Advice about my workout routine and nutrition

[v_green]

Hi! I'm a girl, 18 years old, who wants to stay in shape, be healthy and be confident about my body. So, here is my story in short:

I've never been fat or obese, but I did have some extra fat around my thighs and stomach. I decided it's high time I got my dream body and I started working for it in the beginning of 2013. I read lots of articles, got some tips and did some weight training at home as well as cardio (a big fan of HIIT). Everything was going great - the fat began to disappear, my body was more toned, with great curves, I was healthy and felt amazing about my progress. However, I still wasn't fully satisfied with how I looked and decided to keep with my regime, instead of going in a maintainance state. I kept cutting calories, ate less and less carbs (some days only about 30 grams), my workouts became longer and more intense. I was so swept up by what I had achieved that I thought I could always do better. And that's where my problems began.
I lost some more weight and the numbers on the scale kept going down. I was so happy with this that I didn't realize I was way past my goal and I was becoming severely underweight. Actually, I knew it but because I liked what I see in the mirror I thought it's not such a big deal. (I was so stupid, I admit it, but I've learnt from my mistake now). As a result, I stopped getting my period, I constantly felt exhausted, my hair, skin, nails - all got really bad. A month ago I went to my doctor and she said unless I gain some weight I might go into a hospital. I was terrified and realized I had made a huge mistake, putting my health in great risk. Now my aim is to fix this.

I'm 172 cm (5'64''ft) and my weight is 49 kilos (108lbs). Most people say I look painfully thin. I need to reach at least 53 kilos but I don't know how. I want to gain weight without changing my current measurements. Is this even possible? What should I focus on - strength training, cardio or a mix of both? Also, there is another problem that really bothers me. I have built muscle in my thighs and when I walk or sit upright they look great. But when I sit down they become so flabby and spread all around me which makes me really uncomfortable. What should I do about this, too?

I would really appreciate all the help I can get because I really need it. Thanks in advance! :action11:

 

[CrazyOldMan]

Easy set of mistakes to make. When you look for imperfections I will guarantee you will find them every time. I've been doing this a while and though my goals are less aesthetic and more functional I suffer the same stupidity, knowing every weakness in my body and hating it with a passion.
The next part may seem strange but if it has aided your motivation so far keep this trait, just on a short leash. Those totally content with themselves stagnate, then slip backwards, I have yet to see an example of this not being the case. It is the targets that drive us to improve and keep training. You have taken this too far in one direction, many of us have so you are in good, or bad, company dependant on your view point. Keep the target driven mindset, just remember to consider the goals carefully before setting them.

Training, nutrition and reality time.

I'll make myself unpopular first, reality time. You have trimmed away the excess and left predominantly lean mass and non-locomotive body mass, organs etc. Adding weight and staying the same shape will not happen without trimming away bulky but light excess fat and gaining heavier and smaller lean muscle, you don't have that option so you will change shape. This will not be great news for you because you will like how you have worked to make yourself look, but if it is damaging you there is no choice. Next aim for you is to decide what shape you want and who you are trying to please with it, it is a crazy fact that most women admire thinner women while men are less impressed by figures looking like an eleven 11 and more impressed when they look like an eight 8. If neither of these and you are just doing it for yourself then you have to choose. When going for aesthetics you need to be honest with who's visual benefit it's for.
Thigh issues, gotta love those. Spend years building a physical form you like and find no-one makes clothes to fit it, I can put on a set of trousers that look great when I stand up then set to explode at the upper thigh when I sit down, I wear wide fitting clothes for the next waist size or 2 sizes up and still find times they can feel clip. If you want curves there has to be body matter and with our world going more into camps of eating disorders more than fitness you will look better than most but feel less normal in your clothing. It's something you get used to, it doesn't improve because the number of people who opt for eating disorders as the easy alternative to training for aesthetics is growing not shrinking, this one comes down to being proud you are the oddball because it is a better thing to be. Considering what is going on I wouldn't advise trying to trim down your legs at the moment, because it would involve calorific deficit and that could be very dangerous.

Nutrition. Sure (another seasoned trainer on here) will disagree with me on this because she like some others finds higher carb diets a problem, but for most of the human animals on this planet our genetic predisposition to surviving on a diet where we get the largest proportion of our calories form 'complex' carbs aka starch, remember all sugars are carbs not all carbs are sugars, those which aren't are the best training fuel for the majority. If you increase carb intake and encounter problems ask Sure for guidance as she has a good training diet with lower, not critically low carbs.
You need calorific surplus, pure and simple, that is the only way to gain weight, fat needs excess intake to form and muscle will only be gained if the body can devote the energy to doing so without having to catabolise (cannibalise as I tend to call it) it away to fuel your training, so regardless of what type of weight you want to gain there has to be a calorific surplus. This needs to be in balance and in control, there is not a lot of good to be gained from working out you need to add 750 calories to your diet, then adding a box of chocolates that are just the right amount of calories every day, tempting as this can be, sorry I have a bit of a sweet tooth.
The food pyramid is a good guide for balance when looking at proportion, not portion numbers. If you want more weight eat more of the same balance until gain is where you want it to be. Fine tuning based on personal systems is great but I find it's better to start with broad strokes then work on the details, trying it the other way around usually means missing something obvious.

Training. This will be heavily governed by what you want to look like. If you want a body like the former governor of California was known for and are willing to put in a few years and several intra muscular injections of testosterone and growth hormone I am sure you could do it. Of course if you want a bit more muscle to enhance the curves then the same style of training without the 'supplements' could be ideal added to the stuff you are already doing and enjoying. Unless you happen to be incredibly gifted for gaining muscle mass your gender related hormone balance will mean that adding body building reps of 10 to 6 into your training will add very little volume of muscle mass but give you a more curvy less skinny appearance.
You like HIIT, so keep doing it, if you are really enjoying other cardio as well keep doing that too. If you go into a hospital and ask how many are on their death bed for neglecting to train their biceps they will look at you like you are crazy, ask the same about people failing to keep their heart and lungs in good shape and they will have thousands of examples for you. Variety is the spice of training and enjoyment is key, if you try body building weight and hate it after a few months stop it and find something you enjoy instead. There are far more people quit training because they hate it than because results didn't arrive, if you enjoy something and it takes twice as long to get what you want, take twice as long and enjoy it.
Goldfish has a set of beginner workouts in the weight training section that could be worth a look, he is our best generic trainer and one of the best I have encountered. His stuff is very free weight centred and you need to have the techniques nailed before going dramatic, which considering you will be recovering from a low body weight issue will be a good way to force you to start slow and build up.

I know you are in a bad place right now but one thing to remember is you worked hard to overcome a lot to get here. This means you have it in you to work your way out of here to somewhere ideal. Of course when you get there ideal will have moved because that is how long term trainers work, we are never totally happy with ourselves. One of the motivational pictures I saw a while ago had it spot on, 'be proud but never satisfied.'
Keep in mind how much positive there is about you to have achieved what you have and that this is just a matter of finding the direction you need to go and setting off.

There is a lack of precise detail here because at the moment you need to know what you want to do next before we can be of most help. Take time deciding this, changing targets a bit is good, but full U turns are only to be done occasionally. I know you gave an ideal, stay the same but heavier, sorry that one is not likely possible unless I have totally misunderstood your current constitution.

 

[v_green]

Thank you so much for your detailed explanation, it's been extremely helpful. I've been considering something and I would love to hear your opinion about it.

My plan is to have 2 weeks with a calorific surplus (I read it's called bulk) so that I can gain some weight, meanwhile training 3-4 times, focusing mainly on strength training. I'll start with +100 calories and I will gradually add more until I reach +250 calories. Afterwards, I will have 2 weeks with a little calorific deficit (between 100 and 200). Do you think this will help me gain weight while maintaining my muscle mass or after the 4 weeks have passed I will be at the starting point again?
Also, is ratio 40-30-30 (carbs-protein-fat) okay for my goals? I gave up wanting to look like an anorexic model and just want to have a nicely shaped body like this one:
View attachment 6234

 

[CrazyOldMan]

I would say try keeping diet on a trend rather than a yoyo. Small scale yo-yoing like you are suggesting can work and shouldn't damage you, it is also virtually impossible to monitor when training at a progressively harder level. It can be done and I am not saying you shouldn't do it but I tend to keep diet as simple as possible and work on trends rather than getting totally precise about it. If you want guidance on your style I would suggest look at a few others who use it, I have no experience of eating this way and have never guided someone in it, so I would likely tell you the wrong stuff.
You are also needing to be operating in an overall surplus under medical advisement, so I would say fluctuate between surplus and maintenance for the time being if wanting to yoyo. As I say though this is similar to a vegetarian advising you on a cannibalism diet.

My style is working from average. Normally I aim to train like the list below in the ideal world where family and life don't interfere and shift my days. Currently I am on remedial because I was stupid and trained without proper warm up a month ago.
Mon 5.4 mile run at lunch Squat session evening
Tue Extended version of Timmons intervals 10 sets instead of 3 at lunch
Wed Bench session evening
Thurs 5.4 mile run at lunch Deadlifts evening
Fri 5.4 mile run lunch
Weekend rest, like that happens when you have a family and house.
My daily calorific usage varies immensely because my training is varied. Trying to have an exact daily calorific surplus or deficit would be nigh on impossible so I don't do it. I know how much energy I am using as a vague average and increase or decrease slightly if this was slightly out. This may look over simplified but it has worked for over 2 decades so I tend to stick with it.
You will be moving toward your target in as close to a linear progression as possible so having a balanced diet and simply eating slightly more or less dependant on how movement toward target is going will work very well for you.

Something I doubt you will have considered and many don't. As you progress with strength training you will have a higher calorie demand, not just because you will have more muscle that needs more feeding but because lifting 25kg for a set of 10 uses more energy than lifting 20kg for a set of 10. This is another reason I like trending up and down. Being heavier also means you will burn more calories doing your cardio work. I burn close to 750 calories in less than 45 minutes on my lunch runs, but doing this is because I am carrying my 13.5 stone, 85 kilos bodyweight 5.4 miles to do it. If I weighed less this distance would burn less calories, of course when I was lighter I ran faster so burned roughly the same calories per minute.

Balance is personal but the average agreed upon by most qualified and studied nutritionists for the average person is a shock to most who have read a lot of magazine articles. Based on calorific intake 60-65% carbohydrate (less than 5% of this volume to be sugars), 25% fat, 17.5% protein.
This is far from the low carb high protein a lot of magazines suggest but the clues are everywhere that they are way off. A quick look in the mouth reveals a subtle lack of massive or seriously sharp canines that are somewhat lacking but present in every animal designed for a high protein diet, analysis of the saliva shows a massive amount of amylase to break down the high starch content the body expects.
The body cannot absorb high volumes of protein in one go, and excess protein that is absorbed and not needed is converted into lipoproteins (a form of fat) or ditched as urea.
A lot of trainers switch the protein and fat percentage, as their intake gets higher, others drop the carbs because of other issues but this basis is a good starting point.
Calorific value is 4cal a gram for carbs and protein, 9 for fat. There is some variation on this but not much. Fat is the least varied which makes seeing products advertised as light because of polyunsaturated fat interesting, fat is 3,500 calories a pound, be it healthy extra virgin olive oil or solid lard.
It is generally good to assume you are an average person then adapt to the areas where you aren't than assume you aren't and mess it up. I started at this found that if anything the carb level was too low so my diet is roughly 75-80% carbs, and 10-15% of both fat and protein making up the remainder. This works for me because I demand energy frequently and browsing constantly throughout the day on high carb foods means I always have energy for training. I tend to say I eat one meal a day with breaks for training and sleep, my workdays are spent with me sat next to a rice cooker looking like a small bucket with eggs rice and soy sauce for flavour mixed up and boiled in it and a fork that delivers a mouthful at almost conveyor belt style intervals. I fast for around 8 hours or so a day but I have to be put to sleep to do it.

You have your target which is always good, strength training along with your other stuff will definitely help this and a look at Goldfish's beginners workouts will be well worth doing.
One other thing he tends to advise which will be worth doing is a photo diary. That way you can look at how you have progressed, if you have gained weight and feel as if this is not what you want but have photos showing you are going as you want to it will help a lot.
Aesthetics are far harder to monitor than functional targets. Mine are ran faster, that is good, lifted more that is good too etc. Aesthetics go as far as wife still likes how I look, that's good enough for me.

 

[Goldfish]

On your diet, I was actually going to come in and recommend immediately adding 100kcal/day to your intake after Oldie's first reply, but I figured I should let you digest his advice first before adding more of an information dump.

So, v_green, that first week of +100kcal I can obviously get behind. There's a caveat to this, however, and it's that you should only monitor calorie consumption as closely as your ability not to get obsessed with it permits. You've already demonstrated an ability to become legitimately obsessed and create self-destruction in the process. "Motivational" pictures on the internet will tell you that "obsession is what lazy people call dedication." Ignore the "motivation." Most of those images and "inspirational" statements are there to play on your insecurities, to subtley bully you into conforming to someone else's standards, and/or to justify the motivator's warped sense of self, not to legitimately promote a healthy mind and body. So if measuring food down to the calorie provokes obsessive thoughts, don't do it. If you have to back off to the 10s of calories, or even estimate to the 100s, or even go so far as to totally guestimate based on a general idea of "this food approximately contains these things" (as I do), do that. It's better to take care of your mental health and let your aesthetic goals take a backseat than to go the other way.

Ideally, I'd say add in that 100kcal, and if your weight remains the same 4 weeks later, add in another 100kcal. Rinse and repeat until you're gaining roughly 0.5kg/month. I say to go by weight over a 4 week period, because...period. Women's bodies and hormones make weekly tracking of weight less than reliable, so you want to go by trends over a longer period, rather than a shorter duration. In saying that, as your period is already out of whack, you can probably go by weekly weigh-ins until your period returns. In that case, add 100kcal/day every week until you're gaining 0.1-0.2kg/wk, or until your period returns.

The amount of energy I recommend adding is based on how much muscle you can realistically gain in a given time period. Since the short answer is "not a lot," I don't recommend the drastic increases in energy consumption (and thus weight) that are commonly recommended in bodybuilding circles online. Typically they'll tell you to add 500kcal/day and keep adding energy until you're gaining 0.5kg/wk (not per month), but for a man in the best of natural circumstances, that'll only yield a 50/50 split of muscle and fat. You're not a male, you have a training background, and your not in the best circumstance to be gaining muscle, so that sort of recommendation would almost definitely make the majority of your weight gain come in the form of fat. If we can get the majority of your weight gain coming in the form of muscle (especially once you've got your period back; prior to that it may be worth it to let some more body fat come about to help out your sex hormones), then that'll be the best thing we can do physique-wise.

On macro-nutrients, you've asked about 40-30-40, which is in line with the Zone diet. Oldie's recommended about 60/30/20. For general health, Oldie's pretty much on point. For athletic purposes, it varies depending on the type, intensity and volume of training being performed. For example, endurance athletes don't need as much protein as strength athletes for optimal results, but endurance athletes do tend to use more energy per workout, so a split in favour of more carbs and less protein is probably favourable for them. The guidelines that seem to have the most backing (from my readings) for strength training and aesthetic training purposes have about the same amount of energy coming from both protein and fat, based on bodyweight rather than total energy consumption, with the remainder coming from carbs.

One meta-study I looked at found that if you consume at least 1.5g protein/kg bodyweight/day on a strength training program, you're almost guaranteed to get better results than if you consume less; while about 2/3 of people continue getting improved results as high as 2.2g/kg (and potentially beyond that). Fat consumption for strength training appears to reach peak benefits at about 1g/kg/day. Because the energy in fat is about twice as much as that in protein, and these guidelines point to having about twice as much protein as fat, the ratio of energy from each works out to be about the same. Carbs are then needed to fuel training, and some amount of carbohydrate with each meal enhances the body's uptake of protein in that meal.

If that's all too complicated, then forget about calories and macro-nutrients. Seriously. Forget about them. Focus on consuming food that you've cooked yourself rather than bought pre-made; trim the fat on your meat (but don't get rid of all of it); use spices to add flavour to food rather than added sugar or fat; eat your vegies; and try to stick to eating grains that still look like grains. Drink plenty of water; drink about 1L of dairy per day (unless you're intolerant/allergic); try to stick to solid fruit instead of fruit juice. Have something animal-based and something plant-based in every meal. Follow those rules, and it'll be pretty hard to over-eat. Chances are, eating like that for a while will actually result in your appetite and your nutritional needs getting in sync. One of the big reasons why our appetites don't match our needs in modern society is that the food we eat is manufactured to turn our stomachs into bottomless pits, and to drive cravings for it at the same time. You phase that stuff out of your diet, and phase in food that looks like what it's made from, and you start wanting food based on what your body needs, rather than based on hedonic instincts.

 

[skunraldu14]

nice read...

 

[v_green]

I guess from now on I should listen to my body and try to give it the proper nutrition and care it deserves instead of counting every single calorie and hating myself for what I see in the mirror. Being healthy is far more important than having your hip bones protruding or the infamous thigh gap. I am saying this to anyone who might be in a similar situation like me - don't risk your well-being because of the stupid idea that you have to have some exact measurements to be considered beautiful, fit, etc.

Thanks again to both if you for the valuable advice. I will make a photo and food diary to monitor my progress and be sure I keep working toward my goal. Have a nice week!

 

[CrazyOldMan]

Going to add to Goldfish's comment first than come back to v_green because what she has said is spot on but I would say almost totally impossible, as I say I will come back to it.

It is not for nothing I declare Goldfish one of the best generic trainers I have ever encountered. He has breadth of knowledge that means he can cover the needs of virtually all without much difficulty. The mix is crucial and balance diet is more like he describes than a pint of beer in either hand my brother quotes.
Mixed diet it great for keeping you sated and healthy, it is also great for keeping you looking well. I am not a naturally youthful individual, was often described as looking in my late twenties or early thirties while in my late teens, I haven't worn well. Now I start to confuse people, my physical form is of someone who keeps fit, generally associated with youth, I have the disappearing and greying hair showing I am not young, but my skin, nails and remaining hair is in good condition, considering I think of personal grooming as something that happens to other people. This comes from ensuring there is a sensible balance of lipids (fats and oils) going into my body rather than applied to it in expensive jars. I even remember watching an advert saying that skin issues in many was due to lack of lipids in the diet, way to hope no-one knows that means eating the dangerously low fat diets they encourage. In short a lot of people are confused what age I am and as I get older more are thinking I am younger than I am. I'm still ugly of course but younger looking and ugly.
The feeling of having eaten enough is actually nothing to do with the volume of food in your stomach unless it's uncomfortable, it is the body monitoring protein intake via a specific amino acid, and it's a bit behind the times, around 20 minutes in fact. This is why balanced intake is good, it enables your body to tell you that's everything I can absorb, stop. Of course those of us who wanted more activity and therefore food cheat around this by eating constantly.
As Goldie says if it's becoming obsessive and potentially damaging go for trend. Ironically it's easier to mess up diet at macro level than high level.

Back to v_green's ideal of being sensible and putting health first and ignoring aesthetics. Noble concept and if you can do it I will give you my undying respect and know you will be on the way to a great life.
Reality is we all like to look good, even functional freaks like me who are primarily interested in lifting more for longer, or running faster and further etc. I have lower standards of desired form, it is literally the wife fancies me, I am happy, but that is still there.
We have very unrealistic images presented to us all of the time, some the result of people able to commit their entire lives to looking just so, others enhanced by trained surgeons or photoshop. This isn't new and no-one can totally ignore this.
I would say keep targets realistic. No-one wants to be repulsive to themselves so set a target to look a way that means being healthier but still happy with yourself.
Dramatic shifts that take you somewhere you will hate rarely work. Enjoyment is key and results driven individuals enjoy seeing results.

Anyone enough playing Sigmund Freud, with the exception of blaming it all on your childhood or repressed sexuality. Set your targets carefully and go for it.