IGX

Well, I know better than to complain about my weight because my husband offers to do P90X with me or take me "running". "Running" means I'm wheezing while trying to maintain a steady stumbling jog while he runs circles around me. My 10 year old son likes to run backwards while talking to me and encouraging me while he's leaping over puddles and yammering on and on about his school day.

But, here's the truth. Every single time I've lost weight, its been primarily about diet. And not just "going on a diet", but hard core zig-zag style performance nutrition and/or fitness competitor starvation. Its always based on higher volume strength work (I've done it with both barbells and bodybuilding style dumbbell workouts) and cardio (I've done both slow and low and extended HIIT).

Diets can work, but jeez, have you seen pictures of middle aged women who've lost tons of weight by just dieting? They look horrible, faces all saggy and craggy. You end up with some old wrinkled piece of gristle. Yuck. Not good to snuggle up to at night.

But, that being said, this population is my specialty and I'll tell you this right now, ineluctable truth right here:

Most women who are digging in their heels regarding weight loss do not want to do what it takes to lose weight because they fear success. Ie, if they do what it takes and they succeed, they have to admit that it was their fault that they were fat to begin with. (Even though it takes a lot more effort and knowledge to lose weight after babies and the age of 30 so I make sure they know this and that they just didn't have good information.) If you an get them over this hump, you will succeed, but I have a few who are so terrified that they failed to control that one aspect of their lives, they will flat out lie about medical conditions, turn in completely fictitious diet journals, and get downright confrontational. So, when women come to me saying they want to lose fat. I start with training and tell them that when they are ready to turn in a true week's worth of diet journaling, I'll help them. Until then, its entirely on them.

LAst client I had was a fit, but chubby mom of 4. She was very game, as in 'pit bull game', but didn't want to really change the way she ate. I told her that I could get her fit and strong, but She probably wouldn't lose any weight. And by the end, she was deadlifting 275, squatting 215 for 5, pressing 95 for 3, as well as being able to do the strength endurance stuff well, too.

Fast forward to now, her new trainer at a Crossfit Place told me how awesome her form was in all the stuff I taught her, but asked why she was still chubby (and this wasn't pig person chubby, this was EZ and BD drooly chubby). I said I didn't do anything with her diet. She cleaned it up, lost 10# in a month and was ecstatic

Shafpocalypse Now wrote:...She cleaned it up, lost 10# in a month and was ecstatic

What constitutes "cleaning it up" ?

My wife's fine, and for the last 8 months she has spent every other week and more sitting in her mom's hospital room helping her out and raging at the doctors (see this thread: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=224941&). That, plus a very cold winter has interfered with her normal 20 miles/day bike ride. But not her caloric intake. Its been a tough winter for her.

It just kind of makes me smile a little that her weight is the Lord Voldemort of marital discussion topics. I'm so glad I'm not a woman.

This is her new bike. A Cannondale SuperSix Evo 5 105, for about $2100. Carbon frame and all that.



Her mom needs to get out of the hospital soon, they don't make a bike with a negative weight.

Breakfast was usually some kind of Starbuck's concoction and a muffin.
Lunch was some kind of sandwich, from either Panera, Subway, or Quizos...sometimes Chinese.
Dinner was something she usually made, pretty standard midwestern fare.

The change was this:
Breakfast was almost all protein and fat...2-3 eggs, 1-2 links of chicken sausage, maybe a piece of fruit (berries or apple) and coffee with cream.
Lunch changed to a salad with meat on it and another coffee.
Dinner was tweaked to be higher in protein and vegetables, a bit lower in carbs...less casseroles, pasta, etc.

She also moved in the middle of this, and started going to school. She did have a substantial child support and alimony settlement that basically allowed her to not work if she wanted to.

Nafod-

Sympathize. My wife has put on a stone or two over the years, but she wasn't lying when she said she was 5'8" 115 when we got married. The lady was a college swimmer, so given the kids, being decades older, and lots of stressful years as a deployment widow, the 'old standards' are probably a bit too high.

I won't adjust them out of a sense of fairness, though, because like all men, in my own mind I have continued to improve in all aspects of my personage by a minimum 2% per year, obviously.