Quote:
Originally Posted by paperclippy
Megan, here is something I'm wondering since our stories are so similar. At what point in your weight loss/maintenance did you really ramp up the exercise? When did you start lifting? I mean, I know that at least 8 lbs were absolutely gained because of my thyroid, but the rest is questionable. OTOH I did gain it while training for a triathlon and starting to lift weights.
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Jessica, I've been thinking about your question, I just haven't had time to sit down and type a reply. I really need to go back and check my old journals to see when I ramped up my lifting, but this is sort of how I see the progression:
I went onto "maintenance" March 1, 2005. My weight/red line was 135-140 lbs, but to be honest I was almost always at the top of this around 138-140. At the time I was single, living alone, so no roommates bringing other food in the house I had to deal with, I always cooked for myself, and almost never drank alcohol. I'm not naturally a bar-hopper, I guess, left to my own devices. I also didn't belong to a gym. I power walked and ran a whole lot. I did some crunches and exercises with light handweights on my own.
Later that summer I moved to share a house with someone (so other people's food was around), and met my (current) BF. This meant more occasions to drink alcohol, and BF & I went to eat out more at the start of our relationship. Despite this I managed to balance things enough - I might eat out for dinner, but would eat healthily the rest of the day, etc. and maintained my weight for the first 2 years of maintenance. Joined the gym somewhere in there and didn't look back - I've always hated running and didn't like working out in the Florida summer heat anyway. I still did mostly cardio, though I slowly added in some pylometric (sp?) training and used some of the machines, but didn't really know what I was doing in terms of weight training.
My weight crept up a little bit here. I truly believe it was due to eating too much and not balancing out my eating habits. My sis got married Dec. 30, 2007, and I remember being at my desired weight the summer before. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas (with all the holiday parties those entail) I was really panicking, trying to stay where I could fit in my dress. I remember my weight was somewhere between 143-48. I was still doing mostly cardio, some step classes (the instructor would have us do more strength training and abs), and sort of misguided weight machines on my own, but then would go to the next holiday meal or party - sort of maintained around 145 but couldn't get back down.
From that point on it's been up, up, up. I did NRLW right when it came out and really enjoyed the program. I remember it leaned me out, but I was still eating a little too much and I thought to myself "If I could get my eating together this program could really help me drop these extra few pounds." After I finished NRLW I started adding more split days of strength training - learned quite a bit more about lifting heavy, read a lot of oxygen magazines, etc. I've definitely put on a bit more muscle and 135-140 might no longer be a sustainable goal weight for me, but I'd sorta like to get back there and see! I'm 5'5" and medium build, and I was a size 4-6 at this weight before.
But I truly don't believe I've gained weight just from lifting. If anything, it's helped me keep my weight down. Over the past two years I've had worse and worse episodes of overeating. It hasn't been confined to a single event, but will go on for days or even weeks. I went through a period in fall 2008 where my boss was leaving and I was so sad, I went to every social get-together we had for him and drank beer and ate whatever food there was, and didn't balance it out with my other meals, in fact ate worse at home. I also had problems with allergies and allergy meds all last summer and fall, was very tired, and didn't work out as faithfully or eat as well as I should have.
In between these overeating spurts I might get "back OP" for a week or two or three, perhaps lose a few pounds, and then fall off and do even more damage. At the very least I'll undo a week or two's worth of "losing" with one really big party that involves food and alcohol, and I'm back to square one. The result has been a steady climb over the last two years.
Like you, I want to try and get back to a lower weight because I've maintained there before. I need to do a better job of figuring out where a sustainable weight is. It might not be 135-140 again, but I know it's not where I am now.
I also though about whether my strength training was hurting my weight loss. The answer I came up with is no, because being a cardio queen was frankly getting really boring. Doing different types of strength training and cardio keeps me much more engaged in my workouts, so I'm much more motivated to go to the gym. And strength training definitely gets my HR up!
Are you bored yet? Sorry if this was rambly or irrelevant to your question. I hope it helps.
