WW and body building
 

I have been doing weight watchers and want to get into body building with my bf. How hard is it to combine these? WW goes by the number on the scale so that would probably make it harder right? Anyone with any experiences? Thanks!

Years ago when I was a WW member I did weights too... there were no problems at all... Although today knowing what I know about nutrition, I feel that you would need to up your protein intake a bit...

Good luck hope this helps...

Oh an I forgot....WE LUVS NEWBIES HERE!! Come post at our main thread....

Laters...

So how would I up my protien? Also, would that go over my points for the day? I need to get some fat off me and I want to buff up too, if thats at all possible. BTW, which thread is the main thread? Thanks!

Melly, sorry I've taken so long to get back to you.

This is only my opinion and experience and everyone is different.

What I like to do is to do is have 5-6 meals/day with a portion of protein/meal, such as cottage cheese, lean beef, pork, chicken and fish of course, along with 1 carb serving/meal. Carbs I try to stick to brown rice, oatmeal, potatoe or sweet potatoe, corn ...NO white pasta or rice, I try even to keep away for breads even whole wheat bread and I never ever touch WHITE bread...

This way of eating will take you over your WW points because I have counted them.

When you do intense weights you will need more energy but play with your food portions and see what happens. My HONEST opinion is that a lean muscular woman looks much better than a thin woman, who eventhough is thin, still has flabby arms when she waves....

Now to get to the main thread fir Ladies Who Lift just go below here at the "Jump Forum" and click to Ladies Who Lift and then go to the weekly thread I think this weeks is #114. Hope to see you there.

Melly

That is what I call my daughter.....short for Melanie :)

I am an ex WW, many times over. I finally came to realize this last spring that it simply would not work for me - the points system gave me TOO many choices. I have come to find out over the last several months that I needed to clean up my eating and gain more muscle, and of course lose fat.

Weight training requires more protein because your muscles need it to grow. They need carbs, too. If you train heavily withough the nutrients needed, you will not lose fat but lean muscle. (Someone here correct me if I am wrong!) I have also found that if I am not eating enough, I cannot train heavily.

If you are doing a regular weight training regimen, you can eat more and still lose weight because when you train your muscles, they actually are doing their work when you are resting them. Don't be afraid of good, clean food!! Not to discourage you from WW, but there are lots of good nutrition/bodybuilding programs out there that can help you with what we are talking about.

Personally, I eat 5-6 meals a day, I am rarely hungry, and I feel so much better!!

Good luck.....keep us posted on what you are doing :)

Robin :cb:

Jenn -- great post and I agree with all you said about WW... Great plan for SOME! I think I was with them for longer than 2 years oh god at least 5 if not more. Then the last year when my G/f lost 35 (which she is QUICKLY gaining back BTW) I was totally fed up with the whole process. Then I found this site and Body for Life, and like Robin says you eat often and rarely if ever get hungry, because your insuline level stay at a constant level, I LOVE that feeling!

Later all....

I dont really understand the Body for life program. I hate the idea of cutting out any foods, temporarily or not. I could live on rice and baked potatoes which is why I keep sticking to WW because I can have those. I have always been told that you have to lose that fat before you can gain your muscle, is this correct? I have considered the TOPS program, where your Dr. recommends a diet for you, which actually sounds pretty smart because my Dr knows about my crazy stomach and wont let me eat those things that make me sick. My BF is becoming an avid body builder, but it seems he doesn't know how to help me he just knows how to make himself look like Arnold Shwartzenagger. (I think thats close to the right spelling, LOL). Thanks for all the great advice. Please keep it coming, I need it!!

Body for Life HIGHLY recommends baked taters and rice, but brown and not white rice...

Here is a list of the authorized Body for Life foods:

Proteins
Chicken Breast
Turkey Breast
Lean ground turkey
Swordfish
Orange Roughy
Haddock
Salmon
Tuna
Crab
Lobster
Shrimp
Top round steak
Top sirloin steak
Lean ground beef
Buffalo
Lean Ham
Egg whites or substitutes
Low-fat Cottage Cheese

Carbohydrates
Baked Potato
Sweet Potato
Yam
Squash
Pumpkin
Steamed Brown Rice
Steamed Wild Rice
Pasta
Oatmeal
Barley
Beans
Corn
Strawberries
Melon
Apple
Orange
Fat-free yogurt and Whole-wheat bread are on the list but are not very filling in my opinion.

Vegetables
Broccoli
Asparagus
Lettuce
Carrots
Cauliflower
Green Beans
Green Peppers
Mushrooms
Spinach
Tomato
Peas
Brussels Sprouts
Artichoke
Cabbage
Celery
Zucchini
Cucumber
Onion

Choose a portion of protein and carbohydrates from each column to make a meal – have vegetables AT LEAST TWO OR MORE meals per day...

Eat every 2-3 hours 5-6 meals per day....

Here is the link to the LWL recipe section....
http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/show...threadid=18797

Hope this helps....

MY WW Experiences
 

Hi Melly! Thought I’d jump in here and talk about my experiences. I was what seemed to be a lifetime WW member, except that I never got remotely close to my goal — I just WENT forever! :lol: I would lose and gain and lose and gain and my weight cycled up higher and higher.

When I joined a gym and got serious about losing weight, I found that WW wasn’t working for me as an eating plan for two reasons. First, the calories were too low for the amount of exercise that I was doing, but more importantly, it was letting me eat too much of the wrong kinds of food. I was spending my points on processed carbs and sweets to the detriment of protein. At my WW meetings, all I ever heard was talk about how to squeeze your points to allow as many treats as possible. My first few weeks of Fitday are all full of bad food choices like OJ and cold cereal and FF hot dogs and FF Pringles that were totally WW-approved. But I quickly learned about oatmeal and egg whites and tuna and chicken and all the staples of what most of here eat and never looked back at WW. Granted, there is a way to work the points so that you could eat the way I did when I was losing (roughly 45% protein, 30% carbs (complex, NO sugar), and 25% fat) but why bother with the WW program when you can do that at home with Fitday.com? And avoid all the talk about Snackwells and Skinny Cows? :D

It’s perfectly possible to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time. I lost 132 pounds of fat and gained 10 pounds of muscle for a net loss of 122 pounds in less than a year, so you don't have to choose one or the other. Do your cardio and hit the weights as hard as you can and eat clean and BOTH will happen!

Meg

Melly, I agree with Meg. I used to be a WW, but when I got a little more fit and starting walking, biking, lifting, etc more, I had to re-evaluate my eating habits.

WW was good for helping me learn about portion sizes and remembering to get enough veggie servings each day.

There *are* a lot of folks who do WW and eat 3/4 of their daily points in processed foods (fat free cookies, 2-point ice cream sandwiches, WOW Doritos, pretzels, frozen dinners). Don't fall into that trap. Eat real food, as close to its original state as possible. If you're afraid to remove that points restriction from yourself (at first I thought I'd eat the entire house if I didn't set limits for myself), then try staying in your points range while eating real food and increasing your exercise. If you notice that you're feeling tired, though, or not so strong when you work out, you may need to tweak your diet.

Fitday.com is an awesome place to keep track of your protein/carbs/fiber every day. You can also keep track of your exercise progress on fitday, and your weight loss goals.

Personally, I'm cheap and will not pay for anything I can get for free. If it helps you to attend WW meetings, then by all means do it - but you can find a lot of support (for free) on these boards and on other sites. Plus, the Internet allows people from all over the world to discuss common interests and/or goals - something I could not find at my WW meeting because I was the only one in love with lifting weights (also was the youngest one there).

Do not hesitate to post here with questions. You can even post a typical day's menu if you'd like some suggestions - the people here are *incredibly* supportive and helpful!

-Kerry

Ok, I was under the impression that I couldn't have rice and taters on BFL. I would really like to give it a try, but with my schedule, I have to practically live on Fast Food and Frozen Dinners, being a full time college student, part time employee at Fashion Bug and Avon Rep. What choices would be good for eating fast food, or most importantly, MEXICAN? ( Ican't live without at least one mexican meal a week, lol)
Thanks for all your help you all are wonderful!!!!!

P.S. Any tips for websites with good exercises for women builders, like I said before, my man only knows how to make himself big and buff, lol.

Here is a great site for women....

http://www.stumptuous.com/weights.html

You should really stick with unprocessed foods, frozen entrees are full of sodium, sugars, and hidden fats...

Good luck...

P.S.: Personally I prefer to see big buff women than big flabby women.... Just an HONEST opinion here...:shrug:

Melly

You can eat out on BFL......you just need to make wise choices :) And, you also get a free day when you can eat what you want, perfect day for mexican!!

Perhaps check out the BFL book..they have a good section on exercises in there, or go to their website, they demo them there. There are also other good bodybuilding programs.......Body Rx and Physique Transformation to name a few.

Trust me, as an ex-WW, I am glad I stumbled on this site and these great programs!!

Robin :cb:

Melly,

Do you have access to a fridge at work? You can make your meals ahead of time and freeze them until you need them. Have you read the thread on bodybuilding recipes? I think on the second page (I know it's near the beginning of the thread), susanje describes how she gets her food ready for the week and what sort of things she prepares (I think she was in law school when she posted that message). Personally, plan my meals for the week on Sunday, so I'm sure I have what I need in the house and if I don't, I know what day I *need* to go to the store.

I work full time and take classes part-time (2 nights/wk) at night. I'm married and have a house to run. I don't have a lot of free time, but I have more than some people have. It's hard sometimes to make time to take care of myself - time to plan my nutrition intake and my workouts, but I do it, even when friends/family don't understand.

Healthy eating and regular workouts enable to do the things I want to do. Without these, I'd be overweight, out of shape, and seriously lacking self-confidence.

I'll go back to lurking now....LOL

I dont have acess to a fridge :( The more I look at the program it gets more confusing, could someone lay it out in simple form for me? Thanks so much!

Kerryberry!
 

Please don't go back to lurking! You've got a lot of great insight and information to add. Come on and join in on the weekly thread -- we would love to have you!

Meg

Melly, don't give up girl, it can be done no matter what your lifestyle, you just have to want it bad enough.

It is simple: eat what's on the list, 5-6 meals/day, exercise intensely... that's it that's all! BUT no one ever said it was EASY, you need to plan, plan, plan..The longer you do it the easier it gets....

It also depends how badly you want it! Just start the program, post all your questions here, read the book. Go the the library get health book.

Kerry -- I agree you have great info there, come and join us on the main thread ...

And of course the invite is out to you too Melly....

Later all

Melly: with all due respect I don't buy into excuses about being too busy to do something you want to. If you want to do it you WILL find the time to do it plus it's a lot about preparation. I spend about 3 hours on a Sunday preparing all of my food for the week and don't cook at all during the week. I just finished grad school and still work full time and I had time to eat well and exercise (although not as much as I would have liked to!)

BFL is a FANTASTIC starting program so make the commitment and give it a go! What do you have to lose? (besides fat of course) :lol:

JC

I gotta agree with JC here ;) ...if you want something badly enough, you gotta work, plan, etc for it. Now, I'm not as good as JC - (picture Jane Curtin as Prymaat Conehead from SNL wearing her "I HATE HOUSEWORK" apron and you have me in a nutshell :lol: ) but I WILL boil up a carton of eggs (of course I take the eggs OUT of the carton first :lol: ) and bring them to work for quick, cheap protein, for example...

I'm reminded of a paragraph from one of Laura Ingalls Wilder's books - "The Long Winter" - where Pa says "Rome wasn't built in a day, nor was anything else worth having". (or words to that effect).

Of course I'm just rambling here...you've gotten some good advice from these smart gals - putting that into action is entirely up to you!

Gee, I actually still have that book - the Long Winter and yep, that is what Pa said. and that is so true.

In simple form, you change your lifestyle. eat from the lists of foods (and it is a big list) and get your exercise in. it is how we are supposed to be living in the first place but have gotten away from it due to the conveniences of fast food, frozen entrees, and more activities than our palm pilots can handle. it is hard work, but it is very much worth the effort in improved health, more energy to do the things we want, better physical appearances, and overall better quality of life.

I came to BFL from WW and did it as a first year law student with a long commute and a family. There's not a lot of things you can't eat on BFL but you do have to prepare your meals. You can make food for the week (which is what I did). I bought a rice cooker my first year of BFL and LOVED it. It doesn't take long to throw a few potatoes in the oven on Sunday. Cook a chicken at the same time and you have food for many days. Buy those little GLAD containers and break your food into them and you have food for the whole week! It's really not hard. I actually loved it and my schedule was more hectic than most when I started BFL.
WW does not allow you enough protein. It's really hard to do the weight training of BFL with the WW points system. As someone who gradually migrated, I can tell you that my exercise stamina went up ten fold when I "got" with the BFL eating program.

my few cents...
 

I also came from WW to BFL. I had a bit of a history with WW as I worked at the meetings as a weight recorder and have quit about 6 weeks ago or something like that.

I think WW is a great program overall to get people eating better and exercising, but if you are going to seriously give BFL a go, you need to get rid of the main principles of WW... meaning scale obsession, points, and lack of exercise! You will not get any support for intense exercise, forgetting about the scale and worst of all... you will try to sneak 'treats' daily into the plan.

Been there done that. I loved the meetings because I was motivated by the other members and mentally I felt that if I gave it up, those 10 kilos would show up next week!!

I still 'track'... calories, protein, carb & fat grams on fitday which takes alot longer than WW tracking... but my diet has cleaned up and my food bills are half of what they were on WW!!

I had issues with how WW was being run and how they treated the 'staff' that help out at the meetings, which is why I left, I actually had alot of fun with the members and the other staff and miss hanging out with them, but I had to move on as it was brining me down.

Nola.