Female friend of mine wants to lose weight, approx 5'4, approx 145 pounds, 28 years old, fairly inactive/sedentary currently. Looked at a BMR calculator which said BMR was ~1450, so daily calorie needs would be like 1750 after multiplying by 1.2

This seems kinda low to me, semi overweight ladies really need to go down to 12-1300 calories a day to lose half a pound a week? Anyone got a better estimate (or can confirm this is the case)?

Probably a reasonable estimate. Just sucks to be tiny + sedentary + female.

Fair enough, rough stuff. Thanks.

Haha yea. Also, remember as always, it's just a potential starting point. If you wanna have her shoot for 1300-1400 calories/day and she's losing weight too fast, tell her she can add another couple hundo, NBD. Having a fast start is pretty motivating anyway IME.

If I can find where it was I'll post it, but I read an article where a diet coach said he never dropped female clients below 1500 cals, and made up the rest of the deficit with cardio (usually fasted). He claimed better compliance than a harsher deficit alone.

I don't use an app, but I have recently discovered something called liftingcharts.com which allows you to enter your work outs and will output them in different ways (including an easy way to copy/paste them into a log here or elsewhere).

Stuff like periodisation charts (all of my squats and variants this year):


The top weight for each squat set:


A year to date volume breakdown:


Its kinda basic and Im only just starting to have enough data, and there is a facebook suggestions group, but it looks like it might be interesting.

Does look cool if you're a stats nerd.

My gf busted an ACL several years ago. Was inactive for quite a long time, then about a year ago started playing ultimate frisbee with a knee brace.

She now wants to lose the brace, but says her knee feels weak and unprotected without it... thoughts? Is it all in her mind? Should she just carrying on using the support? Any exercises she should be doing that will help strengthen her knee?

ty

That's a lot of deadlift volume.

Well it's over 1/3 of his sport and probably the most full body exercise there is.

But yes, I agree it is haha. I may be biased though doing 3 reps/week lol.

Mobility exercises are probably a good thing. Maybe do exercises like squats at a much lighter weight without the brace to ensure that her form is good and comfortable for her, and then squat heavier with the brace on to see if there is a real difference, and then just work up the non-braced sets (true for other exercises as well, but squats an easy example).

She should progress through the rehab schedule to find where she is at and go from there. Starting with seated VMO activations and terminal knee extensions, through to quad and hamstring strengthening ISO machines (leg press and hamstring curls) through to split squats and Bulgarian squats and barbell/goblet squats. Single leg step ups are another good one provided she curls up her toes on the down leg so she is using the quad on the up leg.

Knowledge is power.

"Deadlift" includes trap bar deadlifting, which I do with low hips/forward knees as a squat accessory. This tips the balance back towards squats. On the other hand, deadlift progress has been a bit slower than bench/squat so I was thinking of upping deadlifts a touch and see how that goes.

I tore my ACL 20 years ago and tried several braces that really didn't stabilize the joint at all. My experience tells me that it would be really difficult to play ultimate frisbee without a very high chance of significant re-injury. Does her knee ever give out when she plays?

Was the ACL reconstructed? Kind of an important detail

I have an unrepaired full ACL tear and def wouldn't be playing ultimate frisbee with no brace on it.

No, occasionally it'll hurt, usually after a game, but it doesn't seem to be regular or to keep her out for a long time.

@ChrisV- yeah, I think it was restructured... she had an operation on it, I assume that's what was done but not sure...

ty for responses guys, will pass on some of the suggestions

Been doing SS for a little bit now. I'm wondering if it's okay for me to go to it 4 days a week. I'm on a semi-cut now, but on the workout days I plan on eating close to maintenance.

It would look like this:

Monday - off
Tuesday - 3x5 Squat, 3x5 Press, 1x5 Deadlift, BB curls
Wednesday - off
Thursday - 3x5 Squat, 3x5 Bench Press, Chin-Ups, Tri pulldowns
Friday - off
Saturday - 3x5 Squat, 3x5 Press, 1x5 Deadlift, BB curls
Sunday - 3x5 Squat, 3x5 Bench Press, Chin-Ups, Tri pulldowns

This is what works best with my schedule. Is it too much?

You should reduce volume when cutting for optimal results.

Why? Ask yourself, what's your goal?

If you want to get stronger faster, you need to reevaluate expectations. Adding 5 lbs to a lift 3x/week is insanely fast as it is, something you'll never even dream of doing when you see what your progress looks like a year from now.

If you want to burn more calories, do some lighter intensity cardio so you don't interfere with the lifting.

If you think*** you're losing muscle, re-evaluate your protein intake, calorie intake, and weight loss progression.

?

If this is for anything other than personal preference, there's not much point. It won't help your workouts/maintain muscle any better, your nutrition intake from day to day is likely on a slow enough time scale that it all kinda blends together.

Why are you on a "semi-cut"? Are you an athlete? Otherwise, I'd say just go harder on the cut and get that sht over with.



ETA: *** oh yea also, you're probably not

Appreciate the advice.

I'm in that weird spot where I am just trying to lose some belly fat and a little chest fat, but I'm just losing weight in stupid places like my legs.

I haven't made any strength gains in a while. I think this semi cut phase I am in is causing me to spin my wheels. Not losing weight really and not getting stronger.

I'm at 170 right now and I'm 5'10" ish. No clue what my BF% is. I think I should cut until around 160 and then bulk.

Any recommendations on what my calorie/protein intake should be

I appreciate the help.

Responded in bold. No prob dude. Good luck!

Untrained 5'10 170 is always 20 to 25% bodyfat. It comes as a shock to many. Your plan is excellent. Get to 160 and then work on getting stronger.

I have the same problem regarding fat distribution. My limbs are 99 percentile in leanness for my age. My trunk is only 73 percentile. Just gotta be lean for life bro because the stomach area is where all the organs are.

Does anyone have an opinion about freeletics?

I'm fit. 6'4 215lb. My midsection is not very well defined. What is the best way to continue bulking chest/arms/legs yet get better definition for my abs.

I eat well but probably drink too much beer.

Main thoughts are:

- Integrate more HIIT into my workout routine. Maybe 3x week do a 15-20 min HIIT session on the treadmill or bike to burn cals.

- Do ab workouts. I still think cals in/out is better to show abs than exercises.

- Cut back on the beer. Switch to vokda water.

- Monitor what I'm eating even more. I don't want to cut cals too much since I still want my muscles to grow.

Visible abs come from a combination of 2 things: low enough body fat for them to show through + big enough ab muscles for there to be something to show through

What are your lifts? If you're still relatively new, you could probably eat at around maintenance and recomp a bit. If you're past the beginner stage, you're not going to be losing fat and gaining muscle at the same time; you're going to have to choose.

You should be doing some direct ab work IMO if you're an intermediate anyway. 1-2 exercises 1-2x/week. But I wouldn't expect to see great changes in the short term - cutting the body fat is required if you have short term needs. Doing ab "workouts" IMO sounds like complete overkill.

HIIT is fine if you want to scale calories back without eating less, but don't expect it to do anything magical.