Hi everybody; my bio

S

Shegens

0
I just found this forum and it seems to be great.

I'm a 52 year old woman and I've been in weight training/cardio for a while now. I'm 5'6" and weigh in the neighborhood of 140lbs. My goal is to drop 20lbs.

I work out at the gym four days a week on weights and cardio. I currently leg press 80lbs and lift 50lbs on different machines (triceps, biceps, etc). I do 50lbs on the ab machine and lower back machine. I'm not body building but prefer toning so I don't do heavy weights. I do a mix of treadmill, ellipticals and bikes for no less than 30 minutes a session. When I do the treadmill I walk 3.5mph at a 6% incline. When I mix it up I do 10 minutes treadmill (uphill), 10 minutes bike, and 10 minutes elliptical or 15 minutes treadmill (uphill) and 15 minutes elliptical. On occasion I will power walk/job around the running track at the gym. I walk a lap run a lap. At home I use an incline bench for abs and dumbbells.

Besides working out in the gym I ride a mountain bike in summer and work at a physically demanding job AND I live on a farm.

My heartrate on the treadmill (uphill) for 30 minutes at 3.5mph never goes above 125. On the elliptical it goes as high as 134.

With all this physical activity, why am I not dropping that 20lbs. I don't overeat and watch what I eat. Is this a case of fat turning to heavier muscle or what? I look good at this weight, in fact people are always telling me how tiny I am and when I tell them I weigh 140lbs they are in shock. I guess it's the scale that bothers me.

Another thing is, on the treadmill or cross-trainer elliptical, I can have a heart rate of 120-130 and never even breathe hard. What is wrong with me and how do I fix it!

Thanks!
 
Forget the scale. From what you have said, you're highly active, in great shape all around, eat well, lift regularly and look good. Weight varies for all sorts of reasons, but most likely you simply have good lean muscle, which adds weight. If you lost 20 lbs of that muscle, the scale would be where you want it, but this would be of no actual benefit to you. Sounds to me like nothing's wrong ;)
 
Thanks for the encouragement. When I first started the weight training I had a personal trainer. She gave us BMI instructions and it came up that I needed to lose 20lbs. She looked at me like I was kind of crazy and said we would have to do a caliper test to find out for sure but we never did. I have weighed less but wasn't in as good a shape as I am now. I want to push the cardio up to 45 minutes because 30 minutes is too easy. I have a really hard time getting my heart rate up and to me that indicates that I'm in good cardio condition and need to work harder. I don't like to run much and if I do it's only under certain conditions because I don't want a lot of wear and tear on my knees. If I run at home I run in one of our hay fields but if I run at the gym I do it with walk/run intervals.

I'm a nut about protecting my knees because I know so many people that have ruined their knees during sports, etc. and required knee replacement surgery. Now they can't do much exercising at all. I don't want to get that way so hard running is out.
 
First, don't be afraid of heavy weights. They won't make you big or bulky without many years of hard work AND a caloric excess.

Second, to burn fat it is better to increase the intensity NOT the duration of your cardio. Sprints/HIIT twice a week and at most one long slow cardio session a week is best for buring fat. That also insures you don't overuse your knees (hips, ankles, etc) and have long term joint problems. Additionally higher intensity exercise should raise your heart rate. I am also 52 and have exercised regularly for many years, and find that I have to get my heart rate up around 150+ before I find I feel like i am really doing anything strenuous enough to be useful.
 
Thanks dswithers. I don't have a tendency to bulk up too much anyway the way some people do. I have long lean muscles not short bulky ones so they don't seem to get that big. The ellipticals seem to work me much harder and get my heart rate up much more than the treadmill or bike so I might concentrate on them more. Whatever I do I don't want messed up joints. That's the reason I seldom run unless it's in one of my hay fields.
 
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