Beginner's bodybuilding for her

You will not look like this.  [Unless you want to, of course.]  Women do not gain muscle as easily as men, unfortunately, nor do they burn fat as well as men.  For a chick to look like this, she needs steroids! She must be the most disciplined person ever - many years of strict nutritional diet, inhaling supplements and full-time training.  If only America had an ounce of discipline as this woman, there wouldn't be an obesity epidemic.


With that said, weight training is ever so important for fat loss - especially for a skinny fat person.  In fact, more women, and not men, tend to be skinny fat because they shy away from weights.  I am guilty of this at first.  Not because I was afraid of doing weights, but I had no idea where to even start.  At the gym, all I see are men pumping iron and benching more than their body weight.  That's intimidating.  If I want to use the same machine, how do I even remove those 200 lbs weights off the barbell? I give up. I'll just stick with cardio.  


For the first 4-5 weeks, all I did was run and inconsistently at that - sometimes 5 days a week followed by 1 day the next week.  However, when I ran, I did it in intervals.  If I stayed at the same pace, I would change the grade of incline every 2 minutes to "shock" the body.  Along with some significant changes to my nutritional intake, I lost about 9 lbs.  This seems slow, but I wanted to ensure more fat loss rather than muscle.


With cardio, I hit a wall and started to plateau weeks 5-7 with no loss of body fat percentage.  Instead of concentrating on my diet, I decided to incorporate weight training and HIIT.  For a newbie, I had no idea where to start - no, my boyfriend did not help me - so, obviously I turned to the internet.  Two websites that I used to plan my workout routine are Body Trainer and Jefit.  Body Trainer organizes exercises by muscle groups and points out the best user voted workout for that group.  Jefit is also similar, plus you can sync the App to your IPhone or Android.  The most useful tool for me was their .gif images demonstrating how each workout is done.  My boyfriend used the App to double check one of  his exercises.  Having the correct form is key!


I realistically selected which exercises to start with for each body part and divided it up into 4 weigh training days on Jefit.  The first few times, I had to walk around my gym aimlessly to match up the machine with the picture on Jefit - I know, what a n00b.  My workout routine is 4 day weights, 2-3 days cardio.  I started with lower weights, more reps and less rest.  Don't sacrifice form for heavier weights!  You can go up once you've mastered the form.  After just 2 weeks of this (week 8-9), my scale budged and I lost 2.5 more lbs and even more body fat. 


Post workout nutrition: remember to drink a protein shake within 15-30 minutes after your workout.  Some days, I wake up so sore that I drink a second one in the morning.  Protein does the body good!