Help with Weightloss

[Ashley_R]

Hello!
I am a 20-year-old female that has been learning and trying slowly to understand how to help my metabolism.
Right now my weight is 203lbs and my height is 5'10. I have been conflicted with my body image as I feel as though I have a mom bod, although I do know health overall is a better standard to focus on especially, considering I have been at a lower weight while on the extreme of a raw high-fat high meat diet, eating omad, pretty much the complete opposite.
I have really only read "How to heal your metabolism" by Kate Deering, and have yet to really dive into the deeper information and would really love to.
I would appreciate where to start as I know it is a lifetime journey of fixing and adjusting the best way possible to be healthy, and because of that the surface level information has not really given me the slap I need to truly trust the process, I've recently have had thoughts of going on fast just to lose weight due to being unhappy right now with how I look as, due to my extreme 180 and winging it I've gained about 40lbs ( it is not fully ray peat, to be honest, it is stress eating due to covid as well in the beginning).
I have set goals to be aware of which is my sleep quality, temperatures, and pulse and from a basic scale knowing those measure important factors, yet being so young I feel and understand part of me gets a bit naive with everything as in getting away with fasting and so on, and knowing that I want to work on counteracting those thoughts with facts.
I would love to hear, read or look into what you guys would recommend on where to start or functions to look into, to help me get the full picture.
The biggest reason why losing weight is on my mind is due to being highly family-minded, and knowing as a female youth is a great advantage to use, however, I do notice being at such a high weight lowers my attractiveness(not that, that is everything but is the first thing) and just, in general, I think many of us would love to look our best, it been really fun to try to figure things out, yet I feel lost and wanted to reach out for help.
I don't necessarily want to get into supplements at the moment, just simply due to the fact that I want consistency with my diet and lifestyle before I go spending money on something I don't completely understand, especially not knowing my blood test to be able to measure it outside of my feelings and so on.
I feel extremely open to you guys giving me complete transparency on your thoughts and opinions, as outside of here I do not many people to understand where I am coming from.
Thank you to whoever reads this.
I feel excited and ready to hear your thoughts.

 

[YamnayaMommy]

Hello!
I am a 20-year-old female that has been learning and trying slowly to understand how to help my metabolism.
Right now my weight is 203lbs and my height is 5'10. I have been conflicted with my body image as I feel as though I have a mom bod, although I do know health overall is a better standard to focus on especially, considering I have been at a lower weight while on the extreme of a raw high-fat high meat diet, eating omad, pretty much the complete opposite.
I have really only read "How to heal your metabolism" by Kate Deering, and have yet to really dive into the deeper information and would really love to.
I would appreciate where to start as I know it is a lifetime journey of fixing and adjusting the best way possible to be healthy, and because of that the surface level information has not really given me the slap I need to truly trust the process, I've recently have had thoughts of going on fast just to lose weight due to being unhappy right now with how I look as, due to my extreme 180 and winging it I've gained about 40lbs ( it is not fully ray peat, to be honest, it is stress eating due to covid as well in the beginning).
I have set goals to be aware of which is my sleep quality, temperatures, and pulse and from a basic scale knowing those measure important factors, yet being so young I feel and understand part of me gets a bit naive with everything as in getting away with fasting and so on, and knowing that I want to work on counteracting those thoughts with facts.
I would love to hear, read or look into what you guys would recommend on where to start or functions to look into, to help me get the full picture.
The biggest reason why losing weight is on my mind is due to being highly family-minded, and knowing as a female youth is a great advantage to use, however, I do notice being at such a high weight lowers my attractiveness(not that, that is everything but is the first thing) and just, in general, I think many of us would love to look our best, it been really fun to try to figure things out, yet I feel lost and wanted to reach out for help.
I don't necessarily want to get into supplements at the moment, just simply due to the fact that I want consistency with my diet and lifestyle before I go spending money on something I don't completely understand, especially not knowing my blood test to be able to measure it outside of my feelings and so on.
I feel extremely open to you guys giving me complete transparency on your thoughts and opinions, as outside of here I do not many people to understand where I am coming from.
Thank you to whoever reads this.
I feel excited and ready to hear your thoughts.

Hi, you should be very happy that you have, at such a young age, discovered Kate Deering and ray peat.

I am your height and was at your weight two years ago, after having my third baby. I have gotten back to my pre pregnancy weight (140lb, great body comp) eating a “peaty” diet BUT COUNTING CALORIES. I was eating at a deficit until I got to my goal weight, about six months ago, and then I’ve been eating at maintenance (about 2300 calories a day) since then. Maintenance is a wonderful wonderful place to be.

everyone is different, but this is what has worked for me and what I would recommend for a healthy woman wishing to lose fat and improve body comp.

Figure out what your maintenance calories are and eat at maintenance for a month or so while starting a strength training program. I can recommend a total body program with a glute focus if you’re interested. Aim for 140g of protein a day, 100 from low-fat dairy and lean beef, fish, eggs, etc, and 40g of gelatin. I have done well on high carb (250-300g a day) and low fat (40g a day).

when you know what your maintenance is, do a deficit. It will suck, you want to get into it and get it over with ASAP. You might do it in chunks. Like four weeks eating at a 20% deficit, then four weeks back at maintenance, and then four weeks back on a deficit, etc until you get to wear you want to be. Check out layne Norton and holly baxter’s material on diet breaks for research and argument for this approach as being superior for long term fat loss

I use their diet coaching app, carbon, for tracking my macros and maintenance and deficit calories. It’s wonderful and totally worth the ten dollars a month. You can also use a free calorie tracker like my fitness pal, but it won’t have the AI coach feature.

for me, tracking calories and macros and weighing daily is a must. But just watch weekly averages. Weight changes with sodium and cycle, so you need the trend

for fat loss, peaty supplements that have worked wonders for me are caffeine and aspirin. I take 200mg of caffeine and 240mg of aspirin with every meal except no
dinner.
I also take creatine, and have found that it has made me measurably stronger

for food, I would eat what tastes good to you but control your calories. That means weighing and measuring your food until you are good enough to do the portions without needing the food scale.

I LOVE my diet so much. It’s simple because I’m cooking for three little kids and the house is chaos. But in the morning I breakfast on a cup of OJ, then my special “cocoa”: I dissolve two tbs of gelatin in two cups of skim milk in a saucepan, then heat the mixture and add a tbs of cocoa, a tbs of sugar, a pinch of salt, and 5g of coconut oil—AND a little sucralose or non caloric sweetener (i like my cocoa really sweet but I don’t have unlimited sugar calories in my budget!). I will also have an oz of homemade beef liver pate on homemade sourdough bread, or a hard boiled egg. Breakfast is usually around 600 calories, 40g of protein, 100g carb, and rest from fat.


People here hate on IF, and I get it. But for a short term deficit phase, IF can be really helpful. I skipped dinner five days a week when I was in my deficit phases. It was fine, and now I eat three square meals a day plus a snack.

fruit is your friend. Gelatin is a friend. Low fat dairy is a friend.

I eat liver and oysters and all the other classic peaty foods. They’re all great.

i eat out like once a month and the only “junky” foods I eat are haribo gummies and Lindt chocolate. I drink on the weekends

good luck. If this approach is interesting and you want to know more, lemme know.

 

[AlexR]

The post above is great. In my opinion, the easiest way to lose weight is to simply walk a lot. I got in about 20-25 thousand steps a day and lost about 40-50 pounds during quarantine. It's great because you can avoid the metabolic slowdown effects of calorie restriction because you're moving a lot and burning calories, it takes time and keeps your mind off stress eating, and it also allows you to eat more because you burn off 1,000-1,500 calories. Walking isn't hard on your body and it also lets you get outside and get natural light which can also improve your health dramatically.

 

[YamnayaMommy]

That’s great that you were able to lose so much weight just through walking. Before I had kids, I maintained my lean body comp, without tracking calories or weighing daily, through tons of activity: gym, running, biking, This is a fun way to live, and I wish I could devote as much time as I used to to activity.

But, for many people, including parents with babies and young children, you cannot rely on activity and low-intensity exercise to maintain leanness. There just isn't time for long walks (in the winter anyway, when you can't bring your kids with you), and you won't have the energy. I do zero cardio now, but do about 20-30 minutes of strength training OR HIIT 5-6 days a week, in my basement, when my baby naps. I think that without this training, I could maintain my weight, but would decondition (gain more fat relative to lean mass).

The great thing about tracking calories/macros and your weight is that you learn what your energy requirements are to maintain, lose, and gain weight. You also learn the energy composition of different foods, and eventually you will get so good at it that you can go to a restaurant, look at your entree, and calculate what the calories from protein, fat, and carb are. I have noticed that Ray Peat seems very familiar with weighing and measuring food: he talks about liters, quarts, oz, grams, mg, etc. of different foods and chemicals.

Some people warn that tracking calories/macros/bodyweight leads to disordered eating, and I don't doubt it. But it has had the opposite effect for me: when I started tracking, I realized I was eating way BELOW my maintenance calories, and, once I began eating at maintenance, I felt AMAZING and slept a lot better. I was also shocked at how high my maintenance calories (2300) were. I am closer to 5'9.5" and have a slender frame, so the OP, at 5'10", may have maintenance calories at closer to 2400 or 2500--which gives a lot of flexibility.

I will also say that I have three younger sisters--all young mothers--who are of similar stature and have struggled with weight gain after pregnancies. They have tried various diets, intermittent fasting, and exercise, and have had lost some weight but are not where they want to be. I have told them about Ray Peat's theories about diet and metabolism, as well as tracking calories/macros/bodyweight, and it's just too fringy and extreme for them at this point.

 

[bogbody]

Echoing the above comment that while certain tweaks like lowering fat intake or walking more etc seem to work for many for fat loss, I am personally finding that I really need to track my food intake. So now I maintain a slight calorie deficit while sticking to Peat-friendly foods, and have settled on a macro ration of 50%C 30%P 20%F and it's working well for me so far. I don't plan on tracking forever but long enough to have enough data to regulate my food intake in a more intuitive way.

 

[Blossom]

I second walking and tracking as both were helpful for me. I lost 71 pounds over 4 years. I’m in my 50’s now so age probably made the process slower but I also wasn’t willing to jeopardize my health. I haven’t experienced any problems regaining the lost weight. I’ve added in other exercise like weight lifting, body weight exercises and sprints in the last year but I started out with basic walking and tracking my nutrition using cronometer.

 

[SQu]

Hi! You are fortunate to have come to the right place early. Lots of good advice here. I will add, you can do this while doing the right thing for your health, for life, which is a win. You have youth on your side, so you should find it easier than some of us, but choose mostly superfoods, which around here means milk (low fat if drunk in quantity) good orange juice, eggs, fruit, coconut oil and butter, cheese, gelatin; liver and seafood weekly. As your staples. In your calorie range. A really well nourished body in terms of protein, minerals especially calcium, magnesium and potassium, will drop weight easier. It may take some time. Don't worry if it does. Particulary important for the weight to come off is vitamin D preferably from sunlight, calcium, sleep quality, blood sugar not too up and down (eating or snacking every three hours helps here), thyroid function. Keep an eye out for stress symptoms, they can be subtle. Or so I have found. There's lots of info on all these things, on this forum. Best of luck!

I lost 71 pounds over 4 years. I’m in my 50’s now so age probably made the process slower but I also wasn’t willing to jeopardize my health.

Congrats Blossom! I had a similar amount to lose, am about halfway through. Effortlessly, (heatwaves help ?! )

 

[Ashley_R]

The post above is great. In my opinion, the easiest way to lose weight is to simply walk a lot. I got in about 20-25 thousand steps a day and lost about 40-50 pounds during quarantine. It's great because you can avoid the metabolic slowdown effects of calorie restriction because you're moving a lot and burning calories, it takes time and keeps your mind off stress eating, and it also allows you to eat more because you burn off 1,000-1,500 calories. Walking isn't hard on your body and it also lets you get outside and get natural light which can also improve your health dramatically.

Id love to do this, although I am in Illinois and our weather is below 0?

 

[Ashley_R]

Hi, you should be very happy that you have, at such a young age, discovered Kate Deering and ray peat.

I am your height and was at your weight two years ago, after having my third baby. I have gotten back to my pre pregnancy weight (140lb, great body comp) eating a “peaty” diet BUT COUNTING CALORIES. I was eating at a deficit until I got to my goal weight, about six months ago, and then I’ve been eating at maintenance (about 2300 calories a day) since then. Maintenance is a wonderful wonderful place to be.

everyone is different, but this is what has worked for me and what I would recommend for a healthy woman wishing to lose fat and improve body comp.

Figure out what your maintenance calories are and eat at maintenance for a month or so while starting a strength training program. I can recommend a total body program with a glute focus if you’re interested. Aim for 140g of protein a day, 100 from low-fat dairy and lean beef, fish, eggs, etc, and 40g of gelatin. I have done well on high carb (250-300g a day) and low fat (40g a day).

when you know what your maintenance is, do a deficit. It will suck, you want to get into it and get it over with ASAP. You might do it in chunks. Like four weeks eating at a 20% deficit, then four weeks back at maintenance, and then four weeks back on a deficit, etc until you get to wear you want to be. Check out layne Norton and holly baxter’s material on diet breaks for research and argument for this approach as being superior for long term fat loss

I use their diet coaching app, carbon, for tracking my macros and maintenance and deficit calories. It’s wonderful and totally worth the ten dollars a month. You can also use a free calorie tracker like my fitness pal, but it won’t have the AI coach feature.

for me, tracking calories and macros and weighing daily is a must. But just watch weekly averages. Weight changes with sodium and cycle, so you need the trend

for fat loss, peaty supplements that have worked wonders for me are caffeine and aspirin. I take 200mg of caffeine and 240mg of aspirin with every meal except no
dinner.
I also take creatine, and have found that it has made me measurably stronger

for food, I would eat what tastes good to you but control your calories. That means weighing and measuring your food until you are good enough to do the portions without needing the food scale.

I LOVE my diet so much. It’s simple because I’m cooking for three little kids and the house is chaos. But in the morning I breakfast on a cup of OJ, then my special “cocoa”: I dissolve two tbs of gelatin in two cups of skim milk in a saucepan, then heat the mixture and add a tbs of cocoa, a tbs of sugar, a pinch of salt, and 5g of coconut oil—AND a little sucralose or non caloric sweetener (i like my cocoa really sweet but I don’t have unlimited sugar calories in my budget!). I will also have an oz of homemade beef liver pate on homemade sourdough bread, or a hard boiled egg. Breakfast is usually around 600 calories, 40g of protein, 100g carb, and rest from fat.


People here hate on IF, and I get it. But for a short term deficit phase, IF can be really helpful. I skipped dinner five days a week when I was in my deficit phases. It was fine, and now I eat three square meals a day plus a snack.

fruit is your friend. Gelatin is a friend. Low fat dairy is a friend.

I eat liver and oysters and all the other classic peaty foods. They’re all great.

i eat out like once a month and the only “junky” foods I eat are haribo gummies and Lindt chocolate. I drink on the weekends

good luck. If this approach is interesting and you want to know more, lemme know.

Thank you dearly for this in depth post, it truly means a lot I believe I will follow your protocol. The matter is having a set plan and following through, I agree with the IF statement as long as my Temps do not go out of wack.
I do really feel grateful to find Ray peat not only from nutrition side but a whole new world, it truly means alot for you to share thus I cannot thank you enough.

 

[YamnayaMommy]

Thank you dearly for this in depth post, it truly means a lot I believe I will follow your protocol. The matter is having a set plan and following through, I agree with the IF statement as long as my Temps do not go out of wack.
I do really feel grateful to find Ray peat not only from nutrition side but a whole new world, it truly means alot for you to share thus I cannot thank you enough.

Good luck! If you’re not in a rush, the prudent way to lose it would probably be to alternate a month of deficit (through IF or counting calories) with months of maintenance. I always prefer fast fat loss because it feels so good psychologically, and my baseline health has always been good enough to get away with it.

I am also in Illinois, in Chicago. No one here is getting their steps in this February! Honestly, though, you do not need to do cardio or waking to lose weight. Strength training would probably be really beneficial if you can figure out how to do it.

my favorite calorie-and-budget-and-time friendly meal these days is made possible by aldi. They have inexpensive bags of frozen fruit. Mangos, tropical fruit, etc. I will thaw one overnight. Then I mix
thawed fruit, a cup of nonfat Greek yogurt, with a cup of skim milk and two tbs of gelatin that I have already bloomed and cooked, and a little sucralose sweetener. 510 calories; macros are 46g of protein, 79c, and zero fat. It’s so yummy and extremely filling. Sometimes, to complete the meal, I’ll add 15g of dark chocolate for a little fat.


If you can lock in good eating habits now, you will reap rewards later, when you have and zero time for self care and exercise lol

 

[YamnayaMommy]

Thank you dearly for this in depth post, it truly means a lot I believe I will follow your protocol. The matter is having a set plan and following through, I agree with the IF statement as long as my Temps do not go out of wack.
I do really feel grateful to find Ray peat not only from nutrition side but a whole new world, it truly means alot for you to share thus I cannot thank you enough.

I will share another current favorite recipe that is peaty and diet friendly.

i call them “dubious scones”

i get a big mixing bowl, put it on my food scale, and throw in the following dry ingredients:


100g of masa harina
100g brown rice flour
100g of coconut flour
50g of gelatin
Sometimes, 50g of a fat free milk protein powder (I have a whey casein blend)
Baking powder
Baking soda
Salt

the kinds of flours that I use vary according to what I have on hand

mix!

grate two zucchini into bowl and stir

add wet ingredients: eggs and skim milk, until mixture is wet enough to pack into snowballs

bake in oven until they’ve browned on top

I often use egg whites that I have leftover from using yolks to make homemade Mayo for tuna and oyster salad

you can eat them with some coconut oil and honey on top. Hits the spot if you want a baked good fix.

 

[Broken man]

I would be good to do test for TSH, free T4 and reverse T3 (I am not sure for the other except TSH so search for it here), prolactin (this is huge espicially if you are girl, It seems that girls are more prone to fat gain when they have higher prolactin), estrogen. Most likely, you will have hormonal problems like myself. I am also young (24 years old) and being fat is the worst thing you can be for this age.

 

[Ashley_R]

The post above is great. In my opinion, the easiest way to lose weight is to simply walk a lot. I got in about 20-25 thousand steps a day and lost about 40-50 pounds during quarantine. It's great because you can avoid the metabolic slowdown effects of calorie restriction because you're moving a lot and burning calories, it takes time and keeps your mind off stress eating, and it also allows you to eat more because you burn off 1,000-1,500 calories. Walking isn't hard on your body and it also lets you get outside and get natural light which can also improve your health dramatically.

Good luck! If you’re not in a rush, the prudent way to lose it would probably be to alternate a month of deficit (through IF or counting calories) with months of maintenance. I always prefer fast fat loss because it feels so good psychologically, and my baseline health has always been good enough to get away with it.

I am also in Illinois, in Chicago. No one here is getting their steps in this February! Honestly, though, you do not need to do cardio or waking to lose weight. Strength training would probably be really beneficial if you can figure out how to do it.

my favorite calorie-and-budget-and-time friendly meal these days is made possible by aldi. They have inexpensive bags of frozen fruit. Mangos, tropical fruit, etc. I will thaw one overnight. Then I mix
thawed fruit, a cup of nonfat Greek yogurt, with a cup of skim milk and two tbs of gelatin that I have already bloomed and cooked, and a little sucralose sweetener. 510 calories; macros are 46g of protein, 79c, and zero fat. It’s so yummy and extremely filling. Sometimes, to complete the meal, I’ll add 15g of dark chocolate for a little fat.


If you can lock in good eating habits now, you will reap rewards later, when you have and zero time for self care and exercise lol

Oh wow, what a coincidence! Yeah my plan is now to figure out my maintenance, do that for a month and see how a deficit goes and play by ear( I am in not "rush", but of course the sooner the better), and that sounds delicious so you use sucralose to sweeten due to lack of calories to spare on sugar? Sounds so weird for the use of sweeteners, after so long on not being on keto/using them you haven't had any ill effects?

 

[Ashley_R]

I would be good to do test for TSH, free T4 and reverse T3 (I am not sure for the other except TSH so search for it here), prolactin (this is huge espicially if you are girl, It seems that girls are more prone to fat gain when they have higher prolactin), estrogen. Most likely, you will have hormonal problems like myself. I am also young (24 years old) and being fat is the worst thing you can be for this age.

Yeah, I think before I get any supplements it definitely is a goal of mine to get tested, I'm bound to think it was originally but things have gotten better as my highest I went up to during this time was 230 now around 203, so I will see. Although it is a relief to hear honesty about it, as in this "body positivity" era to want to look your best, people do not understand it is horrendous to be fat at first glance and am hyper-aware of those issues. Thank you for sharing it means a lot if I I get to it ill probably keep updates on here.

 

[YamnayaMommy]

Oh wow, what a coincidence! Yeah my plan is now to figure out my maintenance, do that for a month and see how a deficit goes and play by ear( I am in not "rush", but of course the sooner the better), and that sounds delicious so you use sucralose to sweeten due to lack of calories to spare on sugar? Sounds so weird for the use of sweeteners, after so long on not being on keto/using them you haven't had any ill effects?

I am currently agnostic about non nutritive sweeteners. I haven’t heard compelling evidence that they are bad in the context of a good diet.

I eat a LOT of nutritive sugars, in the form of fruit, cane sugar, and honey. Around 300g of carbs a day, mostly from sugar rather than statxh But I like my food REALLY sweet, and if i used only nutritive sweeteners, I’d be eating around 400g of carbs a day, and would have to eat less protein or even less fat to stay within my calorie budget.

the powdered artificial sweeteners—the ones in packets—give me gas. I think it’s the inulin in them. But the liquid ones do not bother me at all.

I would be interested in knowing ray peat’s thoughts on this approach.

 

[YamnayaMommy]

Yeah, I think before I get any supplements it definitely is a goal of mine to get tested, I'm bound to think it was originally but things have gotten better as my highest I went up to during this time was 230 now around 203, so I will see. Although it is a relief to hear honesty about it, as in this "body positivity" era to want to look your best, people do not understand it is horrendous to be fat at first glance and am hyper-aware of those issues. Thank you for sharing it means a lot if I I get to it ill probably keep updates on here.

Yeah, I’m sympathetic. I gained a ton of weight during my pregnancies and felt just awful. It was awful carrying the extra weight and it was awful looking so dumpy. I think the body positive movement is toxic.
Let us know how it goes! I bet it will be a breeze given your youth.

 

[PowertothePeatple]

I think of all the fake sugars Sweet and Low(saccharine) is the least toxic. It was thought to cause bladder cancer but it turned out that did not happen with humans only in lab rats because they can’t process sodium the way humans can. I am pretty sure Ray Peat talks about this in one of his interviews.

 

[Starship]

Cut down calories until you start losing weight. 10% calorie deficit would be great.

 

[Broken man]

Yeah, I think before I get any supplements it definitely is a goal of mine to get tested, I'm bound to think it was originally but things have gotten better as my highest I went up to during this time was 230 now around 203, so I will see. Although it is a relief to hear honesty about it, as in this "body positivity" era to want to look your best, people do not understand it is horrendous to be fat at first glance and am hyper-aware of those issues. Thank you for sharing it means a lot if I I get to it ill probably keep updates on here.

Even with labs, the only thing that can help you lose weight is T3, progesterone can make you gain weight. Caloric deficit is next way but you will feel like a sh*t during this period and will need to use it longterm maybe lowering metabolism even more. I mean I tried lowering calories and the weight went down but my man boobs are worse and so is fat on hips, its dusgusting.

 

[YamnayaMommy]

Even with labs, the only thing that can help you lose weight is T3, progesterone can make you gain weight. Caloric deficit is next way but you will feel like a sh*t during this period and will need to use it longterm maybe lowering metabolism even more. I mean I tried lowering calories and the weight went down but my man boobs are worse and so is fat on hips, its dusgusting.

I lost weight (fat) and maintain a relatively lean physique (about ~20%body fat) while supplementing progesterone and aspirin.

Physique trainers and exercise scientists recommend a phased approach to fat loss precisely to avoid metabolic down regulation that happens when you do chronic deficits. There are different ways to phase it. You could do 5 days of an aggressive deficit (say 30%), and then two days at maintenance. Or you could do 3-4 weeks at a modest deficit (20%), and then 3-4 weeks at maintenance. There have been controlled studies showing that dieters who did "diet breaks" maintained a better metabolic rate than those that just did sustained deficits. Sugar and caffeine (LOTS) will help keep the metabolism high!

Building muscle is commonly said to improve body composition. And that has been my experience. I think guys have it easier, in this regard, because they can train their whole body, while most women probably don't want to build a massive body. The only region that that most women are happy to grow is the glutes, but glutes are hard to isolate and progressively overload without expensive equipment. Weighted reverse lunges work are my current fave. I'd love a home hip thruster but that is not going to happen anytime soon. In my experience, bodyweight pushups and pull-ups have give my arms and back definition and a nice shape but have not made them big.

And HIIT! Jumping lunges and jumping squats will make you feel fantastic.