[timarie]

What I meant was that I was very strong, but not like one of those muscle heads with veins popping out and a set of six-packs. A friend of mine recently saw a video of one of our gigs from 20 years ago and she went nuts over how "pumped" my upper arms were!! In the meantime, the only semi-regular "weight lifting" I ever did back then was carrying my huge set around and playing drums about 8 hours hours a week...and the other stuff I mentioned.

Haha right! The steroid body builder ladies! Gotcha It definitely takes a unique body type to get "cut" arms from exercises other than lifting weights. I imagine you probably had very little fat on your upper body as well from all those hobbies you had, which made your arms more defined. Love it. Good luck with getting back to doing what you love!!!

Indeed. The ONLY optional nutrient is any carb other than fiber. YOU NEED some fat. YOU NEED lots of protein.
[see post #93 for the full post]
Our bodies require a minimum of around 50 grams of protein and 10 grams of fat each day. Of that around a quarter of it needs to be animal source.

And there you have it, folks. True words of wisdom.

Thanks for adding that, Abi! That is EXACTLY to what I was referring when I said that it was still an on-going debate. And I couldn't have explained it any better. Thanks!!!

Hi Timarie, thank you very much! your post is extremely useful! I will try to follow, but need to read your program and understand it in detail --i would love to do the waist tucking. I am not sure about my body type. I am currently 5-6 kilograms above what is "ideal" for me. I have posted pictures of me in my topic(they are of me seminaked so do not want to post them in your topic since you might not consider them appropriate). No matter how thin I am I always have a relatively big butt and smaller breasts, however my waist is not well defined and I have big shoulders and rib cage. So bonewise I am an hourglass, fatwise a pearwith a thicker waist...i think.
Anyway I will start this waist tucking thing and the spot reducing thing next week when i am back from vacation. For now i just do a lot a lot of sport for toning and noogling 2 hrs a day. The CLA i started from today, since this is the easiest!
Best regards and many many thanks.

Girl, I went onto your program page (which is definitely an interesting/good read from what I saw when I skimmed through, btw--will have to read more later) expecting to see some girl with a big gut hanging out and I saw quite... the opposite! You are much too hard on yourself. You look great! But I can see what you're trying to lose, which really isn't all that much. Sometimes it is hard to tell body shapes from appearance, especially with weight fluctuations, but it appears to me that you might be an hourglass. I say this because, you seem to be carrying that hard-to-lose weight in your lower abdomen, you do have a cheeky backside, and you have a nice-sized (well, at least in MY opinion!) bust. Also, to further define you from a pear, your legs are pretty trim. For example, my legs are.... sloppy regardless of how "skinny" I may get! Plus, you took those photos from a downward angle, which helps to make your hips look smaller and your rib cage look bigger and your torso longer (which makes a waist look less-defined). So I took that into account and tried to imagine from another angle. Now, that is just based on what I SEE. You very well could be an hourglass, but it is too hard to tell from the photos alone. Your measurements also play a key role in determining your body shape. Typically if your waist is 10 inches (or more) smaller than your hip measurement (and yours is), that would make you a pear or hourglass (as opposed to an apple or a banana). You might find this site helpful: http://www.shopyourshape.com/body-shapes.html. Or not. It used to work for me and now it says I am not one of their 8 shapes. Well it might work for you! I just looked at your body measurements posted on your thread and you have a 70% hip-to-waist ratio, which I am pretty sure is a HWR an hourglass or pear shape (any % smaller than 80%). Research shows that men from Indo-European cultures find your HWR most attractive (congrats!) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waist%E2%80%93hip_ratio. Just thought I'd add that So yeah, based on all that I wrote above, I am leaning towards believing that you are an hourglass.

You sound like you've got a good plan mapped out. Do your toning with your sports, NB for your breasts, and CLA for fat blocking and keep all the diet tips in mind that Abi and I mentioned. Along with the spot reduction page you saw, PLEASE do consider the stomach vacuum. That is what I swear by for a flat stomach. Keep your eyes peeled for my waist routines which I will be posting sometime this week. Enjoy your vacation... I am on vacation this week, as well!