Low pulse and losing weight

eth0_

Hello, I joined a gym start of January, and I go on average, 3-4 times a week, for 1-1.5 hours a time, I also swim at least once a week for 30 mins. During my workout I do 20 mins jogging, 15 mins rowing and 20 mins cycling, then I do two sets of 20 reps on leg press, lat pull down, arm curl, chest press, shoulder press, tricep press, and 90 crunches.

The thing is, I haven't lost any weight, in fact i've gone up from 78kg to 83 (5'9" female)! I guess I can attribute this to muscle development, but how can I get rid of the excess fat i'm carrying? I think a big problem could be the fact that I cannot raise my pulse much higher than 130 and I know that's way below my optimum. I try not to breathe like a lunatic, i'm not being lazy or anything, i'm pretty fit, but the pulse thing seems very odd to me. Can anyone shed any light on this?

Thanks!

logic1

Originally posted by eth0_
Hello, I joined a gym start of January, and I go on average, 3-4 times a week, for 1-1.5 hours a time, I also swim at least once a week for 30 mins. During my workout I do 20 mins jogging, 15 mins rowing and 20 mins cycling, then I do two sets of 20 reps on leg press, lat pull down, arm curl, chest press, shoulder press, tricep press, and 90 crunches.

Hi Eth0 looks like you could be overtraining here. Ideally cardio should be done at the end of a weights session and you should never combine 55 minutes of cardio with weigths in one day that's just way too much.

The most I'd do when combining cardio with weights would be 20 to 25 minutes.

Maybe think about stripping down your weights sessions to 2 times a week and do 20 mins of cardio after your weights days and your normal amount of cardio on the other days.

The thing is, I haven't lost any weight, in fact i've gone up from 78kg to 83 (5'9" female)! I guess I can attribute this to muscle development, but how can I get rid of the excess fat i'm carrying?

Yeah you may be putting on lean body mass faster than you're dropping fat. Do you notice your clothes getting looser even though you're heavier?

Also what's your diet like? If you're combining a very low calorie diet with that amount of training your body would almost certainly go into starvation mode and start hoarding food instead of burning it off as energy resulting in a net overall weight gain even though you're alot more active.

Ideally you want to lose 2 lbs or less a week. With the amount of cardio you do your diet shouldn't have to be restictive and you should still drop weight pretty fast. Try counting your calories for one week and see how much you're eating, come back and tell us and we'll see if that's a factor.

I think a big problem could be the fact that I cannot raise my pulse much higher than 130 and I know that's way below my optimum. I try not to breathe like a lunatic, i'm not being lazy or anything, i'm pretty fit, but the pulse thing seems very odd to me. Can anyone shed any light on this?

When you say you can't raise it above this if you sprint or cycle or row flat out for 30 seconds what does your pulse rise to? Does it stay at 130 or there abouts? If so that's fine. Everyones body is different and your maximum pulse may be 130, it'd be out of the normal averages but not unheard of at all. If your max is 130 then for optimum weight loss train at 70 to 80% of this (around 91 to 104)

.logic.