I was taking the first set of after pictures for one of my clients, Kendra. In five weeks, Kendra has started working with me at 23% bodyfat (which is actually an end-goal bodyfat percentage for many women). Now she’s down to a really rockstar 19.5% bodyfat. These are the “first” after pictures, because Kendra’s ultimate goal is to go to 18%.
Immediately after these pictures we did a workout that included pullups (“free” pullups, no assistance at all), pushups on gymnastics rings (much harder than normal pushups), and one leg squats (Russian Navy Seal style, not the pansy one leg squats you normally see in the gym). These are all really really hard exercises, and require a level of strength uncommon in the gym. At 19.5% bodyfat, Kendra also has a body uncommon to most girls. In fact, you’ll find that most of the girls that have the strength to do these exercises are really really hot. This is not a coincidence.
Later that day, I was breaking down the workout program for one of my new clients. Like many of women when they first start doing resistance training, she was really concerned that with all of the strength work we were going to do she was going to “bulk up and look like a guy”. Look, for you to “bulk up”, it takes HUGE amounts of calories. Now a huge amount of calories isn’t always an enormous amount of food; There are some really popular mexican food chains here that serve 1250 calorie burritos, a couple of those will do the trick. Girls that swear that they “bulk up easily” must eat huge amounts of calories Kendra, not surprisingly, keeps an extremely accurate food journal and follows her meal plan (and hits her calorie goal) perfectly 9 out of 10 meals. The tenth meal is considered a “free meal”.
Fit, lean, toned girls lift heavy and hard. They usually eat somewhere about 1200-1500 calories per day. It’s extremely rare to find a girl who is really lean who doesn’t lift heavy and do hard workouts. It’s also rare to find a girl who is really lean who doesn’t keep a food log and know how many calories she is consuming per day.
By Josh Hillis
Author of How To Lose The Stubborn Seven Pounds: Take Your Body from Good to Rockstar.
National Academy of Sports Medicine Certified Personal Trainer (NASM-CPT) and Performance Enhancement Specialist (NASM-PES),
and currently studing the Corrective Exercise Specialist (NASM-CES)˚ credential.
Russian Kettlebell Challenge Certified Instructor (RKC)* and Combat Applications Specialist (RKC2/CAS)
*RKC certified 2004-2006, registered to recertify 2007
˚NASM-CES will be completed 2007
© Joshua Hillis 2007
she looks awesome…i totally love your blog and everything makes so much sense…i’ve always been puzzled about the whole body fat % thing….I am on a journey right now to lose fat…hehe…except i was confused at the fat percentage i should aim for for my body to start looking atleast abit more toned…but your articles have been a tremendous help, and i’ve decided to get down to 23%, that’s my first aim for now. I’m 23/f, in pretty ok condition (never done any weight training before), i currently weigh 138lbs, with 28% BF, and stand at 5’5 and a half.
I’ve incorporated lunges, side lunges, squats, leg raises, sit ups and push ups into my work out routine as a start, I’m doing these 3 times a week, except i don’t use weights, i also do HIIT on the treadmill for 25mins (including warm up + cool down) 3 times a week, and consume about 1200-1300kcal per day.
My legs and butt are real sore now after those lunges and squats (and i didnt even use weights!)…will it still work this way in minimizing any muscle loss as i lose weight?
I’m planning to buy me some dumb bells soon, how many lbs should i start out with?
thanks alot josh!
Josh,
I bought your ebook. I really enjoy your site and refer to in often. I’m at 31%, my goal is 21%. I want to be leaner. How do I keep myself from losing muscle? I don’t want to look “skinny fat”.
Also, I was able to read your book after I downloaded it but now I can’t retrieve it when I try to open it on my computer. Any suggestions?
Thanks Josh!
Hey Shannon!
Email me at joshsgarage@gmail.com and I’ll email you a link to download it again.
I’m stoked you want to get lean!
#1 Make sure you are eating enough protein.
#2 Make sure you are doing good, full body resistance training – the Stubborn 7 workouts are perfect.
Don’t worry, we’ll sort out the computer stuff!
U LOOKING VERY COOL
Hi there…. I have been working out for awhile now and have lost a few inches and about 10 lbs, I’m really interested in your 300 workout and the ones for both Jessica’s (Biel and Alba). But, I am a total geek at “gym terms”, I have no idea what a prisoner squat is…. Can you help me out lol?
I just purchased your book…I was able to unzip all the bonuses which are great, but the book itself won’t work. It says it is a damaged file beyond repair. Any suggestions? I’m really bummed…
Thankx
1200-1500 calories? For someone working out regularly? That seems unhealthy.
Tell that girl to eat an occasional 1250 calorie burrito (or a more common chicken burger) and stop starving herself. She looks good, but she’ll look a lot better with that and a couple more curls.
BTW, very impressive that she does real pull-ups! Very few girls I know, even the athletic ones, have the lats for those. Nice.
These days Kendra is eating right at 1600 calories per day, and we’ve shifted the emphasis to quality of food.
You recommend curls? Really? The girl can do chinups!
I have recently learned that weights don’t make women bulky because it takes testosterone to make people bulky. This is some good information.
Okay, I either need reassurance or brutal honesty…I just need the truth.
After months of starving myself with little success (yes, we know it’s dumb) I decided to get fit “the right way”. Eating well, working out often and hard.
I’m 21% bodyfat, 5’9, and was 147.5 lbs when I started 2.5 weeks ago. I’ve been alternating 45 minutes of weights and circut training with either running or kickboxing daily…I started eating breakfast, (I don’t need a lecture about eating healthy, I too have read it all like all the other girls hoping to lose the last stubborn 7) and have been eating small regular healthy meals. I don’t own a car, I walk everywhere, and I have a job where I’m running around on my feet all day.
So I was in tears when I stepped on the scale yesterday and saw myself at 151 lbs. I know that my waist it getting smaller, and I can feel and see the muscles (my waist went from 29 inches to 27.5), and I feel stronger and healthier…but I still feel like I must be doing something wrong. It makes me want to go back to starving myself and then adding the working out to that, (which is stupid and dangerous). Will it just take time and consistency or am I eating too much? (I have an appetite again because I’m putting muscle into my body and working out)…
I just don’t want to starve myself and hurt my body like that…please help me keep at this… I just need some encouragement.
Thanks Josh…xo
Hi Josh!
This is a great site, and is helpful in my quest to be as knowledgeable as possible about health and fitness. One thing I do have a question about is the difference between the weight of muscle and the weight of fat. I weigh almost 10 pounds more than I did about 2 years ago, but know that a fair amount of that weight is muscle (my clothes all still fit, and I had my body fat tested and have about 18% body fat). I would like to figure out how much of my weight gain is attributable to muscle and how much is fat. Is there a formula for determining this? Would I need to know what my body fat was before I began consistently working out almost 2 years ago? Any info you can provide would be most helpful. Thanks, and keep up the good work!
Hi Erica, great question!
If you know your body fat percentage, you can figure out exactly how much muscle and how much fat you have.
Not knowing where your body fat percentage was before, there’s no way to know exactly how much of your weight gain was muscle. But given that your clothes still fit, and that you are a very lean 18% (great job!) then you can be very sure that it was mostly, if not all, muscle.
How your clothes fit is a VERY good indicator. For example, if you gained scale weight, but dropped a clothes size, you’d know you only gained muscle, and that you lost fat also.
I don’t care how strong she is, she looks weak.