Hi Sherry
Your post asked for rotation ideas but was a little vague. Without more info, like what you’ve been doing and how you have been eating, my response is going to hit all the bases and focus on this -
Thought we had been working out pretty hard and eating clean (Not hard enough or clean enough). We are in our late 40's and in pretty good shape (so I thought). WANT/NEED TO LOSE "2 INCHES" THROUGH THE MIDDLE, WAIST/HIP&BUTT AREA!!!!! SCARY How can this happen?...I know eating to much. Hand to mouth has got to slow down. "I know better."STS should we start back with that? We need a major shock your system/fat loss jump start.
-Identify problems and areas for improvement. Are you eating more calories than you are burning? Are you doing the same workouts day in/day out and not varying the intensity? Do you unconsciously use exercise as an excuse to eat more? Do you use food as a reward, as consolation, an event, or as fuel for your workouts?
-Make long-term and short-term goals. Write them down. Like: lose _ inches, reduce body fat by __%, and burn off ½ pound of fat a week. Include other goals like – do all my workouts this week, go to bed early and sleep 8 hours each night, stay off sugar.
-Use tools and calculators from here to determine your starting point:
Free Weight Loss Calculators and Tools
BE CONSERVATI VE and honest with the activity calculator. i.e. choose the lower activity figure rather than the higher. We are far more sedentary than we think we are.
-Cycle or stagger your calories like this (this is only an example, your numbers will be different): 1250, 1350, 1450, 1350, 1550, 1350, 1650
-Be accountable by using Cathe’s nutrition software, which is fun, or a free service like SparksPeople. It is tedious, but it will give you a reality picture of your calories-in and help you stay on track.
-Plan your meals ahead. Plan and record them before you eat them.
-Eat a protein, fat, and non-starchy carbohydrate at each meal. Have a small amount of fruit, berries or citrus, as a snack or dessert. Have a starchy carbohydrate with the meal following your workout i.e.potato, yam, squash. Add an additional starchy carbohydrate to your higher calorie day.
– Weigh or measure everything you eat, especially fat, starchy carbohydrates and your protein source. A kitchen scale is a good investment. I have a Salter scale.
– Yes, by all means do STS, it is a great program and one I love. Be advised though that building muscle can make you feel ravenous, and just like a baby your muscles need good food to grow strong. Make each calorie count.
-Add 40-60 minutes of steady state cardio to your alternate days. Gradually add 20-40 minutes of cardio to your lifting days, preferably in the afternoon/evening or several hours after your lifting workout. (But you may be like me, and need the cardio for an energy/endorphin bump to get your day started.)
-Once you are ready for more intensity and need to shake things up, replace one or two of your steady state workouts with an interval or Hiit workout.
-Take one active rest day a week. Active rest means – work in the garden, clean the garage, do yoga, take a leisurely bike ride, go for a hike, play outside. Do not lay on the couch watching t.v. (unless you are ill) or spend all day sitting at the computer. Get up, get out, and keep moving.
– Consider eliminating trigger foods and reactive foods. Just like we can develop over-use injuries from repetitive activity, some foods, by this time in our life, can cause us to retain fluids in our bodies adding inches over night and adding unappreciated numbers to the figure on the scale. Some possible reactive foods: wheat, corn, sugar, cow dairy. Keep careful notes, look at this as a fun and unique personal science experiment. Further refinement to (temporarily or permanently) eliminating certain foods may be needed, such as grains, oats, coffee, dried fruit, salt, coconut.
-Make water your primary beverage.
- We often adhere to a diet for five days and then are lax on the weekend. One cheat meal can blowout all your hard work during the week. If you need or want a cheat – plan it for a higher calorie day and make it a cheat item....a small item. Calories add up. Be sure to add your cheat to your nutrition record. A good cheat that won’t trigger a cascading trend, is fresh strawberries dipped in melted bittersweet chocolate, or slices of banana dipped in almond butter/bittersweet chocolate, then frozen, or dried figs with a wee wedge of chocolate placed in the center and microwaved for a couple of seconds.
-Get feedback. Weigh yourself daily. Not to obsess about the number shifting one direction or the other, but so you can see if that bowl of popcorn made you balloon up. Take skin caliper readings and/or use your measuring tape weekly, take photos and keep notes.
-Read something inspiring everyday...about life, nutrition, or fitness.
-Reward yourself for each weekly goal achieved. Make your rewards worthwhile but not food based. For example, I reward myself with workout clothes, workout dvds, new fitness equipment, or a fun outing.
-Sixty days into your 90 day rotation begin planning your next rotation. It could be the standard STS rotation again, an undulating STS rotation, a staggered rotation of one week of full body workouts and circuits, one week of endurance splits, and one week of strength splits. Or you could do a series of Cathe’s rotations, or another program like p90x or p90x2. The key is to plan ahead, vary intensity, and keep it fun /interesting, and - keep changing it.
– Once you have reached your goal weight or goal body composition, slowly and gradually – increase your calories to maintenance level.
**Careful Careful...Caution Caution** if you jump to maintenance too quickly your body will want to store all the extra calories. How to do this? Add one piece of fruit or one additional starchy carbohydrate. Again, keep careful records and do this systematically, otherwise all of your hard work will be reversed faster than you can say Haagen Daz.
-Maintenance is the bugaboo for everyone who has made this journey. What works for me is to continue staggering my calories –at maintenance, higher and lower, and to match them to my output days. For example, on days I do a long run I eat a higher calorie meal, on days I lift weights I eat at or slightly below maintenance, and on rest days I eat at a deficit.
Finally – consider buying the ebook, Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle. Tom Venuto puts it all together for you...
Burn the Fat Inner Circle Store
p.s. If you find yourself in the pantry looking for fuel – any fuel – including all the food you don’t want to eat... eat a serving of fruit and 10 or so raw almonds, and add slightly more fat and protein to your next meal or two.
p.s.s. Here is a good article about peri-menopause and weight gain:
Perimenopause and menopause weight gain
