I've been battling with my weight for a long time, tried a million plans, finally came to one conclusion - never going to win this battle sitting on my backside. In light of this common-sense epiphany (sp?), I decided to start moving and do what I need to do. Here's the problem:
Several months ago I started walking regularly and actually GAINED weight so I quit. I felt ok, but not great, and the walk generally bothered my back (I'm 301 pounds currently).
For the last two weeks I've been using a Gazelle for cardio/legs, and dumbells for upper body work. I've not been eating wonderfully, however, I'm eating far better than I used to. I'm taking in less calories and track every last thing with fitday and my own spread-sheet. I feel fantastic and see progress both in my own strength and in stamina. It's almost become addicting.. sometimes I'm out and will feel a muscle draw tight and I have this urge in the pit of my belly to run home and use my weights that very minute (crazy huh?!?). Anyway, to get to the problem - I'm still not losing any weight!!! What's up with that?? If I'm cutting calories, exercising & building muscle, shouldn't I have lost even a little bit by now? Can you give me any insight into what I'm doing wrong here? I don't want to quit, I feel better than I have in years.. but I need to see some scale progress. Any thoughts, please... ?
Have you measured yourself? Sometimes the scale won't show something that inches will. You might also want to set a caloric goal and stick with that. Like 1600 and see how your body reacts. Some days go to 1700, some days 1500, but I wouldn't vary too much from your caloric goal.
Also, you might want to try eating small meals multiple times a day. I always eat 5-6 minimeals/day. It helps maintain your blood sugar level and helps you alleviate hunger.
Lastly, are you exercising the same muscles with weights every day? Your body needs to recover when you use weights. For example, one day do biceps and chest, next day do triceps and back, next day do shoulders and then rotate between those.
Yes, for some perverse biological reason, muscle weighs more than fat, so if you're focussing on strength training, in theory you could GAIN weight while still slimming down. But you don't want to stop gaining muscle mass, because it also burns more calories (even when your body is at rest) than fat does. To burn the fat, maybe try increasing your cardio. I read somewhere that you need to do at least 20 minutes in order to get to a fat burning stage, but that may not be correct. In terms of diet, maybe try cutting down on sodium/salty foods, because if your body has too much sodium in it, you will retain water, which makes you weigh more. I hope this helps...you seem to really be on the right track so far, so good luck!
"I don't want to quit, I feel better than I have in years"
Then don't quit!!!
If you feel so much better with more clean food and more excercise, then please continue to indulge yourself in this favour!!! There are zillions of reasons that your scale will not budge all of a sudden: water, muscle, whatever.
Try to make other indicators to measure your progress...
-minutes of excercise each day
-clothes fit
-stamina when walking around the block, carriing shopping or doing stairs
-numbers of episodes feeling proud & happy of yourself per day
whatever.
The scale is just a number. if you need a number to change in order to stay motivated to do something that you feel much better doing, then really try to get some more and different "scales" to measure your progress, because weight scales can be very very stubborn and not show progress, while you have already shown great progress...you actually got of your back and did something, and when it caused a back problem you found an alternative. That is great already. just keep on doing this.
Yes, for some perverse biological reason, muscle weighs more than fat
Sorry Calamity, but you just hit my hot button. Muscle does not weigh more than fat. A pound is a pound is a pound. Muscle is denser than fat, so a pound of fat looks smaller than a pound of fat. There's a photo posted lots of places (see any of Ilene's posts) that shows that.
Elektralite, lots of good advice here. All I can add is that it may take longer than 2 weeks for all your good efforts to show on your body. I know it does for me. I tend to go along for 2-3 weeks with no weight change, and then show a loss of 3-4 lbs, rather than showing a 1-2 lb loss regularly. But as Rabbit says, Don't Quit! It's obviously making you feel good, and results will come.
Also, in 2 weeks, you haven't gained enough muscle to offset the losses you should have seen on the scale. What exactly are you eating? I'd look there first. I see on some of your higher calorie days you have 200-344 grams(!!!) of carbs, but only 50-70 grams of protein. Carbs hold water like crazy. I forget the actual number, but on those high carb days you are holding water like crazy- probably up to 5-8 pounds at your weight. It takes several days for your body to let go of that extra water, then if you throw another super high carb day at it, you start all over again.
I'd look at really cleaning up your eating. Try to stay with lean protein, unprocessed whole grains, lots of fruit and vegetables and some low fat dairy. Stick with the exercise. Do as Nelie suggested and eat more frequent, smaller meals.
I have to disagree with some people on here... with your weight and activity level, I think you may be eating too little. Also, if you wish to stay at such a low calorie count, do so but every third day eat about 2000 calories. This does help to rev up your metabolism and prevents you from slipping into stavation mode. Another little weight loss tip I can give you is just move! It sounds silly, but figiting at your desk, marching on the spot while watching T.V and making several trips to take one load of laundry upstairs all add up to make a huge difference! Good luck with you weight loss!
Confused & need insight, please..
