When Anna Meets Jane, part 3: The Results from a Bad Foundation

It is fun, but not whatever the hell she's doing.

Parts 1 & 2 covered the factors affecting women and fitness. The former examined the major problems, while the latter discussed slightly less direct details that are beyond one's own control.

Today, we'll take a closer look at what women do when they decide "Enough of this muffin top and these jiggly thighs, I need to take action!" and then unfortunately, simply make bad choices. First up will be exercise methods followed by nutritional approaches.

Exercise

Let's begin with a real kick in the crotch.

No way in hell do women who lift want to look like this:

"Hulk smash!"
And to answer your question,
yes, I did vomit all over my
keyboard after seeing this.

And luckily, they can't unless they inject themselves full of steroids.

BUT, despite not wanting to look like that, they follow a bodybuilder routine, meaning a body part split. You know, either one muscle a day or chest/back on one day, biceps/triceps another, legs this day, so on and so forth. These methods are employed by bodybuilders to really emphasize their muscles and get distinct muscular definition.

Perplexing eh? Often, women - as do men - choose to follow a regimen like this because it's what's most popular. It's not a program for those who want to avoid the "bulk."

It's a given people don't like to venture out of their comfort zones, so these same people do what's familiar and simple. They resort to exercises everyone else does in the gym and/or hop on a machine.

If not that, too much time is spent using weights that aren't heavy enough to elicit adaptation, meaning no progress, and train too often in the vertical plane (weight moves up & down in relation to the body, i.e., squat, curl, shoulder press, etc.). The lack of horizontal work - specifically pulls - leads to imbalances. Not to mention, your boobs may look saggier than they should because of weak back muscles (magnifies hunched posture).

And because I couldn't resist...

She look familiar to you? We've all seen
a lady like this. Just don't become her.

Also, keep in mind why lifting light weights isn't effective. If they're light, they won't require as much energy to move them. How will you burn fat? Low intensity exercise doesn't call on your body to use its stored energy - specifically, the fat you want to get rid of.

And if you didn't quite catch that,

light weights = low intensity = less fat loss

Women typically focus on trying to slim their arms, which requires less overall work. That's a small part of a total package. If a woman wants to look good to go out on the town, she won't paint her nails and be done. She'll do her make-up, her hair, find an outfit, choose accessories, and anything else us guys don't understand.

Likewise, the body needs to be treated as a whole. The bulk of the body is the torso and thighs. Effort should be concentrated there.

And oh those thighs, they are tricky. There's a lot to it, thus, better if I make a list.

• Weak posterior chain (muscles on the back of the body) creates an imbalance
  
• Women's quadriceps, front thigh muscles, are strong and become stronger with age, intensifying the imbalance
  
• Worsens since lower-body exercise focus is on leg presses, leg extensions, lunges, and squats, which predominantly train the quadriceps
• Using a treadmill shuts off the hamstrings, making the quadriceps do all the work

Pretty sucky if I do say so myself.

It's boring, but you don't
have to lie about it.

Endurance exercise itself is overused and the popular form of it is to run. Running is a sport in itself and can't be taken up thinking it leads to automatic fat loss. I'll be doing a future post on running, therefore I won't expound any further on it here.

All this usually ends up with a woman exhausted, stressed, not satisfied, wasting time & effort, but above all things, not having the body they want.

Nutrition

This is equally as important as the exercise section. What good is it to upgrade the parts of a computer (your body) if you're not going to install the proper software for it to function (food)?

I always wonder what the girl who says "Carbs are bad" and "Fats are bad" eats.

Although, it's probably not surprising she eats nothing but salads. I'm not knocking salads, but they definitely shouldn't be viewed as the solution to weight loss along with portion control.

Can't promise a carb free salad since
vegetables contain the carbohydrate cellulose.

Portion control works and is useful if a person is already eating unprocessed foods, but a problem comes about for those who continue to consume junk food. If you're scaling back the amount of junk you eat until your goal weight is achieved, it will return once you begin consuming the amount of food you were before practicing restraint.

And you become unsatisfied again. Big shocker.

But as always, it's not that simple. Yo-yo dieting is pretty common. Instead of fat being burned in a caloric deficit, muscle is broken down because the body isn't given adequate nourishment of the necessary nutrients.

To simply even further:

Less muscle = less body weight at first

Which is the primary goal, BUT because more energy is used to maintain muscle than fat and there's less muscle now...

Less muscle = slower metabolism, leading to easier fat gain

In the long run, you'll get what you got rid of plus some extra. That's not just failure, that's worse. (Epic failure sounds appropriate)

Additionally, let's not forget the time spent miserably controlling foods to eat and how much to eat. I'm also willing to bet during the decreased food intake, someone wasn't feeling all sunshine and rainbows either. Probably more along the lines of "Get the hell away from me before I beat you for that cookie!"

Honestly, I'd expect a person to be in a more depressed mood after an unsuccessful attempt and there's no telling whether they may binge or not, especially if their fitness-related actions are perceived as hopeless. After not meeting their goals, they may think "What's the point of watching what I eat if I'm not getting any results?" and proceed to chow down on anything and everything.

A smart approach needs to be taken to achieve the desired body. My dad always says think first or there's no meaning in working hard. It's good advice.

But it isn't all gloom and doom for women.

I wouldn't leave you hanging without any solutions.

Hardly. I would never do such a thing.

But of course, I need to leave something for part 4.

And on that note, I hope you all enjoyed this 3^rd installment and advise you to stay glued for the finale! In it, I'll share with you an exercise program or two and resources to start making progress.

Salad anyone?