Needing some guidance.......

I am 5'2" at around 115 lbs and 24 years old. My upper body looks great (except for a small amount of fat on the belly) but its my butt and legs that I absolutely can't stand. Its definitely genetic considering both my great-aunt and grandmother can not literally weigh more than 80 lbs. yet their legs, yup, they've got some meat on 'em, not to mention my mom's legs! I feel like I'm destined for fat legs and want to do everything I can to avoid them, at least at this stage of my life. I know its only going to get worse.

So anyway, I was wondering what I could do to lose this butt and leg fat. Is there any way I can have toned looking legs? God, I would do anything for them! Over the past few weeks, I have been jogging a few times a week for 20 minutes or so and have been doing conditioning excercises, not to mention my overall lifestyle has become more active. However, I have noticed no change which has been really discouraging. I have always considered myself a healthy eater, but its only been the past 3 or 4 days that I've been on a restricted diet. Here is what I've eaten today.....

Meal 1: Cheerios 1 cup, skim milk 1/2 cup
Meal 2: Tropical trail mix (only 100 calories)
Meal 3: Egg salad sandwhich (1 egg w/ 1 Tbls. Miracle Whip) on white bread, 1 celery stalk w/ peanut butter, some cherries and grapes
Meal 4: Peach and carrots
Meal 5: Grilled Chicken breast (fist-sized) w/ peanut satay sauce, pasta, and spinach
Meal 6: Cottage cheese and blueberries

Calories equaling 1400 for the day

Any advice? How many calories should I be eating a day for healthy weightloss? Yesterday I consumed 1300 calories.
 
Here's some excercises

This links to the squat



you will see a lot of other excersies for your targets here



Read this to caluate your maintance level of calories.

Posted by marcus on JSF.

Estimating Your Daily Calorie Requirement

Its important to know how many calories you should consume per day to achieve the maximum amount of weight loss while maintaining your lean body mass. If you eat too few calories you lose muscle, if you eat too many you don’t make progress or even go backwards. Previously when I’ve gone on a diet I’ve tried to eat healthy and eat less without actually recording what I’ve eaten. The problem is I eat too little because I am so anxious to achieve my goals and I end up losing muscle mass and not much fat because my body goes into starvation mode.

Below I’ve listed the equations necessary to estimate (its impossible to be spot on) how many calories you should be eating per day. Your Basal Metabolic Rate is the number of calories your body uses when at rest to perform vital bodily functions. We start off by calculating your BMR and then you times it by an activity factor. I’ve used some of my stats to demonstrate.

If you need to convert any of your measurements, check out this site:



My Stats
Height – 178cms
Weight – 77kg
Age – 21yrs

Harris Benedict BMR Formula For Men

BMR = 66 + (13.7 X weight in kgs) + (5 X height in cms) – (6.8 X age in yrs).

Harris Benedict BMR Formula For Women

BMR = 655 + (9.6 X weight in kgs) + (1.8 X height in cms) – (4.7 X age in years)

So to calculate my BMR I do the following: 66 + (13.7 X 77) + (5 X 178) – (6.8 X 21)

BMR = 66 + 1054.9 + 890 – 142.8

BMR = 1868

Now we need to take into account the amount of energy burned through activity.

1. If you are sedentary (little or no exercise) – BMR X 1.2

2. If your are lightly active (light exercise/sports 1-3 days a week) – BMR X 1.375

3. If you are moderately active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days a week) – BMR X 1.55

4. If you are very active (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days a week) – BMR X 1.725

5. If you are extra active (very hard daily exercise/sports & physical job or training twice daily – BMR X 1.9.

I fell into category number 3 therefore 1868 X 1.55 = 2895.4

Therefore 2895.4 is the number of calories I need per day to maintain my current weight. As you know to burn fat I eat less than I consume. So how many calories do I take off this figure without the risk of burning muscle.

They recommend that a person lose 1-2 lbs per week maximum. The example I’m going to use is for my aim to be to lose 1 lb per week. I believe this is fast enough and I won’t be losing any muscle. 1 lb of fat is 3500 calories. Therefore to lose 1 lb a week you do the following: 3500 divided by 7 = 500 cals. I then minus 500 from 2895.4 = 2395.4. So to burn 1 lb of fat per week I must consume no more and no less than 2395.4
 
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Thanks so much for the links. They are great.

And the formula - wow! That really helps. I figured out that I can consume 2050 calories a day to maintain my weight, and to lose a pound a week I should consume 1550.

Hopefully I will start seeing results!
 
Also, you might want to look into the "zig zag method," which basically means you have three days of low-cal dieting, followed by one day of maintenaince level calories. This helps prevent starvation mode.
 
in addition to the diet changes, run a few miles every morning at a good pace, and you'll definitely burn the fat off and trim up your legs.
 
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