Need help... Slightly confused

scoot on

Hi All,

I know you are probably sick to death of getting asked about routines but i've read a lot of the threads here and the advice is really good.

Basically about 3-4 weeks ago i started making a real effort to get healthy and lose some weight. I've never really been overweight as i'm an extremely sport person but for the last 12 months or so I haven't really been watching what I was eating as I knew i'd burn off most of the calories anyway training. Everything was going grand for the first 3 weeks and I was fairly pleased with myself. I cut out all rubbish (take aways being the main culprit) but now I don't eat any take aways, chocolate etc. I've been going to the gym 4-5 times a week and training/playing a match any night I haven't been at the gym. I weight myself every morning and up to this week I was steadily losing weight. I started at 10st 0lbs 6oz. On sunday morning I was down to 9st 7lbs 8oz. On Monday I was up to 9st 9lbs 4oz which in fairness was probably due to a big Sunday dinner! However since then I haven't lost anything near what I had been losing previous weeks. I've upped my routine at the gym. Up to Monday I was doing 15mins on the cross trainer, 20 mins on the bike and 5 mins walking on the threadmill followed by 15 mins running. Now i'm doing 20mins on the cross trainer, 20 mins on the bike and 5 mins walking on the threadmill following by 17-18 mins jogging! I haven't changed my eating habits and i'm doing more exercise. I don't understand why i'm not losing weight as I had been!

My diet basically consists of:
Breakfast: 50g organic porridge made with water (not milk) and an apple
Lunch: Bowl of soup and salad (salad is usually lettuce, tomators, cucumber, onion, grated carrot and boiled egg). I've cut out all mayonaisse products.
Afternoon: Most days i'll have an apple
Evening: 60g brown rice with either a grilled tuna steak or grilled chicken or a veg stir fry with brown rice, mushrooms, peppers, asparagus, brocolli and cauliflower.

I don't eat after half 6 either. Btw i'm 5ft6 and female
I was just wondering if anyone has any advice? I know this isn't exactly nice but i think i'm suffering from constipation aswell this week. Could this have something to do with it? I'm totally confused as I had been doing really well up to now!
Sry for the long rant!

merritt

Well, not sure if this is true in your situation, but it may be that your muscles are firming up and muscle is heavier than fat. So it might be that the initial dramatic loss of fat is now being counterbalanced by a gain in muscle.

Weirdly, you may not be eating enough. You're doing a lot of cardio there. You do need to have enough fuel to keep the body working well. I read in Mens Health that if you deprive the body of sufficient calories, the effect can be counterproductive. The body thinks that there's a 'famine' and greedily stores as much as it can.

Another theory is that your body may already have become accustomed to your routine. Shake it up every few weeks to keep the body guessing! Otherwise it becomes used to the movements you're making it perform and it gets a bit complacent!

The constipation may be a result of not enough water. Bear in mind that if you have reduced the amount you eat, you'll have less waste too.

All of this may be way of the mark, but there might be something to think about.

scoot on

Thanks merritt...

I was thinking along the same lines myself about my body getting used to the routine! It's just i'm not sure exactly what to do to vary it up. What other options are there in the gym? Or should I just change levels and things like that to mix it up?

It's just bugging me at the mo cuz i'd been really putting in the effort and getting the results, it's slightly deflating when you're still putting in the effort and not getting the results. Especially around easter time! I'm a chocoholic at heart ;-)

justsomebloke

well from teh look of it your are probably training to much and not giving your body time to rest if you are doing 7 days a week exercise be it the gym or matches and also you aren't getting enough food into you at the moment so your body thinks you are now starving it probably and it isn't going to want to give up any fat reserves. So start eating more especially more carbs if you are doing so much cardio work

Reyman

Definitely you're not eating enough.

That breakfast wouldn't keep a sparrow going - maybe 180 kcals.

As others have said you may be in 'shut down' mode through lack of food

scoot on

Really???
I didn't realise that! To be honest I thought I was eating enough even though i'm doing a lot of exercise i'm never really hungry. And trust me, i love my food, if I was hungry I would eat!
Anybody have any advice on where I should go from here? Surely eating more will lead to me putting on the weight that I have lost over the last few weeks?

justsomebloke

read the sticky on weight loss/gain. There is a lot to read but it will give you a good insight into what the body needs and will help you calculate your calorie requirments there is also some diet suggestions.
Basically you should be looking to have 5-6 meals. Initally you may gain some weight as your body is no longer use to the amount of calories but this should level off quickly and with the right diet and cardio you will then start to lose the weight again, plus you will probably have more energy so it might help performance.
You may also want to look into shaking up your routine abit aswell just to aid the weight loss a bit.

Patto

scoot on, I'm no expert. Read the stickys and any or all of G'em posts for the really good diet info. A few obvious things that stick out:

1. You have almost completely cut fat out of your diet, you diet should consist of at least 20% of good fats. Start taking 5-15g of Flax oil of Udo Choice each day. This could be another factor realting to your constipation.

2. You are not giving you body enough fuel to train 6 or 7 times a week. Its amazing you are able to recover in time to traing 2 days in a row (I bet you are under 25?). You need to increase both your carb intake and your protein intake. If you are playing field sports and doing lost of cardio you need a greater portion of carbs carbs in your diet, if you are doing more weights you need a greater portion of protein. One way to achieve this is by introducing a mid morning snack for example a chicken (at least 100g of chicken) sambo on wholemeal bread.

3. Start doing weights and consider protein shakes. Again see the skickys.

scoot on

Yeah, i'm under 25. I'm 22.
I'll ready the stickys and see what I come up with. Thanks for the help everyone!

Seraphina

also, give yourself a chance! you've only been at it properly 4 weeks like you said! dropping weight will take much longer because you're not overweight :P i know as i have been struggling myself to loose the last niggly bit of fat for a few months, i'm about your height and 21 myself.
i have definitely noticed much more of an improvement from weight training too, and dont bother with the pissy little ones!
good luck

scoot on

Thanks Seraphina... just out of interest what kind of weights to you normally do? What did you find made a difference?

Seraphina

well i just started off easy enough, using some of the machines in the gym. recently with some advice on form and exercises from people here, i started with free weights.
squats are good if you have the balance! took me a good bit of practice to even get that right, but i've definitely noticed a difference in my legs! i also do deadlifts and lunges, but be warned, first time i did some proper deadlifts, i couldn't get my leg over my bike to cycle home from the gym!

if you're only starting out with weights, ask for advice in the gym, i'm no expert so i dont want to say too much, most people around here know alot more than me!
g'em is our resident female expert here, pay plenty of attention to her posts!

g'em

er... um.. well maybe not quite an expert but sure I'll throw my 2c in for the craic!!

scoot on, first off a big well done for making the decision to get your diet and exercise up to scratch- regardless of weight issues, eating well and working out on a regular basis will do so much for your general well-being, self confidence and energy levels that you'll wonder how you ever lived without it!!

Right, Oprah moment over, lets get to business. For your height and age your starting weight was by no means grossly high. As much as I don't like it as a scale, your BMI was firmly in the normal range. Generally speaking for people who do a lot of resistance training with weights their BMI is pretty innacurate: muscle = much heavier than fat so according to the bmi you can be lean and muscular but overweight- it won't make any discrepancy between fat and muscle.

But I'm guessing what you do want is to shape up a little. You said you used to play a lot of sports until a year ago, so it should be fairly easy to get you back into shape again. Bear in mind you cannot turn fat into muscle and vice versa- when you stopped playing, after a number of weeks your muscles would have started to atrophy, or waste away, and if you were still eating hte same number of calories that was sustaining you on a high activity diet, you would have increased your fat stores. So now what you need to do is try and decrease the fat and increase the muscle again, ideally with a combination of weights and cardio.

You will have to eat a little more too. Like the others have said check the stickies for relevant info about how much you should be eating, how to work it out and where to get you sources from. Try and work from a 3 meal and 2-3 snack meal plan. You're body is like a furnace that needs fuel to keep it going- small amounts of regular fuel are much more efficent than large amounts sporadically.

scoot on wrote:

My diet basically consists of:
Breakfast: 50g organic porridge made with water (not milk) and an apple
Lunch: Bowl of soup and salad (salad is usually lettuce, tomators, cucumber, onion, grated carrot and boiled egg). I've cut out all mayonaisse products.
Afternoon: Most days i'll have an apple
Evening: 60g brown rice with either a grilled tuna steak or grilled chicken or a veg stir fry with brown rice, mushrooms, peppers, asparagus, brocolli and cauliflower.

Don't be afraid to have milk with your porridge (oh and yay for having it in the fist place, breakfast of kings!!). Skimmed milk has virtually no fat but you'll get lots of protein. or have some natural yoghurt with it. Don't be afraid to have a relatively big breakfast- its your first meal of the day, its what gets your body going and kick starts the metabolism. Some fruit and yoghurt for a snack mid-morning, or maybe some wholemeal crackers and peanut butter (or any other nut butter you can get in health food shops, most of them are made purely from the nuts with aboslutely no extra ingredients- magic food imo!!). Again at lunch don't be scared to have carbs, especially if you're going to be doing a cardio workout later in the day. Trying to do that much cardio on a carb-starved body will mean you don't burn your calories efficiently- your body will turn to its stores of energy in the muscle instead of the fat, and thats never good. Dinner looks great.

As also pointed out, do remember to have a supply of good fats in your diet. The tuna will hve these, as will nuts and flax oil. So a small handful of nuts a day, or sunflower seeds in your porridge on salad, flax oil as dressing etc are all great ways of getting it. You'll see a huge difference in the quality of your hair and nails within a few weeks too- strong and shiny all the way!!

Don't try to kill yourself on the cardio either. Remember that rest is JUST as important (if not more so) than the exercise. Rest is when your body recuperates, rebuilds muscles broken down, and restocks its energy supply. So if you are exercising every day (personally I'd advocate at least one full rest day a week) then make sure at least tow of those are just nice gentle session. And like Seraphina said, I'd seriously consider getting a good weights program to carry out twice or three times a week (weights three times, cardio 3-5 times) and thats when you'll start to see huge differences. Your body will feel firmer, your posture improves, you carry yourself better, increases your overall strength and gives you a fantastic confidence boost. But to make it count you have to push your body- girly 1kg weights will not cut it, ever. I've written oodles of stuff about girls and weights on the board so do a quick search. But the one thing I always have to reiterate... it.. will. not...bulk.. you...up. A general program which works all your major muscle groups (preferentially with free weights) is fine to start with, you should be able to get a good gym instructor to give you a hand with it. But one thing- if the weight you're lifting is lighter than your shopping bag.. pick up a heavier weight

But one thing to really consider if you keep taking this seriously and put the hard work in- lose the scales, honeslty. The scales are fine as a rough estimate of the shape you're in, but certainly if you start doing weights (and to a much lesser extent cardio- to build a muscle it needs resistance) you will lose fat but you will also develop your muscles. If you must check the scales do it once every two weeks, always first thing in the morning, after a trip to the loo. And alsways consider where you are in your menstrual cycle, that can add or lose 6-7lbs from water retention alone.

Good luck!!

oops, turned out to be a lot more than anticipated, sorry... I talk waaaay too much....

scoot on

G'em thanks a million for all that advice. Trust me, I have taken it all on board! I am definitely going to organise for someone at the gym to talk me through a weights program. As you said in your post, i'm not overweight, I think I really need to firm up rather than lose weight. My biggest problem so far is that i'm not sure how exactly to go about this!!!

Thanks again for all the help!