[Natalia]

Originally Posted by prof41

Hey Natalia, got another question for you. You mention somewhere that you were 17% bf. I know you lost quite a bit of weight before. When you were say, 25% bf or about, what in your opinion brought you down to 17%? Was it more weight training or nutrition. Do you think NROLW w/amount of cals prescribed is still a good bet for lowering bf at that level.

In other words, what would you, based on your experience tell someone who is at or around 25-27% bf to focus on more....

Hey, Prof!

I'll be a little long-winded here...just feel like it

I got to about 35%BF in 1998! (In 1996 got married being skinny fat, and after having a baby, things went down the hill....)

So, I can't give any suggestion that will apply 100% to you just because it worked for me. All I can do is share the experience. But I am not going to go as far as some and tell you "do what I did and you'll reach the same result!". Too many variables for that.

I tell you for me there were seasons of intense workouts and dieting mixed with seasons of relaxation and doing nothing. That's why the weight was coming off slowly. In retrospect, making even a small step was big for me. I started making small and permanent changes to my lifestyle.

- The first change I made was ditching Coca-Cola. Lost 20 lbs right away just from that alone.

- Then I joined a gym and started working out ( a bb friend of mine showed me a few things about weight-training). I kept loosing inches and weight..kinda slowly. Mainly because ice-cream, way too much peanut butter, pasta, white bread, pizza and Rally's Big Buford were a big part of my diet. Remember Rally's fries? I haven't had one probably for 8 years!

- My diet started having a major re-haul when we moved with my in-laws after hurricane Katrina (we lived in New Orleans at the time). Being among some of the heaviest people in La (southern Louisiana) made me want to change my diet. I got on the internet, read all ight and came up with a perfect diet for me! Not really, it took a few weeks of research, evaluation and then slow integration into my daily menu. Again, more weight started coming off. I was still weight-training religiously.

- So lo and behold, I was down to size 4 (from 16) and 127 lbs weight (down from almost 200 lbs). It was in 2005. Now looking back at that anyone can tell that I was too thin. And the research has begun again....

- It was not until last year that I finally decided to up my calories. And just that alone brought about another wonderful thing. Instead of looking flat and mushy I filled out and leaned out at the same time. I didn't know before that by severely cutting my calories I was sabotaging the hormones responsible for anabolism and fat-burning.

check out these two pix:

staying with low cals for too long and doing way to much cardio:



eating and lifting heavy (summer 2007):



...and from that point on y'all kinda know what I did...NROL4W, etc.

Did mean to be so thorough, but hope that answers a few question.