I’ve gotten my friend interested in doing a novice LP program to begin getting back in shape, but she’s also uncomfortable with the amount of body fat she’s accumulated in the last year. I have read “To Be a Beast,” but are those same calorie and macro recommendations applicable to a female? I only know the male side of the nutrition question. She claims she’s used other calculators before to determine her maintenance calories and ended up gaining weight. She thinks something is wrong with her metabolism, which I sort of doubt. She’s only 22.
I haven’t physically seen her for a few months, but from what I remember she’s at least overweight or class 1 obese according to the BMI scale.
So, obviously she isn’t a candidate for a caloric surplus or GOMAD. What dietary strategy should she be following to reduce her waist size while squeezing out maximum gains on her LP even while on a cut?
I would have her in a calorie deficit while eating 1.7g of protein/kg bodyweight per day. I wouldn’t be worried about squeezing out maximum gains on LP, as we’re more concerned with long-term development and in her case- weight loss. She’ll likely need to do a fair bit of conditioning.
We’d recommend our Beginner Template over the LP 10/10 times.
Thanks Jordan. Where can I find the beginner template? Google was no help. How is it different? Do you recommend it over LP 10/10 only in the case of weight loss, or all the time?
Well, she isn’t totally new to resistance training, she lifted a lot in high school and the first half of college but she’s been very sporadic ever since then. But I see the program is also meant for those who haven’t been consistent in a while.
I obviously don’t expect you to divulge the whole method here, but how does the programming philosophy differ compared to SS LP? Is it still focused on progressive overload with the basic lifts? If so, I’m assuming it does it more slowly than 15 lbs a week?
Yes- our programming (as well as all good programming) revolves around progressive overload. That said, we don’t think new lifters should specialize in developing a particular repetition range or only a few selected exercises, so we have more variety in both where appropriate. We also include conditioning recommendations in order to improve health-related outcomes.