I can only imagine that with this post, I'm going to be making a wonderful impression. Argh. I need to get this out of my system though, and to be honest, I'm reaching out for help.
As I said in my introduction, I have been seriously working at losing weight since the summer of last year. I would maybe lose one or two pounds but there would be MONTHS where I wouldn't lose, but gain. I don't think during those months I was really working on my eating as much as I was exercise. I would be at the gym 3-5 days per week most of time for an hour and a half each time. A lot of my workouts (by direction of personal trainer) was spent doing weight lifting (which I never fully accepted, but since "trainer knows best") I did it anyway. I never was able to lose much weight while I followed that program. In February of this year, my hip started to hurt. Bad. I went to an orthopedic doctor, and he told me I had a hip flexor and would take months of staying off of it for it to get better. I started to cry. I told the doctor I am trying desperately to lose weight and to give up exercise for several months would be so hard for me. He told me to get in the water, so in March I started taking water aerobics twice a week for an hour each time and I'm still doing that. I recently just started going back to the gym too, but I've only been there twice, doing 30 minute cardio sessions. My eating has defintiely improved, but I'm FAR from perfect.
SO why NOW am I losing weight? I've significantly reduced the amount of time I spend doing exercise. I eat fairly healthier but I still eat the wrong foods sometimes (pizza, mcdonalds-but always a happy meal if I have to do it, a piece of cake if there is a birthday)...why all of the sudden is this weight finally coming off?! I was over 300 pounds in March. Today, the scale read 282.5. I know I should be thrilled, but because I have ANXIETY, I start to wonder if there is something wrong with my health that is now making it easy for me to lose weight. I get into this mode of thought that I think I could be sick, and that is why I'm losing weight. It scares me because THE LAST thing I want to do is eat in a panic to gain this weight back to feel "healthy". IS this crazy? I probably should talk to my doctor and see a therapist if these are the thoughts going on in my head right now. But I can't wait that long. I'm reaching out to you girls out there to see if ANYONE can relate to this and shed some light.
I'm really not insane, honestly, but I do have my problems. Can anyone understand me?
Weight loss is all about calories in vs. calories out, I'm sure you've heard that multiple times. That's why you need diet and exercise in order to lose weight properly. If you were exercising your heart out, but still eating the wrong foods and taking in more calories than you were expelling, it would cause you to gain weight no matter what.
Now that you've tweaked your diet and are eating better, even if it's not perfect, you must obviously be eating less calories than you're burning.
If it is a serious concern for you, give your doctor a call and explain the situation and see what he has to say.
I agree with Melissa. In fact, I think losing weight has MORE to do with calories consumed than exercise. Yes, exercise speeds up metabolism, burns fat and calories, and tones muscle so you're not all floppy skin. However, without decreasing calories I just don't feel significant weight can be lost. I'm not saying everyone has to drop down to 1200/day. I'm just saying, in my opinion only, that dropping calories HAS to happen for significant weight loss.
I'm not one to worry about sickness all that quickly so I wouldn't personally be jumping to the doctor...but if it makes you feel better then you probably should make the appointment.
By the way, I've heard water workouts are FABULOUS!
I wholeheartedly agree with the others. Exercise is great but if you aren't watching your food, then you can stay the same weight or even gain. Exercise tends to make you hungrier so if you just concentrate on exercise, your body will tend to try to get you to compensate with excess food. I've had the same thing happen to me in the past as well where I was exercising but didn't lose until I also controlled my food better.
Thank you guys for the quick responses. I think I was going to make myself crazy but worrying about this. I try to limit my eating to 1800 calories a day for now. The trainer/nutritionist I saw last year told me that I wouldnt lose weight unless I ate 2200 calories a day for my weight. Maybe that also steered me in the wrong direction. Thanks for helping me take a step back and look at this more clearly.
"They" say that weightloss is 80% and 20% exercise. So it makes perfect sense as to why you didn't lose weight while only exercising. That alone will not give you the results you are after. 1800 calories is a good place to start. If you see that you are not losing any longer at that range, which will more then likely happen eventually, that's probably a good sign to start taking it lower.
I think 2200 is an extremely high amount of calories. Especially given that you probably weren't the most athletic person to start out. If you were a top form athlete, performing at weights 3-5 hours a day, yeah up the cals, but for most of us attempting to lose weight, and start a better program of excersize, we tend to start slow and build up. Maybe a program where the trainer also has some knowledge of how obesity works and the ins and outs of nutrition as opposed to a one size fits all type. Check out the weight ligters forum, there are some awesome women and men who are portraits in going from obese to awesome.
Am I crazy or has anyone ever felt this way?
