Your advice please Ladies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

D

darleneinfiniti

Member
I have been a lurker for years and very much enjoy reading the forums pretty much daily when I get a moment @work. I have a question and would appreciate your feedback.

I recently gave birth to my second child in December. I have lost all my baby weight and have gotten down to 120 and thats where I seem to be stuck. I am 5'2" . I would like to lose another 10 pounds. I started about a week ago having 5 small meals a day and I seem to have that under control. My question is this..... What has given you ladies the best results as far as inches and fat lost???? Should I be doing alot of circuit training. OR 3 days cardio 3 days One body part, OR 3 days cardio and 3 days full body weight workout?????


Thank you for any feed back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Darlene
 
Hi,Darlene!
First off, congratulations on the new addition to your family!

What kind of exercise program are you doing now?

As you probably know, diet is about 80% of the equation for fat loss. And since you just started the 5-small-meals-a-day program a wekk ago, it might not be enough time to see the effects of that.

For exercise for weight/fat loss, I generally think something like the following works well (but YMMV, so you'll have to see what works for you):
Incorporate 1-2 (start with one) interval workouts per week, like Cathe's Imax workouts or Cardio Coach guided interval workout CD's.

Emphasize endurance weight workouts, preferably done in a circuit fahion, so that there is little rest between exercises, which has a cardio effect. Jari Love's "(Get) Ripped" workouts have that type of set-up. Tony Horton's P90Masters Sculpt 5-6 does as well.

Start each weight workout with about 12-15 minutes of cardio, to raise the metabolism to burn a few more calories during the workout.

Incorporate more physical activity into your daily routine: like parking far from the entrance of a store to get in some extra walking to and from your car, and walking or biking on errands where that's possible.

Also, find a way of judging your progress that is not just based on weight. Someone who is 1XX pounds, but has more muscle and lower body fat, looks slimmer than someone who is the same weight with a higher body fat percentage. A pair of jeans that is in your goal size is a better guide than weight on the scale.

HTH
 
Your diet is very important...eat lots of protein and eat clean! You do want to have 1 or 2 VERY high intensity cardio sessions a week to jump start your metabolism. (about 30 minutes)

Keep at it and give yourself a break!! You just had a baby!!! The weight will start to come off. I am 7 month pp with twins and I am just getting back to my "old self". Give yourself some time and stay with it. Congrats to you and your family!

j
 
After having my kids, I had excellent results using circuits and total body strength workouts...but that is what works for my body type, everyone is different.

Diet is critical. I suggest a food journal because we too often consume more than we think...and vowing to write down every morsal reduces mindless munching (I am not going to bother finishing the kids pancakes because it is too much effort to figure out how many calories, fat, carbs and protein. Same goes for the handful of crackers, chips, nuts...whatever.)
 
Hi Darlene.

For me, in the battle to lose pregnancy weight gain, it was not the exercise schedule that made the difference but my eating! I lost a bunch of weight post-partum and then when I had about 10 pounds left to lose I ended up putting 7 back on! Why? Because I wasn't eating ENOUGH! I was so wrapped up and stressed over caring for my newborn and was so exhausted all of the time that I was actually FORGETTING to eat!!! All of the new stresses in my life were really taking their toll on me.

Well I finally reached out for help and that's when I was shown the wonders of calorie staggering or zig-zagging by a wonderful woman on this very forum! She knows who she is and if she is reading this, I still can't thank you enough!:)

Anyway...This way of eating is what got me headed in the right direction again and ended up losing more weight then I had gained to begin with! :) It can be a labor-intensive plan to follow because you have to keep track of not only your calorie intake but also your protein/fat/carb intake but it was soooo worth it IMO.

Hope this helps!:)
 
Kathryn and the other posters gave you some great advice. I'd like to ditto the Cardio Coach recommendation, and agree that diet is the "X" factor for weight loss. It really is. Good luck to you!
 
Congratulations on the new baby AND for having the time to devout to exercise. It took me 4 years before my DD would allow me the space and time to get back into it!

My best results for dropping the weight and inchies come from 3 - 4 days of cardio and 2-3 days of weights. I almost never do circuit training, unless I've got a week where I have to cram things together. I do prefer splits, like most people do. My favorites are the Gym Style workouts.
 
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