Hi!

I have tried to find info online about using the stairmaster but I can't seem to find an answer to my question.

I am 25 years old, very skinny - 5'2" & 100 lbs (actually, about 98lbs) and I want to work on my lower body. I just want to start doing something about it before gravity completely takes over my body.

The problem is that because of my job, I spend 6 months of the year in different hotels all over the country and usually their "exercise rooms" only have a stairmaster, a treadmill and a bike. I really don't want to lose any weight, I just want a toned butt and legs; would the stairmaster work for me or would it make lose weight?
I was thinking maybe if I use a high, harder level it would be better than just burning what's left of my butt off using a lower level that only makes me burn calories. I don't know, I'm pretty clueless about this!

If anyone could please let me know if the stairmaster would be right for me, my butt and I would greatly appreciate it!

Thank you!

Raggy.

If you're burning calories you'll have to eat more. More calories and make sure it's food that is decently healthy for you. The stairmaster will add some muscle and tone as well if used for a decent amount of time at a decent difficulty...BTW, I wish I had your problem of being so skinny. I'm 6 feet tall and about 220-230 pounds (male)....I wish I was at least 20-30 pounds lighter if not 30-50 pounds lighter...how are you so skinny? what do you eat and what do you do for exercise?

BTW, how'd you get into the hotel industry? It's something I've wanted to do.

Thanks for your reply!
I wish I could eat more, but I've struggled with food my whole life and if I eat too much I will BARF! I can't handle much food, I guess that is why I'm so skinny. Also, I am a vegan, so I don't eat any animal products at all (no dairy or eggs either). I eat lots of rice, lentils, soy protein, soy milk, tofu, soy ice "cream", and pretty much everything that doesn't come from animal sources.
I eat luna bars almost every day too, they're both yummy and a nice vitamin supplement.

About the job, my husband and I spend pretty much every night in a different city for six months a year. We are field researchers for a gps company. It's nice for people that like to travel and that are ok with being together all day 24/7, spending 8 hours in a car every day! Luckily, we love being together all the time!

I will try the stairmaster and hopefully it will stop my butt from sagging, which I think it will start happening quite soon!

Man... that must be fun to travel every where for awhile...

But one thing you could do is buy some theraband... it's small but it can provide a bunch of resistance.... You can make a nice little ring with the theraband and do all sorts of exercises... Like Lunges, side shuffles, walking, hip extension, etc... And that's just lower body... you can do upper body workouts as well...


and you can do all these exercises right down the hallway of the hotels you stay at!!! So if that's something that interests you just let me know I could hook ya up w/ a little theraband workout...

TTYL,

DeX

You've got the perfect point to begin. Too skinny? bah!
The StairMaster will help you. Aside from being able to bound up flights of stairs like they weren't there, you WILL see some substantial toning in your thighs and rear. Nothing dramatic, but if your husband is paying attention, he will notice!
Add some light weight work with free weights and you ought to be very pleased with the results. Exploit those exercise facilities!

I should add that my experience with the stairmaster was a surprise - all I expected was cardio benefit. The results I'm getting with weights are really encouraging.

GO FOR IT!

The bands are a great suggestion. If you want to build your legs and glutes, you need to do resistance training. True, a stairmaster type of machine does this to a degree, but generally, you can't call something you can do for 45 minutes continuously a muscle building resistance workout.

If you don't want your butt to go flat, you need to build muscle! Those glutes respond very well to certain movements. Don't even think about the old argument that women give against lifting weights...that you don't want to get too muscular. It's not going to happen. Especially with your diet.

Get some bands and workup some squat and lunge style movements, and do it so you can feel it... it's gotta hurt a little! I think you are going to see very slow results regardless due to your diet. Frankly, you simply are not getting the right kind of protein in order to support what you need to do in order to show improvements, but I won't try to convince you to see the light.

Your skinny enough. Do more weight training and eat some protein.
You will always have a skinny ass if you stay a vegan.
You bones will get brittle and you will always have that white pasty look.

So more protein and more weights.

Weights build muscle. That is what will tighten your but.
The stairmaster is good but it is aerobic. That burns more fat.
Look at runners and cyclists THEY ARE ALL SKINNY !

It's completely possible for a person to get ample amounts of natural protein (consisting of all the essential amino acids) in their diet, even if they are vegan. Being a vegan has nothing to do with bone density. There are numerous plant sources absolutely rife with calcium. Better that she gets a normal amount of protein for her body type and size from natural sources than any great excess... Metabolic Consequences of a High Dietary-Protein Intake in Adulthood: Assessment of the Available Evidence -- Metges and Barth 130 (4): 886 -- Journal of Nutrition

And have you seen some cyclists? Especially those in iron man competitions or bike tours... they are able to maintain some pretty big, muscular lower bodies that they develop through their training regiments. Just do as some have recommended and add in dumbbell (if available) lunges, squats, and hit the leg machines.

Not trying to pile on regarding the diet here, but if your vegan diet is something other than religious, you might at least consider whey protein.

I have two very good friends who are hindu, and they are vegan as well, but they do allow for dairy. Of course they are both "skinny fat", and one of them has significant heart trouble (two stents last year), so I just happen to find it hard to justify a total, hard vegan diet for health reasons. You need a complete amino acid profile in your diet, and you need Essential Fatty Acids (more than you can get from flax oil alone, for example) in order to help you gain lean mass. I have no problem if you don't want red meat, or any "dead flesh" for that matter (with the exception of fish oil), but by cutting out dairy, and therefore whey, you are severely hindering yourself by eliminating the best protein available that does not come from a whole food source. Soy and beans have a lot of protein, but they are not "complete" protein sources by any stretch.
This does not mean you shouldn't do resistance training. Quite the contrary actually. As a female, you need to do this for many reasons, including bone density.
How are you getting your calcium? Does osteoporosis run in your family?
How are you getting your amino acids? EFA's?

Sorry if I'm on a soapbox here, or if I sound critical of your dietary choices, but you are looking to improve your body composition in a way that will be difficult without changing the MOST important component, which is nutrition.

I wish you the best in your endeavors!

I agree. Whilst most of us have a few extra pounds, others eat too little and work for up to 18 hours a day on coffee and biscuits.

A lot of runners purposely drop weight to get any speed advantage they can. You can be a distance runner and keep a respectable amount of muscle if you eat enough and lift

South asian people are genetically prone to heart disease. Full fat dairy products' high saturated fat content may not be good for someone genetically prone to heart disease (and someone who eats dairy products would not be called vegan). Vitamin B12 is the only essential nutrient that is absent from an unsupplemented vegan diet consisting of grocery store foods, although vegans need to take care to get sufficient amounts of some other nutrients.

For the original poster: do the hotels have weight equipment? Also, you might want to check out the "body weight exercises" section of these forums for exercises that you can do with just your body weight (minimal or no additional equipment). If you need more calories on a vegan diet, nuts and nut butters, dried fruit, and avocadoes are calorie dense.

Another thing you can do if you really want to do stair exercises: ask for a room on a high floor and walk up the stairs. Then you don't have to make time to use the stair machine in the gym.