Women's weight lifting -- I need advice

I'm beginning to weight train. I have a lot of muscle right now, but it's bulky and I want a really cut look. My body fat is 22% right now and my diet is 60% carbs/ 20% protein/20% fat. I don't know whether I just need to lose some more fat, eat more protein, or whether you can get a cut look just by doing different exercises with a heavier amount of weight. I have alot of short-twitch muscle fibers but again, I don't want to look bulky. I'd really appreciate any advice you could give me.

[Fudomyo]

Definition or Cut is more muscle and less fat.

You should always lift heavier, that's how you get more muscles.

I think your main problem is the 60% carbs. That much carbs, slow absorbing or not, is going to produce lots of insulin. Insulin is what regulates your blood sugar, and it does this by storing sugars/fats in your cells.

You can read that as, you are storing fat, and you are not burning any fat.

40% carbs, 30% protein, and 30% fat AT EACH MEAL makes a nice level blood sugar level, and hence low insulin. Eating those all together helps slow digestion. You can't make it up in another meal. If you eat 40% grapenuts, bread, pasta and rice as your carb food, well you are in the same boat. These are just about like eating candy bars.

So make your carbs fruits and vegetables and your set.

Step 2 is making sure your body is in "fat burning" mode. You do this by eating fat with each meal. Most cells can burn fat or carbs. If you leave the choice up to them they will burn fat. It much easier, fat is a more dense and requires moving less nutrients around the body. It also leaves all that glucose for your brain, which will use all 40% of those carbs you eat. This enzyme conversion back to fats takes many days, so you can see that staying in the fat burning zone is key.

Eat low fat dairy and meat, and ADD olive oil or some nuts to you meals.

BTW, I'm trying to gain weight, but still lose body fat on this diet. Highly anoying. I've got hip bones now, and I'm thiiiisss close to a six pack, eating however much I want.

Hope that helps.
Fudo

[casanova88]

your weight training is now what will make u look cut. you will get cut by losing body fat, which will of course come from a good diet.

60% carbs is def too high

i would go with macros of (protein/carb/fat)
40/40/20 or 50/30/20 if you're trying to lose weight

you should stick w/ low GI carbs..which is why i would avoid fruits. sweet potatoes (uncandied of course), potatoes, whole wheat bread...all good sources of carbs

i've always thought 30% fat was a little high...but that is a personal preference...i prefer 20, but a lot of ppl say its good and i dont disagree. just dont drop below 20% fat

olive oil, avocados, natural peanut butter, flax and fish oi are all good sources of good fats

good luck w/ ur diet!

Hi Heather. Welcome to the board. What is your current caloric intake? Have you kept a food log for three to five days and found your average? If you can get back with an approximate amount of calories that you consume in a day, and what your weight is currnetly doing (raising, falling, remaining the same) then we will have a better idea of what needs to be tweaked. I am hesitant to say that 60% carbs in your diet is the cause of your problem.

Thanks, all.

Iron man, thanks for your help. I have been keeping food logs for awhile. My average is 1950 calories/day. I get most of my protein from vegetarian and fish sources. I eat a lot of veggies, not a lot of fruit, a modertate amount of whole grains, and fats from nuts, olive oil and cheeses. I do cardio workouts every day (usually one half hour to one hour) and am beginning to lift 3 times per week for about 45 minutes.

I am trying to built muscle too. Good luck to you Heather!!

Oh, sorry, I almost forgot to reply to the second question. My weight has been staying pretty much the same. I've been 125 for nearly 6 years. How much I work out has never affected my weight by more than 5 pounds

Ok, that looks like a really good plan. You are heading in the right direction. Try dropping your calories down to 1800 per day for two weeks. If you have lost a pound then you are right where you should be. If nothing happens, then drop another 100 cals. If my calculations are correct you should be getting about 95 grams of protein per day? If that is what you are currently eating the you will want to keep this amount of protein. It is enough protein to build your muscles from weight training, which will help fire up your metabolism.

Losing fat for women is extremely difficult. Your bodies are built to store fat. If they weren't that way, lil' ole me wouldn't be here right now because that is a necessity for childbirth. It assures that both you and the baby have a shot at life. Don't get discouraged -- the weight loss will come around.

[Piper]

Heather.. with that much cardio, you won't gain much size anyways.

Women generally gain size a lot less than men, but that doesn't mean they gain less strength...

[WarPoet]

My average is 1950 calories/day. I get most of my protein from vegetarian and fish sources. I eat a lot of veggies, not a lot of fruit, a modertate amount of whole grains, and fats from nuts, olive oil and cheeses.

Vegtables proteins are incomplete, add some chicken and maybe a whey protein shake after a workout, fish is ok and you still should eat plenty of vegtables but not for protein sources. You should eat a moderate amount of fruit and more grains (not bread though, oatmeal and par boiled rice are ok). Cheese is death to a diet. Fudo is right less carbs more protein.

[cursor]

Please note that the exception to the rule that vegetables offer incomplete protein is soy. Whey, for my wife (and others who are lactose-intolerant, is not an option—her stomach simply cannot handle it. Consider too, powdered egg protein (we use a product from Optimum Nutrition).

The question of whether a food offers your body complete protein or not, is not necessarily a simple answer. For more information on how you can intelligently combine non-animal products to offer your body the necessary components to make complete tissue building proteins, take a look at this former post

Oh, and don't forget the complete protein found in egg whites (4g each), low-fat cottage cheese (14g per 1/2 cup), non-fat yogurt (12g per cup), and non-fat milk (9g per cup).

worx4me
watch for my xone.worx.inc

How much protein a body needs is a debate that is hotly contested. In the book "Power Eating" by Susan M. Kleiner & Maggie Greenwood-Robinson, they reported on a study done on protein intake. It has been shown that 1 gram per kilo of bodyweight (government recommendations) will start protein synthesis. Analysis of blood taken from subjects has shown increasing protein levels when up to 1.6 gm/kiloin of protein is consumed. After that, no increase is seen. At higher concentrations (the standard 1 gram per pound of bodyweight used by bodybuilders) they did find increased levels of protein in the stools. The researcers concluded that consuming protein above 1.6gm/kilo the protein is either converted to fat or excreted. There is a very strong possiblilty that higher levels of protein are wasted by the body. Something to keep in mind while dieting.

[cursor]

Thanks for the info IronMan.

Did the study give any indication as to what else was in the stools? Perhaps there "were higher concentrations" of protein, but what might have been the cause—and what does it actually mean? Was fluid intake increased for improved processing of the protein substances? If not, then might that have been a contributing factor to the body's apparent inability to process the nutrients? What was the level of physical activity or extremity of muscular exertion? Might the bodies of the tested subjects simply not have been appropriately taxed to create the demand for the modified nutrient set? How large was the field of subjects tested—and of what gender and body-type were they? Certainly the amount of protein that a body can use is a function of the amount of tissue rebuilding that is necessary—that depends on the amount, and intensity, of physical exertion.

All of these points (and more) come into play when evaluating the meaning of test results. While I'm not saying that the test was not valid, I'm simply suggesting that we interpret with intelligence (asking the right questions).

[Cougar]

Just as a corollary to what IronMan said about women being designed to store fat, which is true, I'd like to remind my fellow lady lifters that while 10% bodyfat is a reasonable goal for a man- because that's the point where his abs stand out really nicely- it's actually physically dangerous for a woman, because menstruation stops below about 12%, sometimes at higher levels. This affects female bodybuilders, athletes, models, and the just plain anorexic. Amennorhea seems like a great deal at first, but it's associated with fairly rapid, long-term, and to a degree irreversible bone loss. Bad ****. Health-conscious female bodybuilders only cut down to competition form for short periods- and fatten up again so they don't leach off their skeletons in the off-season.

...Besides, we look better with some soft curves over all that hard muscle.

Thanks for the info. Cougar!