Quick Stats

Name: Lizelle Horn
Age: 27
Height: 1.58 m
Competition weight: 46 Kg
Current weight: 51 Kg
Current city: Pretoria, South Africa
Occupation: Professional Hair Stylist and Make Up Artist

How long have you been training consistently for and have you always lived a fit and healthy lifestyle?

I have been weight training for 6 years, but never really did the ‘healthy part.’  I started to add the ‘healthy part’ when I started my first competition preparation 3 years ago, and that then, was what made a huge difference!!

What do you love about it?

Being healthy makes me feel good on every level of my life.  It also gives me self confidence and keeps me disciplined.

What competitions have you competed in and your placing’s?

2011

• IFBB Gauteng North Provincials, Beach Bikini, 3^rd
• IFBB H&H Classic, Beach Bikini, 5^th

2012

• USN Face of Fitness, Top 12 Finalist
• IFBB H&H Classic, Beach Bikini, 6^th
• IFBB North West Provincials, Fitness Bikini, 2^nd
• IFBB South African Championships, Fitness Bikini, 1^st
• IFBB World Championships, Bialystok, Poland, Fitness Bikini, 12^th out of 23

Tell us a bit about your experience competing internationally in Poland, and the standard of the competition there?

I was very honored to represent my country and it was definitely an experience that I will never forget, and also a good learning curve.  Competing against very passionate world-class athletes was quite an amazing experience.  What amazed me even more was the different cultures and nationalities all having their own ways of reaching the same goals.

Your advice for someone wanting to start competing?

First be specific in terms of what your goals are.  Which division you want to compete in, as each division requires different nutrition and training.  Then set your goal and work towards it!

“Secondly, nutrition is most important and is the main role player and the biggest part in your overall success.”

Get to know your body and only take advice from someone you can trust, that also knows you and has first hand experience – “been there, done that”.

What are your future plans?

“To learn more; knowledge is power, and you can never have enough, because we learn something new everyday.”

I am starting a course in nutrition and supplementation soon and I’m looking forward to that.  I am also competing again this year, and would like to do another International competition as well.

Take us through an average day of yours:

• 04:30 – Wake Up
• 05:00 – Weight training session (30 – 40min)
• 07:00 – Breakfast
• 09:00 – Start work – Hair & Make Up is my other passion
• 16:00 – Get home from work
• 17:30 – 19:00 – Another cardio session
• 19:30 – Dinner

Do you believe in using supplements? If you do, with all the different supplements out there, what would you say are the most essential ones that need to be taken?

Definitely, supplementation will boost your performance in the gym and help you achieve the body you want.  I think your vitamins are very important.

• Multivitamins
• Omega’s
• Glutamine
• Whey Protein
• Thermo genic fat burner

Give us a brief description of your philosophy on your training and on average how long do you workout for?

Off Season:

• 30 – 40 min weight training
• 40 – 60 min cardio per day

Competition Prep:

• 30 – 40 min weight training
• 90 – 120 min cardio per day

How do you measure your progress? And how often?

By Measuring body fat and weight, every two weeks.

What’s your favorite form of cardio?

Stepping machine, Treadmill and Rowing.

What would you say are the three best exercises women should include in their leg work outs to really develop their Quads?

1. Squats
2. Step ups
3. Low pulley glute extensions

Favorite female fitness icon(s):

Nathalia Melo

Favorite Quote:

“Never say never.”

Advice for someone wanting to change their lifestyle and achieve their ideal physique?

Its never to late to start.

Where can people get hold of you?

• Facebook:  Lizelle Horn

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In part one of this we looked at weight training, and why it’s so beneficial for women to do it, so if you missed it, check out  Women and Weight Training-  Part 1 for some great information and tips.

Yes weight training can do so much for you in such a positive light, but without the proper nutrition and eating habits you may never progress and see that big difference that you have been longing to see. Here we deal with a few simple nutrition strategies to help get you started, and guide you in achieving your goal of losing fat and building and toning your muscles.  Remember, to change and improve your body you must be consistent with your exercising and your eating.  You must make sure to do some sort of exercise and be active.

Aspects such as, how many meals to eat, what exactly to eat, how many calories to eat and the reasons behind it all, will be dealt with.  You should try to keep things as simple as possible, especially with regards to nutrition, as if it’s too complicated it can really put you off.

“Fact: Nutrition is always the limiting factor in body transformation. If a client doesn’t change their nutrition, all the effort in the gym is largely wasted.” ~ Dr. John Berardi

So where to start?

Firstly you need to have the right mind set and attitude.  You need to decide what it is you want to achieve and visualise your goal, and your ideal body and stick with it.  You need to realise that you’re going to need to be disciplined and prepared, and at times it will require sacrifices.

How many meals should you be eating?

The general ideal way to lose fat, or gain muscle is to eat small but frequent meals. This is not the only way though.  So anywhere between four and six meals/snacks a day.  A meal every three to four hours.  This has been covered in a previous article,  Healthy eating – How many meals a day?

What should you be eating?

The thought of having to eat four or more meals a day can be quite daunting and can lead to the question, ‘what on earth do I eat for every one of those meals?’  Well the good news is that there are quite a lot of different foods you can choose from and another plus is, with regular exercise your appetite should increase.

Variety is key so that you don’t get bored and end up eating the same thing every day.  Although, some people find it easier and simpler to stick to the same foods day in and day out.  Whatever works for YOU.

The different macro nutrients and foods that will make up your diet:

• Always think PROTEIN.  This should be your main focus, and each of your meals must contain some form of protein.  The reason for this is so that you can constantly supply your body with amino acids necessary for muscle repair and growth, as well as many other bodily functions ( such as hair growth, skin rejuvenation etc).  Some protein food sources include: Chicken, eggs, red meat, fish, Greek yoghurt, cottage cheese, milk, lentils, quinoa, tofu, nuts.

Your protein content should stay relatively consistent, where as your carbohydrates and fat can be manipulated more, depending on if you’re trying  losing fat or to gain weight.

• Next up, vegetables.  Try to include a bowl of vegetables with at least three of your meals in a day.  Some good vegetables can include: broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, carrots, tomatoes, spinach, peppers, peas, onions etc.  Vegetables are packed with fibre, vitamins and minerals, all essential for our well being.  Fiber is so good for helping our digestive system, cleaning inside our stomach, and aiding in making us feel full.
• Fruit.  If you read a few magazine articles here and there you can find many people saying you should rather avoid fruit or minimize it as most fruits contain a lot of sugar and fructose.  It’s a good idea to include some fruit in your diet, especially with your breakfast or make sure to eat a piece of fruit just before one of your meals, as they offer many vitamins and minerals naturally.  For instance for your second meal of the day you can have an apple/pear/orange/grapefruit first then continue to have a chicken salad for example.  Fruit also contains fiber which will help keep us full.
• Carbohydrates.  With exercise and especially weigh training, you may find yourself needing a lot of energy.  Good carbohydrates can provide you with the fuel you will need to get through your daily training.  Try to include some carbohydrates at breakfast and before and after you train to provide you with enough energy and recovery.  Some good carbohydrate sources include:  Oats, rice, potatoes and sweet potatoes, quinoa, lentils, cous cous etc. Include a portion of carbohydrates with two or three of the meals, but again, personal preference can come into play here. There are a lot of people who don’t eat much before they train as they feel too full and it causes them to feel like throwing up.  So if you are one of those people, by all means manipulate it to suit your needs.
• Fats.  It’s a long time myth that eating fats cause you to get fat.  This is really not the case.  Fats play an important role within our bodies, regulating our hormones and inducing the production of some hormones.  So to completely eliminate them from your diet would not be a wise decision.  Some good fats include: olive oil, nuts, peanut butter, avocados etc.  It would be a good idea to include some of these fats at breakfast and in your last meals of the day when carbohydrates are low.

So far we have established that you will:

• Be eating four to six meals in a day,
• With each meal containing some form of protein,
• With a portion of vegetables included in at least three of the meals.
• Eat a portion of fruit at breakfast and/or before one other meal.
• Include a portion of carbohydrates in your two meals before and after training and at breakfast.
• Include some good fats with your last two meals of the day.

How many calories and grams should you eat?

In the spirit of keeping things simple we will keep away from saying you should be eating x amount of grams of this food and that food.  There are some articles which state, to calculate how many calories you should be eating, multiply your bodyweight by 14 or 15.  This method is slightly vague and we should rather go according to portions as that former way can get quite complicated, especially for someone who doesn’t know much about calories.

One very important note which you need to be aware of, is that different people have different needs.  Basically the amount of calories and nutrients YOUR body may need to lose fat could be totally different to someone else.

The exact amounts of calories required by you depend on many things, such as your weight, your body fat, the amount of activity you do in a day, the amount of rest you get and need etc. So while each of us needs to find out how much is sufficient for us, there are still basic principles which can be used to get started.

For vegetables you don’t have to worry too much as more is better than less in this case.  So for these you can just chop some vegetables up into a medium sized bowl for each meal.  For your protein, use your fist as a comparison.  So for foods like chicken and fish and mince, one portion should be just bigger than your fist.  For carbohydrates you can use ¾ of a cup to 1 cup as a one portion.  Lastly for fats it’s a bit different.  Use one teaspoon as one portion.  For instance a teaspoon of olive oil, peanut butter or avocado.

So once you put all these portions together with each of your meals, you will start to see how your body responds and from there you can manipulate and change it as you need, decreasing or increasing what you need.

These portion sizes are relatively small, but should be adequate for the average woman.  Depending on your weight and body fat you can adjust them to suit your needs.  This is all just a guideline to help you get started and to see how you need to eat to maximise your results, be fit and healthy and achieve a great body

Here is another great article about the benefits of weight training for women and why females should want to gain muscle.  If you are still not convinced check these reasons out! 10 reasons why females should be obsessed with gaining muscle

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Whenever I suggest weight training to a girl, I seem to get this bewildered and shocked look.  Most girls go to the gym just to ‘keep fit’ and end up doing a few minutes on every piece of cardio equipment that there is in the gym!  Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not taking anything away from cardio, and I do believe in doing cardio, but it does have its time, place and purpose.

Most girls give the impression that they are scared of the weights section of the gym and say it is only for the guys.  Girls, you really shouldn’t be scared of it at all, as everyone’s there for one reason (well at least they should be), to train.  Another reason, and one of the most common ones I keep hearing of,

is the misconception that if a female trains with weights they will ‘bulk’ up and gain a lot of muscle creating a more manly look, and an unfeminine appearance.  What you need to understand is that these very big and incredibly muscular women, whom you see in some of these bodybuilding competitions, have been taking testosterone and other anabolic steroids (in addition to working hard, eating right and training intensely).

These anabolic agents enable them to build such large amounts of muscle compared to an average woman and even the average man.  You see women do not have sufficient amounts of testosterone within them to allow for such extreme muscle growth, no matter how much weight training you do.  Granted some women will grow quicker than others, while some may lose weight easier than others, but the reasons for this can be quite vast.  It could be due to such things like different genetics, different diets etc.  In the end we are all unique and may respond differently to different things.  That catch is to experiment and find what exactly works for us individually.

So what’s the point and the reasons for all this hype on weight training.  The reason is that there are so many benefits associated with weight training:

1. Increase your overall muscle mass on your body

This in turn raises your metabolism and allows you to burn more calories at rest.

Muscle burns more calories at rest than fat.  Muscle needs more attention than fat.

In simpler terms while you’re just sitting, the muscles on your body need a supply of nutrients and blood constantly to repair, build and maintain the muscle as opposed to fat which needs far less nutrients.

2. Increase in appetite

Your appetite should increase and thus you can eat more without gaining a lot of fat, and with the training you are most likely going to need those extra nutrients.

3. Deeper sleep

You will sleep like a baby!  Weight training will definitely help you get better sleep.  Ok pretty much doing any physical activity will help with sleep, but weight training also stimulates the release of growth hormone.

When you have a good deep sleep, your body releases small amounts of growth hormone.  This helps with a number of bodily functions from creating hair growth, fat burning and how the body stores fat, all the way to aiding in the reduction of wrinkles, as it stimulates growth and cell reproduction and regeneration.  It also aids in repairing your muscles.

Growth hormone production in our bodies declines as we get older, thus the reason why we should maximise its effects while we can.  This is why we see so many of the older celebrities getting growth hormone ‘treatments’ to make them look so much younger.

4. Tone and tighten up

Weight training helps you achieve that toned and tight look.  It tones your muscles far faster and better than any other form of training and also assists in keeping your skin tight.  Another big thing which girls hate is cellulite, which it helps getting rid of.

5. Release endorphins

When you train, and get your heart rate up your body releases these ‘feel good hormones’ and endorphins which help to calm and relax yourself, even after the training.

And to some it’s a form of release, which is really a big plus with all the stress of our everyday lives.

6. Increase your self confidence

It will make you look and feel even better about yourself!  I don’t think we even need any other reasons to do it besides this

Something I really love about it as well, is that it forces you to become disciplined and enables you to attain a lot more focus both in an out of the gym.

If you don’t have that motivation to hit the weights alone, try get a gym partner to join you, and by doing so you two can push each other and ensure you both do everything correctly.  Or better yet take your better half with you and have fun together.  But if neither of these cases works out for you, don’t be sad, you can always start with one of the classes that they give at the gym.  Just find out what the class entails, as there are many different ones for all different goals and types of training.  Try to find one with a lot of resistance type exercises with bands and even some with weights or kettle bells.  If in doubt speak to one of the personal trainers or one of the aerobics instructors, they should be more than willing to help you.

Here’s a great article on how to bench press for the ladies, A Girl’s Gotta Bench It’s all good to train hard and intensely, but if you do not eat right, you may never achieve the results which you want.

Check out Part 2 of this article, more focused on the right nutrition for women:  Women and Weight Training – Part 2 – Getting Clued Up on the Right Nutrition

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