for my gf... plz help me

[Ect0m0rph]

Hi I've been liftin for 3+ years now and have gained 35 pounds of raw muscle. Only problem (well not for me) is that I'm a guy. My girlfriend wants to start workin out once college starts in the fall. I don't know what to tell her about female fitness, cause she doesn't wanna put on a lot of muscle.... she just wants to lose a few pounds around 15-20 and and just get leaner and toner. I have no clue in what direction to show her cause like my handle says, I'm an ectomorph and i don't try to lose any weight. So if anyone could help me out w/ a program (mix of cardio and weight training), hopefully one that won't scare her away... plz do. Thx - Ect0

[imperfectly_lou]

When women say they want to be "toned", they just mean they dont want bodybuilder style muscles. But most women don't realise that to get muscles like that, it takes years of heavy training and strict dieting.

So tell her to stop using the word "toned" because essentially, to look toned you need to gain muscle. If you look at my pics, or any of the other women on this board, we do not look "beefy" and masculine.......

I would start your girlfriend on 5 days of training - 3 days of weights and 5 days of cardio. For example:

Day 1 - Chest and triceps, 30mins cardio
Day 2 - Interval training cardio (Max 30mins)
Day 3 - Legs and shoulders, 30 mins cardio
Day 4 - Interval training cardio
Day 5 - Back and biceps, 30 mins cardio

If she doesn't like this split, you could do upper-lower-upper and then switch it to lower-upper-lower the following week.

Depending on how tall she is and how much she weighs, she needs between 1,500-2,000cals a day.

I hope this helps!

[Ect0m0rph]

thx, umm lil info on my gf Laura,... she is 130ish-lbs ? She has been doin an 8-minute abs and arms tape in her basement just about every morning for this summer and has just started taking a xenadrine knockoff "Slimadrine".... anyways, umm what kind of exercises and how many should she do per part? how many sets and reps? and the interval cardio... what do u mean? like 15 min on - 5 off - and 15 on? thx

[imperfectly_lou]

First off, how tall is your girlfriend. 130 is quite low, she may not have 10-15lbs to lose!

Secondly, she should only work abs a max of every second day. I try to work mine 3 times a week with at least one dat in between.

Interval cardio - Can be done on the treadmill, bike, stepper, eliptical. Warm up for 5 mins, then sprint for 1min (go as hard as possible), recover for 2mins (still keeping the HR up), and repeat until you get to 30 mins. Can also do 30sec sprint/1min recovery but that can be more difficult.

As for exercises, here are some examples. I would start her on 2-3 exercises per body part and 3-4 sets per exercise.

Chest - Bench press, Incline dumbbell press, Incline/flat dumbbell flyes. 3 sets of 12, 10, 8

Triceps - Overhead extensions, Tricep pressdown, french press

Back - Assisted pull up, wide grip lat pulldown, bent over barbell row, hammer row, seated cable row

Biceps - Hammer curl, incline curl, standing curl

Legs- Squats, Leg extension, Leg press, Deadlifts, Hamstring curls, Lunges, Step ups. Here aim for 3 quad and 3 hamstring exercises, plus calf raises

Shoulders - Lateral raise, Bent over lat raise, military press, shrugs

[Ect0m0rph]

oh she has around 10-15 pounds to lose... she is umm I'd say 5'6or7" ish... give or take an inch. she has nice arms and legs... but I'd say that she just needs to lose her lil gut that she has (too much drink the last 3 years of college)... that's really all she wants to get rid of, but i tell her there is no such thing as spot reducing... but more than likely she'll probably lose quite a bit in the breast area, cause she has a 34 DD chest. Anyways, thx for everything so far... i'll see what i can make out of this tonight.. thx again

[imperfectly_lou]

130 is a perfectly healthy weight for someone who is 5"6-5"7, even on the low side!

120-115 is a little too low.

Just keep it in mind. It may be better for her to gain musclev and lose fat so the scale doesnt actually go down, she just looks firmer.

[Ect0m0rph]

yeah, that's what i tell her... i mean... all the scale is just a bunch of numbers.... it matters how u look and feel compared to what it says. i mean, if u lose 4 pounds of fat and put on 2 pounds of muscle, the scale may only say that u lost 2 pounds... but what u have really done is an accomplishment. thx again lou

[MDC]

Ect0,
I want to wish your girlfriend luck! You're right to say that they're just numbers. The scale can't tell how "toned" you are, and isn't that what nearly all women want? If she gets some muscle and reduces her bf%, I think she'll not want to be under 130(if not more).

[imperfectly_lou]

No problems!

Just a bit of trivia for you... Recently I went from 116 to 120lbs and I FREAKED out.... until I started getting compliments that I looked like I had lost weight off my thighs, and I spent all my time on the treadmill pulling my pants up! Muscle rules! :)

[Maximum]

Going strictly by numbers is never a good idea....but using them as a reference in improvements are. 5'6" 130lbs, is not a bad place to be I guess....but "losing 10lbs" like she wants to or so she says is not that hard. I only say that cause the 10lbs she wants to lose to look like the girl in her mind may be easier than she thinks. And Lou...no offense, but most of the girls I've dated were i nthe 5'6" 110lbs range...and they looked totally sexy to me.

[Emma-Leigh]

Originally posted by Maximum
Going strictly by numbers is never a good idea....but using them as a reference in improvements are. 5'6" 130lbs, is not a bad place to be I guess....but "losing 10lbs" like she wants to or so she says is not that hard. I only say that cause the 10lbs she wants to lose to look like the girl in her mind may be easier than she thinks. And Lou...no offense, but most of the girls I've dated were i nthe 5'6" 110lbs range...and they looked totally sexy to me.

I agree with you that following numbers on a scale is not a good idea.

But I am absolutely going to disagree with you on your statement of 5'6 and 110 pounds. This is NOT HEALTHY. Statements like this is the reason why so many girls get themselves to such low/unhealthy weights and why so meany people spend years nearly killing themselves in the process.

At 5'6 and 110 the girls BMI is 17.7. This is well outside the 'healthy' range of 19-25. Now I know that there are problems with 'following BMI numbers' - particularly when body building, but this is in relation to HIGHER BMIs due to increased lean muscle mass. You can't fudge 'low overall body mass'.

At 130 pounds she is at a perfectly respectable BMI of 20. She may need to drop some body fat and gain some lean muscle in its place, but her weight is actually really good. Lou, at 120, has a BMI of 19. She is on the very lean size and has been working REALLY hard to add on that extra muscle mass. She should be congratulated. She has pushed through the society stigma that 'sticks are sexy' and made the decision to be fit and healthy instead. Then, with one simple sentence you go and make her feel like she is carrying 'extra weight'.

Female physiology is such that we NEED to carry around a little more body fat that males. We are the 'reservoirs of future generations' and need this fat to help sustain ourselves through through childbirth and rearing. Without this fat our bodies simply do not work well.

It also means that most girls have to starve and sweat and work as hard as they can to get themselves to that weight to begin with and then they have to work twice as hard to keep themselves there.

I think you need to re-assess what you see as sexy. Along with the majority of society. Sexy girls are girls that are well muscled, confident, fit and healthy.

[imperfectly_lou]

Thank you Emma :)

I guess it depends on the individual girl, but when I was suffering severely from anorexia, at 110lbs, my ribs stuck out, my hip bones stuck out, I had absolutely zero muscle tone and I think I looked about as far from sexy as possible.

I am still on the small size (I wear a size 2). My ribs still stick out more than my boyfriend would like, and I have no butt. But I am working on it!

You are entitled to your opinion Maximum. But considering you are a bodybuilder, I would think you would like girls with a bit of muscle tone. No one has muscle tone at 110lbs!

[Emma-Leigh]

Originally posted by imperfectly_lou
Thank you Emma :)

I guess it depends on the individual girl, but when I was suffering severely from anorexia, at 110lbs, my ribs stuck out, my hip bones stuck out, I had absolutely zero muscle tone and I think I looked about as far from sexy as possible.

I am still on the small size (I wear a size 2). My ribs still stick out more than my boyfriend would like, and I have no butt. But I am working on it!

You are entitled to your opinion Maximum. But considering you are a bodybuilder, I would think you would like girls with a bit of muscle tone. No one has muscle tone at 110lbs!

Welcome! I know how hard you (and others on this board like Sillygrl) have worked to try to get your weights back up after battling with anorexia. To read comments like this must just make you guys soo mad! It makes me mad anyway!

I congratulate you all for being able to turn your lives around and to excape from the disease that kills so many. Did you know that around 20% of girls that suffer from anorexia eventually die from it. Of those that survive around 40% remain underweight and suffer the long term concequences of this (such as infertility, and brittle bones/osteoporosis). 20% go on to become overweight and battle binge eating and emotional eating for the rest of their lives. That means only 20% recover and go on to lead a healthy life. 20%.

So congratulations. Keep working on getting that butt back. :)

(by the way - as an Aussie what the hell is size 2??!! :D Is that a size 8?)

It is this type of thinking in society that makes women kill themselves by dieting and exercise. So many women have wasted years trying to reach that un-obtainable 'sexy' that is shown in advertising and desired by 'un-enlightened' males. Lives are distroyed by years of self-hatred and self-denial. It makes me sick.

Most body building guys are good - they like their women healthy (I think it is so they don't 'snap them' accidently :D). But to see comments like this on a body building site is just odd - at 110 pounds there is not going to be any muscle at all on those girls!

Sorry... I'll stop soon.. It just peeves me off when I see this type of opinion.

[sillygirl]

I'm always amused at the "fitness" models they have plastered on the covers of magazines like Shape and Fitness. Hahahahaha. Hahahaha. Haha. :rolleyes:


Thank you for the nice compliment, Emma-Leigh. :)

[PolishGirl]

I look at the girls at my old gym. They looked like fitness models, but you know what they didnt weigh 110 ponds, they weighed 130 +/- pounds, and they lifted HEAVY. They didnt look big and bulky either.
Im 5'7 and i weigh 172 pounds. Im a size 9-11 depending. In the past two years ive lost about 40 pounds though diet alone, then with working out. This last year ive started heavy lifting at the gym, and i havent lost weight, but i have noticed a great difference in my appearence. Not only more definition, but a more over all "toned" look. Yet, I have the kind of genes (thanks to being a Polak), where i build muscle very fast.
REmember muscle weighs more than fat, all your girl has to do is eat a little cleaner, lift some weights, and run a little more, and she will start to look like one of those "fitness models". She sounds like she looks fine anyways.
Good luck.