One of my girlfriends is 5'7 and 140lbs. She's kind of a tomboy and plays rugby. She's got more muscle than the average girl so her body looks pretty good even at 140lbs, but we figure she could lose 15-20. Anyway, i know alot about male bodybuilding, but next to nothing about female. How many calories should she be eating? What bodyfat percentage should she aim at? Does she need to lift or can she get away with just cardio? And how much cardio?

One of my girlfriends is 5'7 and 140lbs. She's kind of a tomboy and plays rugby. She's got more muscle than the average girl so her body looks pretty good even at 140lbs, but we figure she could lose 15-20. Anyway, i know alot about male bodybuilding, but next to nothing about female. How many calories should she be eating? What bodyfat percentage should she aim at? Does she need to lift or can she get away with just cardio? And how much cardio?

if she was at 20% fat right now (which is on the low-average side for female) than that would mean she has 28 lbs of fat and 112lb LBM.
if she were to lose 20lbs and keep all her LBM then she would be about ~6% bf (too low to maintain for a woman). So, losing 20lbs in this case would not be healthy. it's an extreme example but just to give you an idea of numbers.

i think the first thing to do is get her bf% measured and that will give a better starting point to estimate how much fatloss she should shoot for. i think for female non athletes/professional, then 16-19% would be fit looking and 20-24% would be in the average range. below 15% is getting very lean.

to figure out how much she should eat, then it depends on how much she is eating now to maintain her weight, then subtract 300-500 from the daily calories.

losing fat and preserving LBM is not different for a woman than for a man. dieting + cardio put the body in a catabolic state. to maintain the LBM she has while losing fat, she should weight train just like a male bodybuilder would.

Hmmm....hate to chime in here with some negative words, but I know a girl who is 5'7" and weighs 150lbs. She is a size 8 and doesn't look bad at all. If this girl is the same height, has a lot of muscle and weighs 10 pounds lighter, I am having a hard time seeing what you are seeing.

Any pics of people who might look similar to her for us to go by? I agree with Chops on this one. Might not be healthy for her to lose that much weight, and would be certainly almost impossible to maintain it.

And when you say "we" I guess she asked you for help? Or was it your idea for her to lose weight? I don't quite understand.

One thing I do understand though is guys don't really know good weight/height combos for girls in comparison to guys. ;)

Well Im 5 ft 2" and weighing 146 pounds and I don't carry it very well at all. Height makes a lot of difference. I could do to lose 10-15 pounds of it atleast. Problem is it is proving very stubborn to lose but I find that when my activity during the day is good, my weight drops. Personally if she only has under 20 pounds to lose I think I would just do a session of long slow cardio everyday to preserve mass she has already. Cut out sugar, caffeine and sodium and see how the first week goes eating clean and drink lots of water. Do the cardio for 45-60 minutes duration @ 65-70% mhr. Anything above it will just send the body into survival mode and fat loss will stall at some point.

A general guideline for healthy weight for females is 100 pounds for the first 5 feet, and 5 pounds for each inch taller than that, so at 5'7" and 140 pounds, she has maybe 5 pounds to lose. However, she could find herself happier within ten pounds or so on either side of that ideal.

I never know what to say to people who come here looking for help for OTHER people to lose weight. There are various different approaches to weight loss, and if she really wants to lose weight, she'll find the way that works for her.

I'd recommend for a small weight loss to not track calories, just to cut out empty calories. To lose five pounds, all a personl usually has to do is eliminate all beverages other than water. And tell her to keep doing whatever exercise makes her happy.

Why is it if a woman isn't below 120lbs she needs to lose weight. If she feels good and is happy with her body then I would say leave it at that. You say she looks good, what's the problem, if she has a more stocky build losing weight won't change that, toning up more could

I weigh 138-140lbs, 5'4 and think I am fine, as I do have a bit more muscle I find it extrmely hard to lose weight, even with cardio, eating right and weight bearing exercises. I think the person you speak of will find it hard to, if she builds more muscle she could go down in sizes but not necesaarilly lose weight (but everyone is different)

Monica Brant weighs 135lbs and is 5'4 (off season) I think she looks sexy (I'm sure others think so too!!)

Hey, I'm about 5'6 and I weight 140lbs and I'm about a size 4. I never go by with how much I weigh on the scale, I usually go with how my clothes are fitting and how I'm feeling. Muscle weighs more than fat, so don't follow the scales.