by EM2WL | May 22, 2012 | Transformations
Lucia at highest weight of 175lbs
I have worked out my whole entire life. I purposed in my heart from the time I was young that I would never be overweight. I grew up with an overweight mother that developed adult onset diabetes and a grandmother that was hard to care for because of her weight. So, from the time I was a young teenager I worked out according to how main stream tells us to and did lots of cardio and light weights.
I went on to have four beautiful babies (three surviving) and I was done. After each of the kids, I would pretty much bounce right back exerting a slight degree of effort (the norm of cutting calories and working out) to get back to my slim size 4. Well, at 39 I ended up pregnant one more time and after my precious Annelise, I had dropped almost all of the weight shortly after and then went on a Haagen Dazs spree. I shot up to my highest weight ever without being pregnant. So, after dragging all the extra weight around for a few months, I finally decided to get back to the gym. I started the normal routine of cutting calories and doing mainly cardio, and lost a little weight, but hit a plateau.
Start of eating more to weigh less – 164lbs
During the plateau I discovered body pump and by November I could see some decent tone and was super excited. I have never had any real tone before. Yes, I was very slender and fit but by no means toned. One dilemma, I started the journey at 175lbs, lost 10lbs and bounced up and down from 160-165lbs for 8 months. It was so frustrating! I was tracking everything I was eating on MyFitnessPal. I started out eating 1200, then 1350, then 1500 calories because I was hungry and wasn’t losing anyway. I would eat back 50% of my workout calories, do 3 body pump classes weekly, 2 or 3 Zumba classes weekly, RIPPED once a week, and would sometimes jump on the elliptical and catch up on the Biggest Loser for a couple hours at a time, and the scale would not budge.
I can’t express how I felt because I had never had such a problem getting weight off. Oh how I whined and complained. I went through vicious cycles of eating low calories and binging on carbs and my weight just bounced like a ball.
8 weeks of EM2WL – 157lbs
Well, I knew something just wasn’t right. I worked out way too hard and ate way too little not to be at goal. One good thing, I had started lifting heavier because my husband would tease me about the light weights I’d work with and I had to show him. Though he irritated me to no end, I am so very glad he teased me mercilessly because he started me on my heavy lifting journey. My weight was still bouncing all over and I stopped and literally asked God to reveal what I was doing wrong (Oh, let me add not only did my hubby bug me about lifting heavier, he also told me I wasn’t eating enough the whole time too, but I just couldn’t hear that.)
Lucia now!
Well, I started reading the MyFitnessPal forums and ran across one in which women were lifting heavy and eating more, often over 2000 calories, the same day I read a blog Kiki wrote about fueling your body, and an excerpt from the book New Rules of Lifting Weights for Women, and upped my calories that same day to 1800. That was life changing for me. I lost 4lbs the first week, then regained 3lbs over the next 3 weeks all while heavy lifting. After 8 weeks, I lost a total of 7.2lbs, but it wasn’t the pounds that amazed me, it was how great I felt, how my body was leaning out, I was no longer a walking exhausted zombie, I was full of energy, I no longer binged, and actually cut back on the cardio because it meant I had to eat more food than my stomach could handle. I hit another plateau and my inkling was to go up on calories, so I went up another 100 calories. During that time, I researched tons of information and found that my new calorie amount was actually my TDEE-15% and so after a month of eating more and bouncing up and down a pound I started losing again.
I started at 175lbs squeezing into one size 10 and a pair of size 12 pants because I refused to buy anymore clothes at those sizes. Today, I am 154lbs and wearing some of my size 4’s and all of my size 6 clothes. This journey has been the most rewarding because I am developing wonderful tone, have lost and am continuing to lose body fat, and best of all I feel great! No longer deprived, frustrated, binging, and yo-yoing.
Have an EM2WL transformation to share? We’d love to see it! Be featured on our Transformations page by submitting your story to Success@EM2WL.com
by EM2WL | May 18, 2012 | Building Muscle
Q: I don’t have a pull-up bar. Is it necessary? Is there a substitute or alternatives for pull ups?*
A: There truly are no subs for the elusive pull ups. It is an amazing compound exercise that creates overall strength, and gives you that coveted v-taper (aka coke bottle shape), as well as shaping the biceps quite nicely. As an added bonus, it even hits the abs if you keep that core tight throughout the move. If at all possible, include them in your strength routines. There are many pull up bar systems out there, and most of them will do the trick. There are the kind that you drill into your doorway, the kind that attaches to your door frame, the stand-alone apparatus, or even the assisted machines at the gym. If nothing else, there’s always a local park nearby, where you can stop and get your pull ups on once a week on the monkey bars.
With exception to the stand alone unit, or the assisted machine, most pull up bars can be found relatively cheap. I never fail to see one on a trip to my local Ross or Walmart, and they run right around $20. A relatively low cost for such a useful tool. However, if you’ve already invested as much $$ as you’re willing to invest in your home gym, there could be other options, depending on the equipment you have. One in particular could be if you have a bench press set up with a sturdy (preferably Olympic-sized) bar and rack. With something like this you could set the rack as high as possible and either bend your knees behind you in order to mimic the pullup motion, and pull til your hearts content. If you’re not “height challenged” as I am, and your legs are too long to put behind you, you can either put them straight in front of you (keeping your body upright just as it would be in a traditional pull up), or cross them (this will make the move much harder). Another obvious substitute would be to use the Lat Pull-down machine, if you have access to one. Because the Lat pull-down is not necessarily a one-for-one sub, make the most of it by pulling as heavy as you can handle. Your goal here would be to work up to pulling your body weight, and then beyond…
If you do not have access to any of those and still need an at-home substitute, we would look to exercises that work the same muscles. The pullover would then become your next option, using either the straight-arm or bent-arm variation. Also, any rowing motion would work the lats as well as the back in general.
Still looking for a variation to suit you?
How about:
Dumbbell Lying Row
Cambered Bar Lying Row
Inverted Row (feet elevated)
and there’s always the good ‘ol Barbell Row
*Q & A posts are excerpts from actual submitted emails from clients and fam. Have a question that you’d like to see addressed in Q & A or explained in a future article? Drop us a line below!
by EM2WL | May 18, 2012 | Fitness Cycles (Periodization)
Q: I get so overwhelmed thinking about fitness cycles and changing my calories to go with a particular workout mode. It seems like so much work. I don’t really know if I am in any particular “mode” anyway. I just workout 6 days a week, and hope to make healthy eating choices and stay within a reasonable calorie goal. Perhaps that is why I hit plateaus.
A: That’s actually exactly why we hit plateaus. Nothing works forever, you have to be constantly changing, or else your body adapts. It’s nice to have an action plan and incorporate fitness cycles. After a while, it all becomes habit & not really as confusing as it sounds.
Q: I think those phases do just happen naturally sometimes. For me, it is too much to think about to try and “make” them happen. So much is trial and error depending on what my body and life are going through at the moment.
A: You’re right, we do naturally eat in phases anyway, like turkey at Thanksgiving, ham @ Easter.. Or when we go on vacation/holidays we let loose, then when we get home, we tighten up. So planning your workouts to line up w/those times, actually comes more natural than you think. It’s natural to eat less (but better), and get in a little more cardio, etc when it’s nice and warm out, you just wanna be active, & eat fresh produce. Just like its natural to wanna cook/eat a bit more comfort foods, & move around a little less, during colder months. So instead of fighting nature, you’re working with it…basically it’s just making the food work for you, know what I mean?
But (<<<here comes the disclaimer) if you feel like it ain’t broke, don’t try to fix it. If you’ve found what works for you, & you’re happy….that’s all that matters, because the trial and error is the most excruciating part of it all. We’re all different, we all have our own comfort zones, & we all will ultimately do what we feel is best anyway, regardless of what “Kiki says”, lol…..So whatever works for you, work it!
by EM2WL | May 11, 2012 | Consistency, Increasing calories, Metabolism Reset
Q: I’m increasing my cals like you said, but I gained weight this week! I thought the point of finding my TDEE is so that I can get back on the losing track? I feel like I’m going backwards. I feel stuffed and miserable. I haven’t even hit my TDEE yet, because there’s just no way I can fit all this food into my day. Am I doing something wrong? Do you have any suggestions on how I go about increasing calorie intake?
A: Just a few pointers on increasing calorie intake, while minimizing fluctuations. You probably know most of these things, and this is not a completely exhaustive list/explanation. I’m just mentioning as many as I can think of, glean what/if you can, toss the rest, lol.
Always think of your metabolism as a fire. A calorie is a unit of heat (literally, that’s the definition). In order to increase the metabolism, you want to keep that fire constant. This means everything about it should be as consistent as possible, so that the fire does not die. There has been some controversy over whether or not the “thermogenic effect” of food is real or not, but that is not the main concern here. More than anything, it is helpful in the beginning, when consistency is most important, to follow some of these tips until your body gets used to higher cals again. Once your body is used to the proper cal levels, you will not need to follow these guidelines, as your body will want to be fed, and you will no longer feel stuffed eating such small amounts of food. When you get to this point, you can set up your eating habits in a way that is pertinent to your personal lifestyle.
- Eat as soon as possible when you wake up. Start the fire, whatever you need to do, I’ve found that for me, and most people I know, this is what gets it revved.. Plus, if you are having a hard time fitting your cals in by the end of the day, then getting that first meal in nice and early really helps.
- As soon as you finish that meal, set a timer for 2-3 hours. This is when you will add another log to the fire. Do this after every meal, for as long as you are awake (even if you stay up late!). For most people, it only takes a week or less of doing this, before you will notice that your body will BEG you for food by the “appointed time”, and you will no longer need the timer. This is GOOD. This means that it is working. Your body now knows/is confident in the fact that it can let go of that meal quickly, because the next one is just around the corner. The opposite is also true. When you miss meals (especially when first upping cals!), no matter how healthy you’re eating, you’re body doesn’t know when it will eat again, so it doesn’t want to let go of any of it.
- Add the extra cals slowly, and spread out over those meals. Like an extra 25-50 cals per meal, instead of one huge extra meal. Stay at that level for a while, and if all is well, add more…
- Take advantage of macro-nutrient timing. If you enjoy carbs, eat them early on in the day while your body needs them. It’s ok to have a (complex) carb heavy breakfast and a (simple) carb heavy after workout snack.
- Immediately following your workout is the *best* time to add extra calories (really helpful if you haven’t figured out a way to spread them out). This is especially true if you’ve been setting your timer and eating at regular intervals. The last meal before your workout, be sure to have had some complex carbs and protein. IMMEDIATELY After your workout have some protein and carbs (this is your time to take advantage of a simple carb if you wanted to), this can be your post workout shake w/some fruit, or chocolate milk, or fruity yogurt, or whatever. Pick something that’s easily digested, and scarf it (before you even shower). If timed properly, by the time you get out of the shower, blow dry your hair, fix your make-up, what have you, (approx 30-60 min) you should be STARVING. Even if you’re not, eat again (yes, this is breaking the 2-3 hour rule, but this is the perfect time to do so, and you shouldn’t have eaten anything that made you too full to eat again). The meal after shower should be a real meal (back to the healthy stuff) good protein, good fats, good carbs (preferably veggies) if it’s later in the day. Then set your timer, and resume the regular 2-3 hour eating schedule.
If none of these things work, after staying consistent for 4-6 weeks, then it’s time to start investigating other aspects of your diet. Maybe your body prefers a certain macronutrient ratio, or you could even be allergic to something that you’re eating regularly. With the rise of gluten/wheat/soy/dairy/etc intolerance these days, it may be a good idea to hook up w/a good Dr and have your thyroid checked, or nutritionist to analyze your diet further…
ETA: This list is not an exclusive/exhausted list, or a be-all-end-all approach. This was not written to address any one person’s specific macro-nutrient ratio, so it is very general in that aspect. As stated in the last italicized line, everyone has their own macro-nutrient specific ideals, depending on various sensitivities, activity levels. If you are insulin sensitive, then your “log” that you’re adding to the fire will obviously not be something that spikes your insulin level to an extreme, etc. As stated in the beginning of the post, you may not use every single tip: take what you can, leave the rest. The point is to not starve ourselves, and then wonder why we don’t see results, and to provide a starting point for those trying to break free of unintentional under-eating. Stay consistent, trust the process, and regain your bodies trust in the meantime.
by EM2WL | May 10, 2012 | Increasing calories, Metabolism Reset
Q: Fix my metabolism, and lose fat by increasing calories?! I don’t get it. Why in the world would I do that?! I don’t want to risk gaining weight. I want this weight off NOW!!
Move past instant (& fleeting!) gratification. Where do you want to be a year from now? Check out Mo’s story!
A: Increasing calories for fat loss can be scary. When approaching fat loss, we have to look at the big picture. We should not simply focus on losing the weight by fill-in-the-blank-occasion/date. Think of where you want to be when the journey is over. The body has an amazing ability to adapt to whatever stresses you put it through:
- When we consistently challenge ourselves in the weight room, our muscles adapt — getting bigger and stronger.
- When we consistently challenge ourselves with cardio, our bodies catabolize some muscle tissue to become faster and more efficient at the endurance activity.
- When we consistently eat at a caloric deficit, our bodies naturally assume that the deficit is the new maintenance, and lowers your metabolism to meet the demand.
So we must take all the above into consideration when beginning our journey. We must decide where we want to be when it’s over; then set our goals, calories, and workouts in alignment with that plan. Someone who has under-eaten (read: dieted) for extended periods of time, must accept that their body may have adapted to a much lower-than-necessary calorie level. If this calorie level is well below what their body needs to survive, then fat loss may have stalled while the body tends to more important processes. Increasing calories and doing what we refer to a “metabolism reset” allows your body to take a break from the stress of dieting. It allows your body to become accustomed to eating proper amounts of food again, reminding your body of what maintenance level eating really is. When Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) returns to a normal state, a deficit can be reintroduced to resume fat loss goals.
Q: So I think maybe I will take it slowly – increasing calories to see what happens. How long do you suggest I do this for? I’m not scared to do it and really want to figure this out. I’m super dedicated to getting in shape and I will do whatever I have to do to make it work!
A: We suggest that you take your time increasing calories, to minimize shock to the body and give proper time for the mentality shift. There are some who feel that they will chicken out if they take to long — so they prefer to “rip-the-bandaid” and just get started. The choice is personal, as only you know yourself well enough to decide.
Personally, I did it very gradually.
Take the time to set up your true maintenance level and work from there. It really will feel like a guessing game until you do. Trust that it will feel so good to finally be in control. You won’t be starving yourself, only to have your weight shoot back up as soon as you eat normal again. It may seem (upfront) that this means you will take longer to lose the weight than the usual fast track (eat nothing, cardio madness) route, but consider the truth. If you’re at a plateau (now) anyway, how will you ever know if it really took longer? Perhaps (and most likely) you will just stay at or keep hitting the same plateau. You really have nothing to lose, and you don’t want to spend the rest of your life lowering calories.
As women, our metabolism starts decreasing every decade after 30, requiring us to eat lower calories. So you want to make sure that you start out at the highest end of that spectrum NOW. With no plan of action, sure — you may eventually come to the point where you have to eat 1300 calories and workout three hours/day to maintain your physique. Alternatively, you can put it off for a few more decades, or prevent it altogether by adding enough muscle mass and eating enough now.
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