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Challenge Plan - Lose 1.5 Pounds of Fat

Here's an outline of what I'll be doing next week, if anyone wants to go along....

I plan to burn off 1.5 pounds of fat between Monday (8/16) and Sunday (8/22). Fat consists of 3,500 calories per pound, so that's a 5,250 calorie deficit in 7 days, 750 calories per day. As I don't actually have 750 extra calories in my diet *most* days, I'll have to add more exercise to make up the difference. To maintain my current bodyweight of 133, a good guess-timate of my maintanence intake is 1,862 (133x14 - somewhat active). I regularly eat a couple thousand calories, give or take a bit. My weight has been fairly stable for the past year, so I consider this more or less accurate, although untested.

Diet-wise, I'll go to 1,400 calories daily. Nice round figure, plenty of food, plenty of fuel for my size and activity level. This will give me a starting deficit of 3,234 calories. Now I need to burn off 2,016 additional calories through exercise.

My weight training for my level is pretty much tapped. I could do a bit more I suppose, but won't get the benefits that I would by adding more cardio, specifically because I already superset all my weights and move quickly through my workouts. I'll add one weight training workout (legs) but for weights, that's it. My leg workouts are also entirely superset, consist of 16 sets plus calves and take approximately 40 minutes. I'll give this 300 calories - still need to burn off 1,716 through cardio.

The main reason I've chosen cardio for the additional calorie burning is that I don't normally do that much, so I've got more margins in this area than in the other two categories. Normal for me is 15 minutes cardio warmup and one 45 minute extended cardio during the week. My cardio of choice is the "spin" style indoor cycle, at moderate intensity, for an *average* of 10 calories per minute, 450 calories per session. The 15-minute sessions and the one 45-minute workout are already "counted", so I have to ADD 172 minutes of "spin" style cardio next week.

I've decided to take 2 indoor cycle classes (45 minutes each) for a total of 90 minutes, and will up my five 15 minute warmups by 10 minutes each, for a total of 50 minutes, leaving 32 minutes to make up. Easy, Sunday morning at the track for a quick sprint workout should clear that right up.

Monday morning, August 23, weigh in at 131. I should add that if this was to be longer than a week, I'd back off to a goal of pound a week or even less - this is just too much output for an average person's available time, energy, desire and probably physical make-up.

Laree

Followed by a question, "Hey Laree, do you think you might add some muscle during the week and therefore not get down to 131?...Ivan"

And my answer....

Not very likely, actually. Couple of reasons. Main one is that I've been doing this for a long time (nearly 20 years), so in a week, I'm not likely to make measureable muscular gains in my opinion (female, 43 years old, 20 year hard-training base). For me anyway, I don't expect I can count on much more than a pound or two A YEAR - I hover around my max on all lifts; weights move up in fractions at this point.

Second, too much cardio. Particularly when you realize how much I'm going from to get there. Fairly minimal raised to fairly intense with no lead-in peroid to get used to it. Finally, depending on the person, probably not enough food. Need more calories to gain weight.

My answer would possibly be different if I were in my first year of training, would definitely be different if I were male so had the benefits of higher testosterone, possibly be different if I were younger, although I haven't exactly pondered that one yet. Laree

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