Could use some help....

[AmyNoelle]

I'm a 32 year old female, former figure competitor. I was always fairly lean and lanky my whole life. I really leaned out at age 30 as I spent the year competing. As I expected, my body fat jumped up and then some after I stopped hardcore dieting & competing. I'm a trainer and fitness professional, in the gym 6 days/week for 1-2 hours, varying the cardio, lifting moderate weight, supersetting, changing it up, I eat very healthy & balanced, six small meals/day, organic if possible, 8-10 glasses of H2O, getting enough protein and about 1600-1800 calories/day. I also take a women's multi, vit C, and usually glutamine with my whey. This diet has always worked for me for the most part until about a year ago. Now I seem to be gaining about a pound or so each month to the point that every few months my pants no longer fit. And the calipars are telling me this isn't muscle gain. Any ideas why this could be happening? Are the 30's really this bad? I'm doing everything right, busting my butt, cross-training, changing it up, using my heart rate to train. What gives????? :confused:

[.V.]

Time to start lifting heavier weights, less reps, make more muscle. As we get older, our ability to store all we eat as muscle diminishes...sorry - it happens to us all I'm 36 and after 30 things got much harder. Maybe another day off and just workout 5 instead of 6 would help. If you are eating "healthy" perhaps you aren't getting the right balance for your body anymore. Our metabolic needs change and we have to change what we eat to meet them. I see how many calories you eat, but where and when during your day do you eat them?

Post all of what you eat, when you eat it, exactly what your workouts are, and someone can help you sort it out. Without more information, this is about the best you are gonna get. Height, weight, LBM, photos would help.

[AmyNoelle]

Awesome..thanks....okay, here's the DIET:
First thing out of bed, 3/4 c whole oats, 4 egg whites (plus a cup of coffee w/a dab of cream and splenda)
3 hours later: 2 cups whey protein or low-sugar yogurt w/handful of almonds
Lunch: green salad w/veggies & olive oil based dressing, no fatty or carby add ons just the occasional handful of nuts; 1/2 c brown rice or a piece of fruit
3 hours later: protien bar, usually around 20 cal, low carb/sugar, at least 20 g of protein
WORKOUT
Dinner (within 1/2 hour of workout): chicken breast or tofu with salsa, cottage cheese or a myoplex lite shake, green veggies
8-10 glasses of h2o throughout the day, no other beverages
--On the weekends, I usually have a drink or two but always sugar-free mixer and lower carb liquors. I stick to this diet probably 90% of the time.

THE WORKOUT:
Cardio--5-6 days/week, 30-50 min per session; good variety of elip., running, teaching kickboxing, athletic drill training, incline walking
Weights--superset back/bis twice per week, chest/shoulders/tris twice per week; always giving each part at least a day in between for rest; abs 5-6 days and incorporated core work into my other weight training through use of instability devices (ball, bosu, balancing, etc)
Supersets--are usually a weight I can only lift up to 12 times to failiure supersetting with the other body part(s) of the day again 12 to failiure. I do four exercise sets (so 8 diff exercises total for the day) and do three sets of each with about 30 sec between sets. I vary my exercises so much that if I do the exercise today, I won't see it in my rotation again for at least three weeks.

Any advice on diet/training would be so helpful!!

[.V.]

Overall, it looks pretty good to me...but...

I see green veggies in only one meal. Consider replacing the bars with whole food...think meats and green veggies. Your fat looks like it may be a bit low and your body is storing what little it gets as fat. A steak here and there wouldn't hurt you.

It looks like you are pretty much eating a standard bodybuilders diet. A very good, lean diet IF it works for your metabolism.

I also didn't see any leg work in there. Walking, running, kickboxing are great - I do them myself with some biking and swimming added in there. They don't build a great deal of muscle though - which is needed to keep fat stores down. Now you are obviously advanced enough to know that you aren't going to get ahhnolditis by adding a few sets of squats and some ghr's in there once or twice a week.

As our bodies change we have to change to meet our new needs. Right now, I'm thinking something like 1-1.5g protein/lb of lbm, 1g carb/lb lbm, .5-1g fat/lb of lbm. Reduce carbs and increase fat (healthy fats of course) gradually until your body starts moving in the direction you want again.

You may be overdoing it on weight volume too, give some consideration to going heavier and only doing 2-3 sets of 4-6 reps each set with 2-3 minutes rest between sets. When you can complete 6 reps on all your sets, add more weight. If you do this, make sure you only train each body part once/week. I'm not currently training exactly this way, but it definitely works.

I heard this for a long time and resisted, then while browsing through the progress pics section I saw Todd's pics and he told me this was how he trained so I gave it a shot. It works...don't worry about turning into him since you are female, I'm a guy and I've tried - it hasn't happened yet.

Good luck getting things moving the way you want them to again. There are plenty of folks here older than us who are doing great. Check out cursor's pics, check out some of the pics of clarence bass...32 is nothing to worry about, just make some simple changes and you are gonna do great.

Edit: I almost forgot, I only see 5 meals in there. Can you find room for a small 6th? Remember, eating smaller meals more often boosts the metabolism and helps us stay slimmer and more muscular - or what is the ladylike word for it..."toned".

Sorry, I have no credentials to back up what I say except to tell you that even though it isn't great - that avatar pic is me...I used to weigh 300lbs.

[arbit]

Whats u'r weight, height ?

[CF-OC_gal]

I got heavier in my 30's too but stayed quite lean (put on 5 lbs). It was the 40's that changed the leaness and kept the scale weight the same for me . I have normal bodyfat for a girl now. (I was bodybuilding in my 20's).

I think our priorities changing do affect the intensity and focus of our workouts. I know mine changed from wanting apearance goals to wanting energy level goals to do everything I possibly could in a day. My looks shifted along with that. Not in a negative way, just differently.

We also have that little challenge of viceral fat that starts to form around our internal organs as we age. Calipers won't catch that, but the mirror and waistline of your pants might.

Like Andy suggested, intensify your weights by lowering the reps and upping the lbs. You could very well have lost muscle mass just by aging if you have not been stimulating them hard enough or overdoing the aerobic work all this time.

[minime]

wow it does seem strange that you would gain on only 1600-1800cals a day, especially with your activity level. Whats your weight and height? Perhaps you were underweight before?

the diet looks good to me - as does the workout.

[AmyNoelle]

Thanks for all the advice so far guys. I'm 5' 9" and up until age 30 I always stayed around 130-135 just by doing decent workouts and eating a decent diet. Back then I could about 2500 cal/day to maintain my weight. My bodyfat sat around 18%. I competed at age 30, dropped down to about 125, 11% bodyfat....I was rail thin then. After stopping competing, I tried to stick to a fairly similar diet, just adding in more calories and not being as strict. At that point I had given up the white stuff--sugar, flour, potatoes, white rice, etc. But over the last few years despite the fact that my workouts are actually better--being a trainer I have access to all the latest info and I do use it--I'm now up to about 150 lbs and 23% bf. I would love to get back down to 135-140 but no matter how hard or smart I diet or how much I change up my workouts I'm stuck at 150.

[.V.]

So you are saying that you now look like a normal woman with a healthy body fat level? I just suspect your calories are a bit low and you need to eat another meal each day to boost that metabolism a little.

Another thing that works pretty well to re-arrange your intake that is frowned upon by most who are "in the know" about nutrition, but it works well in spite of not being "normal" or "in favor" is carb cycling, or carb cutoff nutrition planning.

I do this and it's worked great for me...it took me a couple of years experimenting on my body to get it right though. Someone with some nutrition knowledge can probably figure it out quicker.

The idea is easy. On workout days (lifting) have big carb refeeds. Add complex carbs early in the day at breakfast (with your protien and fat of course), add them to your preworkout meal. Then postworkout have your simple carbs, wait 10 minutes and have some protein. An hour later is a protein, fat, complex carb meal. After that, just do a carb cutoff...this doesn't actually mean no carbs, it means choose the high fiber, low GI stuff like green veggies to have with your protein/fat foods the rest of the day.

Cardio days, stick to the lower GI foods all day long except for some simple carbs postworkout about 10 minutes before the post-workout protein...meats and green veggies the rest of the day.

Rest days - keep the carbs much lower by sticking with meats and green veggies all day long.

For me the key is making sure that 40% of my calories come from fat. I learned this by starting with 10% of my calories from fat and gradually increasing until I started slowly seeing the results I wanted.

My little girl is very active with sports, basketball, softball, running, cycling, swimming, she lifts weights too. In spite of all this, during the winter time with a bit more time spent at the playstation and less time outside she got a little chubby. This spring, I put her on a carb cutoff plan - not timed to her activities. She eats "normally" all day oatmeal and eggs for breakfast with orange juice, juice and fruit again once she gets to school to fire the brain up. Then the usual diabetes causing school lunch. After school is an apple and if she want's a boiled egg, or some other protein/fat food. After that, its just meats, cheeses, and green veggies in whatever amount, whatever time she wants. Results have been good, about 0.75lb fat loss/week. Good energy levels, improved sports performance, increased strength. Ever seen a 10 year old who can hit a softball to the fence? I can't even do that but she can. Getting the nutrition right and exercise right made the difference - at the first of the season, she could barely reach 2nd base with it.

Carb timing and carb cutoff plans really work well. After we hit 30 we just have to experiment and find what works best for our bodies. With what your knowledge already seems to be, you should have no problem finding out what your body needs with a slightly different approach from the standard "accepted" ways of eating.

[.V.]

oops, forgot to mention the fiber.

Gotta have that extra fiber. Some psyllium husks each night before bed are good, if you need more, have it on waking too.

And don't forget the fish oil, if you don't choose things like salmon, herring, sardines, anchovies for your "fatty" foods, have some fish oil instead. Comes in capsules and if you are like me (a fish hater) it's much easier to get the healthy fats by adding fish oil and cooking with olive oil.

[AmyNoelle]

I like the carb timing idea...the problem is that I usually workout from 6-8PM....so my dinner is at 8:30 or 9P and I'm in bed by 11P. And I can't eat for at least an hour before bed...

[CF-OC_gal]

You probably know this, but don't get stuck on the scale weight! You may achieve 18% BF at 150lbs.

I really think this is going to be a two pronged approach for you, both diet and exercise and like Andy says you may have to cycle things in your diet and get your weights up into a more challenging rep range.

I'm thinking that you need to add more normal food in your diet like 5-10 servings of vegetables a day. That'll give you fibre. And get more dietary fat. Experiment. I go on other fitness message boards with lots of women who's life revolves around fitness and leaness who are experiencing what you are. None of them are having any luck.

What exactly is wrong with the way you look or feel now?

[.V.]

Originally Posted by AmyNoelle

I like the carb timing idea...the problem is that I usually workout from 6-8PM....so my dinner is at 8:30 or 9P and I'm in bed by 11P. And I can't eat for at least an hour before bed...

Well, that's easy, meats and veggies all day long - meat doesn't have to mean porkchops and steak, you can have chicken breast cooked with olive oil, oily fish, or even non oily fish like tilapia cooked with olive oil. Lots of salads and green veggies like broccoli, asparagus, spinach, brussels sprouts, kale, green beans and similar foods. Then carb up before your workout & after your workout. Then cut them off after your postworkout feedings. Postworkout dextrose, wait 10 minutes, protein shake, wait an hour, meat with potato (or rice, or whole wheat bread, or whatever other "starchy" carb you like) then cutoff time. Just find a way for the timing to work for you and your schedule. It isn't too hard and soon enough, you don't even have to think about it. I used to have to totally struggle with my food intake to get it right, now on lifting days, my 2800-3200 calories come with ease, cardio days my 2400-2600 calories just happen, and on rest days 1800-2200 requires no thought whatsoever. I still track it on fitday to make sure I'm not slipping, but so far...so good.

[Lady C]

Here is my .02 cents.

It is the few drinks per week. It really slows my metabolism down for up to two days. It really adds up. If you are going to drink then you will have to up the intensity of your workouts or eat less.

Where are the leg workouts? Working out the legs is a must to maintain good bodyfat levels. After 40 is where my metabolism changed.

[.V.]

LC, that's worth way more than $0.02.

The leg work thing is very important too. Thanks for re-stressing that. I started mentioning it and lost my train of thought.

A few sets of squats, some GHR's, are definitely NOT going to hurt.