So my girlfriend has been working out hard for a couple of years now, doing a variety of different things, and eating well the majority of the time. Improvements have been slow or non-existant. She's...quite a bit overweight. 6 inches shorter than I am and weighs more. Its frustrating because I know how hard she's been working but without results.
Atm she's into classes. She does body pump twice per week and spin class twice per week. She also rides to work (20-30 mins each way) a few times per week. A lot of cardio in there, but then back when she was lifting 2-3 times per week things werent any better and she seems to enjoy the classes and pushes harder in them (of course back then weights were what the gym people gave her to do so probably a lot of isolation work and higher reps).
I guess, are these classes a waste of time or worth sticking at? If she was to go back to doing weights say 2-3 times per week she'd probably need to drop 1 or 2 of them, which prompts the question are the classes any good if you only do say 1 of each per week?
Any other advice from either women who have had trouble getting the weight to come off, or trainers who have had clients like that, or anything I guess. I see over at ruggedmag.com Joel Marion is working on a female specific workout called Lean Sexy and Hard, I'm kinda hoping that will be like RR&D but for women and that might be suitable. Any other ideas or thoughts?
What are her stats. Regardless go to Rachel's site and read everything there, its awesome. You need to stop thinking about things in terms of female workouts vs male workouts. You can see both parts of Lean Sexy and hard at johnberardi.com and type in "resources for women."
Go to t-mag and look up their articles on women: Fun With Women by CT, and others.
What was her weight training setup and how hard did she push it?
Finally you say she ate well. She could avoid junk food altogether but if shes eating too few or too many calories, then shes not going anywhere despite the massive cardio and weights. If I were you Id track her calories for week and log them into fitday to get a number. Then Id look at the Harris Benedict forumla and check out what she needs to cut and adjust her diet from there.
__________________
"The strongest steel goes through the hottest fires."-Anonymous
"When you begin to believe nothing is heavy, all weights become light." -Rossbow
"Just remember, somewhere there is a little Chinese girl warming up with your max."-Jim Convroy
"It's a round hole, dammit. Everyone fits."--Anonymous Mod at Strengthmill
Its not so much female vs male (checked that workout and its almost identicle to rr&d) as do those classes do anything, especially the body pump one? I guess I'm nervouse about suggesting she stop doing what she really enjoys doing to do something else that may not help much more. And yeah the calorie tracking will be important. We're starting to track them again now so hopefully will be able to start working off that soon. We both originally came from eating very little, like around 1200 cals per day. When we were tracking earlier it was more about getting our cals up to "normal" levels while eating clean. Now we need to start again from a cutting point of view.
Originally posted by BjsAust: Approximately she's around 5'5 and 200 lbs.
Its not so much female vs male (checked that workout and its almost identicle to rr&d) as do those classes do anything, especially the body pump one? I guess I'm nervouse about suggesting she stop doing what she really enjoys doing to do something else that may not help much more. And yeah the calorie tracking will be important. We're starting to track them again now so hopefully will be able to start working off that soon. We both originally came from eating very little, like around 1200 cals per day. When we were tracking earlier it was more about getting our cals up to "normal" levels while eating clean. Now we need to start again from a cutting point of view.
Eh you know that HIIT is more effective at fat loss, BUT you have to remember that shes doing something she likes. Perhaps if you compromise by having her do one spin class and one bodypump class as she lifts 3 times a week, then thats a start. Remember that motivation is huge, and if shes not motivated by a complete lifting shift, then she wont make the gains she wants. Watch your diets like hawks.
__________________
"The strongest steel goes through the hottest fires."-Anonymous
"When you begin to believe nothing is heavy, all weights become light." -Rossbow
"Just remember, somewhere there is a little Chinese girl warming up with your max."-Jim Convroy
"It's a round hole, dammit. Everyone fits."--Anonymous Mod at Strengthmill
I wish I had some grand advice, but I don't. I'm in the same boat and my wife struggles as well. She seems to have found something that works for her (limiting food choices; she commented that she feels like she's eating more than she used to!).
Just be as supportive as you can, but not over supportive. I know when I was 'to supportive' it annoyed my wife. Now that she's doing this with some friends she seems to be much better off. Craig said that the best support for women, came from friends and not husbands/boyfriends.
We chatted about it last night. She's going to do the workout above which is cool coz its basically identical to what I'm doing so easy to show her how. She'll still do one spin class and one body pump class per week, so rather than 4 on 1 off it'll be 4 on 3 off but its a start.
We'll start off working out together, but our cycles will get out of whack soon enough. Easy to check on her form/etc though.
Linear Mode
