When Anna Meets Jane, part 4: A Start to the Right Path

Step 1, give those good-for-nothing
weightless dumbbells to someone else.

Not too much fluff in this post, just the information you need to get started. But, a quick recap is in order.

Part 1: There are reasons why women don't like their body.
Part 2: Other minor external reasons exist as well, which are quite significant.
Part 3: Problems are encountered when armed with less-than-optimal information.
Part 4: Better information for you to use.

Let's start with nutrition.

Nutrition

First, here are solid guidelines that anyone can follow. Specifically, the 7 rules of good nutrition.

"1. Eat every 2-3 hours, no matter what. You should eat between 5-8 meals per day.

2. Eat complete (containing all the essential amino acids), lean protein with each meal.

3. Eat fruits and/or vegetables with each food meal.

4. Ensure that your carbohydrate intake comes from fruits and vegetables. Exception: workout and post-workout drinks and meals.

5. Ensure that 25-35% of your energy intake comes from fat, with your fat intake split equally between saturates (e.g. animal fat), monounsaturates (e.g., olive oil), and polyunsaturates (e.g. flax oil, salmon oil).

6. Drink only non-calorie containing beverages, the best choices being water and green tea.

7. Eat mostly whole foods (except workout and post-workout drinks)."

Now don't be silly and try all 7 at once. That's asking for failure. Try one at a time. After you've mastered one, incorporate a second rule into the mix. In other words, can't make a baby sprint if the baby doesn't know how to crawl (let alone stand).

Are the rules set in stone? No, of course not, but they work well for those who have no idea how to eat for fat loss. Also, take note that it's important to eat when you're hungry rather than every 2-3 hours. But, if you consume a regular-sized meal, expect hunger to strike roughly every 2-4 hours at least and if you haven't eaten enough, you'll become hungry sooner than normal.

And what if you don't want to eat vegetables for breakfast? No worries, double up at another meal, like lunch or dinner.

The rules are for guidance.

Now, that alone isn't enough. People have questions.

I look at a lot of blogs and websites to learn more. Some are good, some aren't. The most I come across that are good are exercise-based, while dietary ones are more about listing recipes.

Eh, that's alright, but it could be better. That's why I'm plugging Georgie's site into this post, www.askgeorgie.com. I was going to list Precision Nutrition, but well, you need to pay for that.

Georgie is a Registered Dietitian, the Sports Dietitian for Rutgers' - my university - athletics, lists recipes, but above all that, my favorite part? She discusses how nutrition and exercise interact - a perfect example is here. The two help one another out.

The bonus? You can submit a question which she'll answer in detail.

This should be more than enough to get you started to slim those thunder thighs. But, what about exercise?

Exercise

I wrote a simple beginner's strength training program, which if you're interested in, you can download for free by clicking here (it's a MS Word document). If someone follows it, let me know and I'll write a new one for the next 3 weeks.

All the information you need is in the document, but I'm going to list the dynamic warm-up movements and the program's exercises here with demonstration links. You can watch them to see how they're performed. Click the superscript number to view a video/picture.

Dynamic warm-up

• Standing hip flexor/quad stretch ^{1 I}
  
• Side-lying leg raise ² [let your toes point straight ahead]
• Glute bridge ³
• Wall slides ^{4 II}
  
• Pec stretch ^{5 III}
  
• Split squat w/ overhead reach ^{6 IV}

I: For each repetition, hold the leg for a full 1 second count then release.
II: Keep the back of the hands on the wall and actively rotate/press them into the wall. Good explanation here.
III: For each repetition, hold the stretch for a full count of 1 second.
IV: Minus the bar and stay in place rather than moving back & forth.

The program

• Pull-through ⁷
• Conventional deadlift ⁸
• Underhand seated cable row ⁹
• DB bench press ¹⁰
• Plank [standard version] ^{11 V}
• DB goblet squat ¹²
• Overhand lat-pulldown ¹³
• Standing DB press ¹⁴
• Single-side DB farmers walk ^{15 VI}
  

V: First shown is the standard version. Perform against an incline or spreading your feet apart if the floor version is too difficult. An incline bench works great.
VI: One dumbbell at a time on each side. Hold on your left side for certain amount of distance, then the right side, that's 1 set. Squeeze hard, walk tall & straight with good posture. Set's done when your form deteriorates or you can't hold on any longer.

That's all there is to it. If there are any questions, ask away on this post or shoot me an email at nielkpatel425@gmail.com and I'll be more than happy to help out.

While this concludes the series, I'll write a formal conclusion for the entire series, and express my own thoughts on it all. Expect it Thursday.

Now, for those who do follow this program and advice, that's great! Best of luck! I hope you all enjoyed this. That's all I got.

Maybe you'll look like this by 2011.
One thing's certain, this lady has no jiggle.