I am a 37 year old female. I am 5'4 and currently weigh 138 pounds. I have been weightlifting with a trainer for a year now and I am struggling to lose weight and body fat. I work out 5 days a week for about an hour and twenty minutes. My trainer had me on a diet eating around 1600-1800 calories a day consisting of about 200 grams of complex carbs and around 120 grams of lean protein. I was losing for a few months, I lost about 10 pounds but in the past few months I have gained most of it back. I am still following the diet he gave me but I am not seeing any results. I am starting a 60 day challenge at the gym and I really want to succeed. A year ago I was assessed at a nutritionist and I had 22% body fat. I was just assessed by my trainer at the gym and now have 28% body fat, I am not sure how this can be. Can you please help me with a diet plan I should follow to help me start seeing some results and drastically reduce my body fat? Thank you
Answered by Roman Footnick
Your calories are likely too high. I'd have you around 1400/day. Also for many people as we age we become less insulin sensitive, so your carb intake is likely too high as well.Eliminating all sugar, and trying to keep your carbs low - around 100g or less/day... (calories coming primarily from fats and proteins) should help you get to your goals.
Not knowing your medical history, lifestyle, and preferences you may want to look into something like ketogenic diets or paleo diets as a source of food plans.
Give it a few weeks and see if you're moving in the right direction. If you are, great. Keep going. If not, you may want to get some blood work done to check your hormone levels (Thyroid panel, estrogen, testosterone,etc) and inflammatory markers (i.e. c-reactive protein).
All that said, rethink your plan of "drastically reducing body fat." Unless you like the idea of putting it all back on and then some. Rather, think more along the lines of "healthfully and methodically reducing body fat." The mind your most powerful tool employed in sculpting your body.
Good luck!
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