of oat meal w/ a little brown suger 11:30am Muscle Milk protein shake Lunch Sweet potatoes or rice Chicken or Salmon Couple servings of veggies(usually mixed frozen peas and corn) Post-workout 20+ grams of whey protein Dinner Another meal of sweet potatoes or rice Chicken or Salmon Veggies I started tracking my workouts about 3-4 weeks ago and I've included that log below. I didn't write down a couple of my workouts during a few weeks, but I've only missed one workout so far. Week 5 Deadlifts: 115 x 10, 135 x 10, 155 x 7 Bench: 115 x 12, 125 x 8, 135 x 5Rows: 45 x 12, 65 x 12, 85 x 12 Lunges: 40 x 10, 40 x 10, 40 x 10Dips: 12, 12, 12Pull ups: 12 x -55, 10 x -55, 5 x -55 3 x -70 Front Squats: 95 x 12, 115 x 10, 125 x 8Overhead Press: 65 x 12, 70 x 11, 75 x 12Chin ups: 10 x -55, 11 x -55 Week 6Deadlifts: 120 x 10, 140 x 10, 160 x 8Bench: 120 x 12, 130 x 11, 140 x 7Rows: 45 x 12, 70 x 12, 90 x 12 Front Squats: 105 x 12, 115 x 10, 125 x 6Overhead Press: 65 x 12, 75 x 12, Chin Ups: 12 x -50, 12 x -50, 8 x -50 Week 7Dead Lifts: 125 x 12, 145 x 10, 165 x 8,Note: don't go higher than 165 for nowBench press: 125 x 12, 135 x 8, 135 x 8Rows: 45 x 12, 75 x 75, 95 x 8 Lunges: 42.5 x 10, 42.5 x 10, 42.5 x 10, 20 x 10Note: last set was deep lungesDips: 12, 10, 10Chin-ups: 10 x -45, 7 x -45, 6 x -45 Front Squats: 105 x 10, 115 x 12, 125 x 12Overhead Presses: 65 x 12, 85 x 10, 85 x 8Pull-ups: 10 x -50, 7 x -45, 8 x -50 Week 8Deadlifts: 125 x 12, 145 x 8, 145 x 6Bench: 125 x 12, 135 x 8, 135 x 6Rows: 85 x 12, 95 x 12, 105 x 12 Front Squats: 105 x 10, 115 x 12, 125 x 10Overhead Presses: 65 x 12, 85 x 12, 95 x 7Pull-ups: 12 x -50, 12 x -50, 8 x -45 I'm just seeing minimal results so far, and I'm not sure if I need to switch things up or just continue down this path. Okay so maybe minimal is a strong word, but I'm getting "good" results, not "great". Any advice? I'm around 18-19% body fat most likely and around 182lbs. I've been this way for a while, and it's proving quite difficult to get over the hump to up my game. One other detail that's important, is I workout at around 6:15 after my work day is over and I'm already a little tired. Could it be that I'm not working out hard enough? I feel like I push myself pretty hard. Thanks in advance. Week 5 Week 6 Week 7