Pear stubborness

[letswork]

I've been working hard to get into awesome shape for bathing suit season and I'm very happy with my results thus far. However, I am pear shaped and have been noticing that I am losing inches everywhere except my butt and thighs, which makes me look even MORE out of proportion.

My eating is squeaky clean and I feel like I'm doing the right workouts based on my goals. I want to build up my upper body and lean out my lower half so I'm doing heavy upper body weight combined with LL, L&G's, KPC along with interval cardio and running.

Do I just keep going? Will it eventually come off where I want it to? Anyone else experience this?

 

[hippahips]

You seem to be doing all the right things. How long have you been working out? Maybe you need to give yourself more time. It took me 8 months to get my lower body CLOSE to where I want it.

Also, building muscle on your upper body is an opposing goal to losing inches in your lower body. You may want to work in cycles -- building muscle for about 2-3 months, where you eat more and do less cardio as you go really heavy on the weights, then whittle the fat by eating less calories, doing more cardio and more endurance training than strength training for another 2-3 months. I did this starting last November and am very pleased with my results.

Pinky

 

[letswork]

Thanks Pinky

How kind of you to respond. Wonderful suggestion! Sounds so logical, I'll give it a try.

Can you maybe give me a little guidance on what tapes you use for each and how often? I have 40 minutes at lunch and a half hour at night after I get my boys kids to bed.

I just finished 4 weeks of Slow & Heavy (one body part at a time) at night and I alternated cardio with lower body endurance training (i.e. LL, L&G's) during my lunch break. I was thinking of doing the PS series mixed with the Pyramids for the next 4 weeks for my upper body. I'm just not sure how I should be training my legs. It's my thighs and butt that are the problem. I can feel the solid muscle under there, but there's too much giggle. Should I try lifting heavier for my lower body too? Any tape suggestions?

Thanks again for your input. It helps a great deal. It's nice to know that if I stick with it, the results I'm after will come.

 

[hippahips]

RE: Thanks Pinky

When I was doing pure strength training, my regular week looked more or less like this:
Sun-cardio
Mon-PUB
Tue-PLB
Wed-cardio
Thu-PS-upper body
Fri-PS-lower body
Sat-rest

After two months of that, my regular week looked something like this:
Sun-C&W
Mon-PH-upper body only + 30-min. cardio like All Step
Tue-LL
Wed-RS or IMAX2
Thu-CTX-UB split
Fri-CTX-Power Circuits/PH-lower body
Sat-rest

These days I do one strength training session for upper body a week, one toning/endurance session for legs, one full-body endurance session, and two cardio sessions. I keep my workouts to 1-1.5 hours. I go longer when I go heavy for upper body because my rests are longer.

When my BB hit 45 lbs. for PLB, I started getting bulky in my thighs. So now I stay between 25-40 lbs. depending on how I feel. I do more kickboxing and floorwork now than squats and lunges because of my knees. How your lower body reacts to heavier weights may be different from how mine responded. Good luck.

Pinky