Hi all,
I’ve been lurking on this wonderful board for a few months now. You all really seem to know your stuff. Now that I am stumped I was hoping you could offer me some insight.
I am so frustrated with my health & fitness goals. I am a 30-year old female – 5’2”, 125 lbs. I am dedicated to healthy eating and fitness, but I have noticed that I am gaining about one pound a year. I definitely want to stop this and would honestly love to lose 5-7 pounds to get back to where I was before law school. I generally refuse to weigh myself, but the nutritionist I met with urged me to do so. So I weigh in about once every week or two. Sometimes I go down a pound or two and other times I go back up. I am sure it is water weight, but it is frustrating and underscores my reasons for not wanting to weigh myself.
For years I worked out 4-5 times/week doing at least 20-30 minutes of cardio and 20-30 minutes of weight lifting, usually circuit training. Last November I decided to intensify my workouts and began following the splits on Krista’s website. Then I transitioned into the BFL program for the weight lifting portion.
I currently work out 7-9 times a week (with one day of rest). I usually do 30-50 minutes of moderate to intense cardio (running or sometimes elliptical) Mondays-Friday, a long run on Sundays (60 minutes – around 6.5 miles), and then at lunchtime I do 50-60 minutes of weightlifting M/W/F (alternating upper & lower – 3 sets of each exercise, 6-8 reps) and a second, shorter (20-30 minutes) cardio session Tuesdays/Thursdays. As for weights, I track my workouts, and at each session I try to either do one more rep or lift more weight for each exercise. This has been great and is especially evident as I near my goal of being able to do 8 pull-ups by the end of the year (I could only do one in January and could do 5.5 a week ago).
As for eating, I am a pretty healthful eater. I track my intake using fitday, and I currently shoot for around 1900 calories/day (more on weekends – but not enough to thwart my weight loss goals).
For the past two months I’ve increased my protein intake to balance with carbs (ala BFL), but having not seen any real improvements I am reverting back to my normal diet, which includes lots of whole grains/veggies and fewer animal products/somewhat less protein and fewer processed food.
Despite all of the above, I feel like I am unable to lose the few pounds I wish to. What’s worse is that in my last two workouts I have actually decreased my strength. Part of this might be because I injured my shoulder a week and a half ago [I was trying to get the 25 lb. dumbbells into position to do chest press on the ball]. Meanwhile, I will say that my running times just keep getting faster, which I am very happy about.
I know I am not fat or overweight, but frankly, my clothes are tighter than they used to be and I am not content with that. I don’t feel like I can exercise more than I am now, and when I try to reduce my calories further I wake up hungry or become ill.
Any advice to offer? I did meet with a nutritionist who determine my RMR as 1440 cal., and suggested the 1900-2100 cal/day target for gradual weight loss. I know that if someone presented this question to me I would guess that they were not accurately counting calories, but I am pretty sure that I am. Without making myself sound to fanatical I do try to measure food and count everything.
I am just so frustrated. Do you have any advice to offer? Thanks!