Not 'leaning out' like i had hoped! page

[PHaselow]

Now I didn't expect to look all sinewy or suddenly like a classic ectomorph, but I was hoping for *some* visible changes!

Here is my complaint:

I've been Primal for about 3 months. To be honest, I have been 80/20 with some lingering bad days of eating too much sugar (chocolate, ice cream, honey or maple sugar, honey roasted cashews). I have stuck to being grain free almost without fail and rarely eat fruit anymore. I am fairly active. I go to my gym 4-5 days/week for a metabolic conditioning/strength conditioning combo class plus I try to run 2 days week (3-5 miles). I do IF every day from about 7PM-11AM but I eat a lot between noon-3.

I have always been very lean on top and heavier on the bottom with a flat belly. I do not technically need to lose weight, but I do feel more comfortable about 5lbs lighter than I am now (5'3", 119lbs). I have thick legs that I managed to keep strongish looking until a few years back.

So, I look the same still. I was hoping for some definition in my legs or a reduction of the visceral fat in my abdomen. Although the bloating is no longer there, a little pouch remains. I am merely a slightly smaller version of my old self due to gaining back some muscle after 5 months away from the gym due to injury.

Frustrated. Spending my morning moping with Jeff Buckley on the iPod and wondering if you have any advice for me.

Should I count carbs? I do not. Should I stop IF and eat some breakfast to see if that changes my desire to eat so much between 12-3PM? Should I just change my expectations and be happy that I am at a normal weight, feeling healthy, and making strides to stay Primal? I do keep a food journal.

I have 2 before pictures in my profile album to help me stay the course. They look like I took them yesterday...

[Leida]

Because you are in a normal weight range, you won't see magical changes. I would take sugar out completely and give it a couple-three weeks. Then, if nothing happens, you will need to look into your workout plan, because metabolic conditioning + running 2 x a week sounds like too much cardio and no real heavy lifting. That's if metabolic conditioning means means jumping around with 8-15 lbs weight for 45 - 60 min. That type of activity is infamous for keeping pear shaped women even more pear than they started, shredding they upper body to smithereens, and leaving their 'below the waist' nearly as fat. For me, a pear-shaped sufferer, heavy lifting with very short interval cardio 3-4x a week + lots of moving slowly helped. However, it did not take 3 months, it took much, much longer. At your weight range you cannot expect fast changes, unless you do extreme fasting or extreme carb and calorie cycling, and the results won't be permanent or all-together good.

[sarasue624]

There are evolutionary reasons ladies hold fat in our lower half. Really, that's a sign of health if it's not extreme. I agree with Leida that you'll have to do ticky-tacky stuff with numbers if you really want to get leaned out. Personally, I really enjoy lifting "heavy" - it makes me noticeably stronger very fast and it feels good! Go let the guys in the exercise forums hack your workout if you're interested in the minutae.

On the other hand, I really think the emphasis on leaning out is really a masculine value we've borrowed. How much of looking a certain way is really what you want and how you feel best, and how much is it all those magazines and TV ads with sickly and airbrushed models?

[Leida]

It always make me feel angry when I read how we, women, are pre-destined to be fat, particularly when I see plenty of slender ladies and I see how body-builders can achieve practically anything.

But like I said, I have been experimenting my whole life, and in the past three years - seriously- and so far I have never been able to achieve the degree of lean-ness that pushes past my set point, let alone hold it. I cannot adhere to the diet that is so strict that produces anabolic effect, and combines feast and fast and huge macro variations, and is very artificial (it can be all natural foods, but macros are artificial). It also pretty much necessitates coffee and heavy duty sleeping drugs, and possibly antidepressant. The leanest I got was on one of those diets, and then my system fought back with a vengeance. It doesn't seem so bad on the paper, but faced with it, feeding the family and working full time... hard. Fat does hold on.

The only visible improvement I got was from heavy lifting. It took years rather than months. I don't worry about it since I am not gonna die tomorrow, and if I did, I am gonna be cremated, so how I look in my casket is irrelevant.

The visible deterioration of looks (concentration camp top and still fat bottom) was achieved through dedicated cardio and boot-camps.

[PHaselow]

Because you are in a normal weight range, you won't see magical changes. I would take sugar out completely and give it a couple-three weeks. Then, if nothing happens, you will need to look into your workout plan, because metabolic conditioning + running 2 x a week sounds like too much cardio and no real heavy lifting. That's if metabolic conditioning means means jumping around with 8-15 lbs weight for 45 - 60 min. That type of activity is infamous for keeping pear shaped women even more pear than they started, shredding they upper body to smithereens, and leaving their 'below the waist' nearly as fat. For me, a pear-shaped sufferer, heavy lifting with very short interval cardio 3-4x a week + lots of moving slowly helped. However, it did not take 3 months, it took much, much longer. At your weight range you cannot expect fast changes, unless you do extreme fasting or extreme carb and calorie cycling, and the results won't be permanent or all-together good.

I do need to cut out sugar completely. I agree with you 100% and I expect that will lead to some noticeable changes. I think I eat more of it than I even realize.

My metabolic conditioning is not cardio with light weights. My friend who runs that gym adheres to the mindset you describe and he does a good job at getting us to use heavy weights. The class gives me about 8-12 minutes of cardio with the remainder strength or core. I run two days just because I want to know I still can.

I'd love to wear yoga pants without looking like a stuffed *snausage* or bicycle shorts without that little blob of knee fat where the elastic hits. For being small, I am sturdy. Vanity; even in my late 40s. sigh

Sugar free, it is. Just not dark chocolate free.

[PHaselow]

The visible deterioration of looks (concentration camp top and still fat bottom) was achieved through dedicated cardio and boot-camps.

Oh, yes. I was there until 2 years ago when I joined this current gym. I have quite a bit of upper body definition now (love my shoulders!) and my pants/skirts fit differently. I used to do an hour of cardio each day and wonder why I was still flabby.

[Leida]

[The class gives me about 8-12 minutes of cardio with the remainder strength or core.

How much weight are you lifting, how many sets, how many reps? What equipment are you using? Anything done in group class setting is not a heavy lifting unless it is structured very particularly.

[PHaselow]

How much weight are you lifting, how many sets, how many reps? What equipment are you using? Anything done in group class setting is not a heavy lifting unless it is structured very particularly.

We do circuits with free weights or on 1 machine or things outside like flipping tires. Kettle bells. Weighted squats. Some dead lifting or snatch pull. It is probably something I could do with heavier weights than I am using now (he gets on me for that), but I have scoliosis which complicates things a bit when it comes to lifting. I am working on core strength again which he incorporates throughout and in a 'finisher' on some days. Heavy weights are 6 reps max; reps 5-6 should feel like you almost cannot do it. Need to wrap my mind around that feeling; I tend to do 6 reps of difficult, but not too difficult.

Back at the chiropractor and massage therapist working on the back/neck too.

"Group" class sometimes means only 2 of us. Max 8-10

[JoanieL]

Three months isn't a lot of time to see changes when you are at or close to your "right" weight.

If it's not a lot of hassle for you, you might track carbs for a month just to see where you stand on that spectrum. But in the meantime, be happy that you are a healthy weight and that you are eating primarily healthy foods.

[Chaohinon]

Definitely swap cardio for heavy weightlifting as much as possible.

I'd also be wary of going too low in carbs for too long a time, since that will just murder your metabolism. There's no reason to fear starches and natural sugars except to the extent that you're compelled to overeat them.