Q for all you PT's out there.

Sin1981

Hi Personal Trainers,

Have you ever seen a woman change their body shape. e.g a female Apple body shape achieve a defined waist and add some shape to their glutes.
From my reading online, you either have large glutes or you don't, and it is purely based on your genetics....
If so, How would you go about doing this? and realistically, are we only talking a few millimeters in muscles changes..? like, doing cardio/HIIT to trim down Body fat is what most programs talk about advise these days, but I just wonder is it possible that once your %BF gets down to around 20%, will your body eat away at Abdominal fat, rather than attack visceral fat or any remaining fat on arms/legs/bum?
So, it it just wishful thinking that someone with an apple shape can get get anything close to a more modest pear/hour glass shape by following any fitness program out there?

farmerwifelet

not a pt but from personal experience for me belly fat is the last to go (unfortunately.) I lose from the ankles up and neck down but belly is always the last to shift.

marialouise

So following this thread because I'm dying to know if anyone has a great answer.
From personal experience: I am an apple and have dieted down from quite overweight to a very low weight for my height... I was kind of hourglass by then because there was basically nothing left of me, but still had belly fat and was toned (borderline scrawny) in other areas, so it will always be where your body holds fat, we can't change that.
Since then I reverse dieted and am doing loads of squats and deadlifts and am now in a calorie surplus. Of course a lot of weight is going on my belly, that can't be helped. I have, however, put on a lot of muscle in my lower half so I'm much more in proprotion than I was when I was previously at this weight if that makes sense, where I had bellyfat and skinny legs, now I have less bellyfat (but still some) and more shapely legs.
I have no plans to diet any time again soon, so I'm going to keep building muscle and lifting and eating lots to build my lower half (two very heavy leg days in the week), and maybe down the line I'll diet again and lose some of this belly fat once more, and hopefully keep some of the shape in my lower half.
I think it's possible to change shape within reason, but like you said it might be a few cms. I will never hold fat in my lower half the way I do in my stomach, I can't change that.
I will never have a huge arse no matter how much I eat or lift because it's just not in the genes, but I do believe with good training and a good diet that you can be your best shape.
You can't reduce fat from one place either with any exercise, fat loss is done through being in a calorie deficit and it comes off everywhere at a pretty equal pace, so if you're holding it in your belly you have to wait for it to come off everywhere before you get to that last bit. Understand as well that you can't lose fat and build muscle at the same time, so you usually need to get down to a level of bodyfat that you're happy with and then eat more again to build muscle.
Getting enough protein and lifting weights should be done throughout this process to make sure you retain as much muscle as possible.
Basically: I did shift the belly and have put on shape in my legs but there is a limit to what you can do (unless you want to be a serious bodybuilder or something).

The main problem for me is everyone I've seen who has achieved more shape on their lower half was coming from being very lean. I have seen several people who were underweight/models/just slim girls who learned to lift and eat and who grew from that. I have seen hardly anyone come from being overweight, in particular an apple, and maintain a large lower half with a flatter stomach, so I don't know if it's truly possible but I'm still trying!

Programmes like StrongCurves are designed for women and they're quite popular workouts. Or you could get a Personal Trainer for a few sessions to show you how to do the best exercises for your goals.
For diet I just use MyFitnessPal app and try to eat whole foods and fit them into my calories and macros. I also previously used a nutritionist online who gave me a food plan and helped me kick start my weight loss for 8 weeks.

cmyk

Sin1981 wrote: »

Have you ever seen a woman change their body shape. e.g a female Apple body shape achieve a defined waist and add some shape to their glutes.

As marialouise alluded to, you can change your bodyshape through exercise and nutrition via losing bodyfat and/or building muscle mass. The muscle that you build can of course be targeted through the usual exercise variables and you can choose to target or build certain muscle groups.

You can't change you're underlying bone structure though. J-Lo will never look like Elle McPherson as it were or vice-versa.

Your fat distribution is largely genetic and you can't determine where, or in which order it comes off. Women can also in some cases re-distribute their fat storage under certain conditions. One of about a myriad of different reasons women have a harder time with fat loss than men I'm afraid.

You've mentioned a figure of 20% bodyfat, at that level you should be pretty lean, everyone will look different at that level due to distribution.

Comparing yourself to others is probably the biggest issue we encounter here so try to get to a level you're happy with yourself bearing all of the above in mind...and avoid instagram ; )

Sin1981

Hi all,
thanks for the replies.  

@ Maria Louise, do you mind me asking, roughly how much time did you spend in the gym (once you had already lost body fat, and wanted to start building muscles). Like, how many hours per week, and how many weeks did it take before you saw noticeable differences with your clothes, or looking in mirror.?

marialouise

Sin1981 wrote: »

Hi all,
thanks for the replies. ?

@ Maria Louise, do you mind me asking, roughly how much time did you spend in the gym (once you had already lost body fat, and wanted to start building muscles). Like, how many hours per week, and how many weeks did it take before you saw noticeable differences with your clothes, or looking in mirror.?

This is where comparing won't come in handy, we're all different....

I'm doing postgraduate studies and working two part time jobs so the gym is not that high on my priority list right now, and every week is different so I can't go at the same time every day or the same day every week. Anyway...I try go 3 or 4 days a week. Usually 3 (sometimes 2, and when I first started losing weight I used to go 5 times!). Do what works for you.

The time in the gym has always been the same, it's the diet that changed whether I wanted to lose fat or build muscle.

When I do go, it's intense. I do one compound lift per session and various accessory work. Usually about 90 mins. I am pretty active bceause of my two jobs and my studies, all of which are physcially demanding in one way or another. But for the time that I'm in there I am very disciplined with a plan, sets, reps, tempo, no chat, I don't bring my phone. If I feel something isn't working, I change it.

My diet is under control so I was in a big calorie deficit coming up to Christmas and then I've been in a small surplus since then. I haven't been measuring bodyfat or anything like that so I can't tell you exactly how much progress in how many weeks, I'm just trying to lift heavier each time and make every workout a good one.

I think you should be realistic though, it's really hard for women to gain muscle, so progress should be slow and steady. I think like 1kg a month or something would be reasonable perhaps, it's hard to say. I definitely wasn't lean when I decided to bulk but I had just been dieting for a long time and had to stop. Now I'm getting stronger and will just keep doing this for a while. I'm about 9kg up since Christmas (I presume a lot of this is fat, don't really care) but you'd hardly notice, like the difference between all the progress pics is so small, it really is just a few cm like you said in your OP!

Transform

Sin1981 wrote: »

Hi Personal Trainers,

Have you ever seen a woman change their body shape. e.g a female Apple body shape achieve a defined waist and add some shape to their glutes.
From my reading online, you either have large glutes or you don't, and it is purely based on your genetics....
If so, How would you go about doing this? and realistically, are we only talking a few millimeters in muscles changes..? like, doing cardio/HIIT to trim down Body fat is what most programs talk about advise these days, but I just wonder is it possible that once your %BF gets down to around 20%, will your body eat away at Abdominal fat, rather than attack visceral fat or any remaining fat on arms/legs/bum?
So, it it just wishful thinking that someone with an apple shape can get get anything close to a more modest pear/hour glass shape by following any fitness program out there?

biggest mistake i see re that goal is women skipping the hard work of compound exercises i.e. squats, deadlifts in favour of a ton of special 'gulte activation' exercises