Please help- I'm all over the place

MelStren

How accurate is your diary?

At your height and weight I'm guessing your bmi isn't too far off the healthy range - I know its only a rough guide , but it would indicate that you don't have much to lose, so you need to be smart.

What exercise are you doing currently? Its unlikely you'll be able to lose 10 pounds in 3 weeks, but a good exercise programme will show improvement in that time.

I'm going with the above poster. You are probably very close to your goal (ideal) weight and without some very detailed eating plan and exercise plan, you aren't going to see any more weight come off. I think you should look into some strength training. it will help you reshape your body and make your 148lbs look slimmer!

Be careful and DON'T throw yourself into exercise to the point that you are sore for days. It's harming you more than it's helping you. I would say do 3 days of strength training and 2 days of cardio training.. ie: your C25K program. A guide line is... strength train on Monday, you should be stiff and sore on Tue but JUST stiff on Wed. where stretching easies the stiffness. Then you should be able to do your strength training again on Wed.

You are at a point now where ANY changes are going to be slow and you have to be consistent and patient.

You can look at your diet and try cutting starchy carbs (breads, pasta, potato chips, cakes and cookies). Cutting those carbs and adding more Protein, veggies and fruit will help reduce tummy bloat as well.

jaz050465

I've been out for a few hours and come back to,some great replies. I REALLY appreciate all the time and effort you've put in. I'll be reading them properly later and looking at the links. Thanks sooooo much.

jaz050465

Another question - is body weight stuff like 'Body by You - you are your own gym'. Ok to do, instead of investing in lots of heavy weights.

WhyFlowersExist

Over the years I have tried everything. For the past year I've tried MFP calculations, scooby calculator, BMF and fitbit. All give me very different TDEEs but I don't seem to be able to lose weight. I am within my healthy weight range so have tried a deficit of 500 but then every so often I binge (only mini binge) and lose any deficit I had. I am constantly gaining and losing the same few pounds.

I then throw myself into exercise and am so stiff that I can't do anything for a few days. I want to do alternate days of C25K and strength training but lack of weight loss demotivated me to do this too.

I want it to work but have totally lost confidence in ever losing weight. I also don't know what to believe in terms of my TDEE and what deficit to have so I don't know how many calories to eat.

I am 47, 5 ft 7 and weight about 148 pounds. I have a small frame though and am about 36 % body fat.

I am really getting depressed by this. I am going on a beach holiday in three weeks and I really wanted to be about 10 pounds lighter when I booked it last year. I haven't really lost anything.

You can NOT out exercise a bad diet, it took me a LONG time to accept and realize this statement to be true. You can workout until you pass out and your BF% will still be high if your not eating right. A deficit is great IF your eating all the right foods, you really have to focus on maintaining a healthy diet and combining it with exercise losing fat is 80% diet 10% exercise.

Get your eating down right and then focus on exercise, i say this because its much easier to focus on one major lifestyle change at a time that way you wont feel overwhelmed and fall back of the wagon.

jaz050465

So- I've adjusted cals to 1550 plus exercise and macros to 35% protein and fat and 30% carbo. Going to keep sugar down as low as possible.

Going to do C25k alternated with you are your own gym and going to have two rest days as I don't want got over do it. Going to do this for a month ( unfortunately holiday in Italy in three weeks) and then adjust if necessary. Does this seam a good idea.

As an aside, as I'm a veggie, if I have milk or cheese, it will increase my sugar too. I,'ll try to snack on protein instead of so much fruit though.

FrustratedYoYoer

We are similar. I'm 31, 5'8, 146 lbs and run 3 x per week (started with C25K back in Dec) and strength train 2 x per week. Up until Feb I was prob only netting 1000 a day after exercise but I made more of a concious effort to get it up to 1200. Then I upped it to 1400, 1500, 1600 week by week. Then I settled there for a few weeks, and once I could see I was still losing I upped it by 50 cals a week til I got to 1700. I sat there for a while and 2 weeks ago upped my net to 1850 cals.

My weightloss has been slow and steady. Some weeks I gained, some I lose, some I stayed the same, but the overall trend is that I'm losing at a rate of 1-4 lbs each month. I've had 3 consecutive weeks of staying the same since I've upped to 1850 net but my body fat has dropped so I'm not too concerned. What are you netting at the moment? My advice is to experiment. Maybe start netting at 1500 or 1600 which you could do with your stats and activity level and still be losing. Stick at it for a few weeks and then add on 50 - 100 cals each/every few weeks until you reach a level you are comfy with.

It may take a while but at our height and weight we have little to lose so have to be patient. I am 3 lbs away from my goal and don't expect to hit it until August at the earliest but it's a marathon not a sprint and should be about lifestlye change. Just hang in there

jaz050465

We are similar. I'm 31, 5'8, 146 lbs and run 3 x per week (started with C25K back in Dec) and strength train 2 x per week. Up until Feb I was prob only netting 1000 a day after exercise but I made more of a concious effort to get it up to 1200. Then I upped it to 1400, 1500, 1600 week by week. Then I settled there for a few weeks, and once I could see I was still losing I upped it by 50 cals a week til I got to 1700. I sat there for a while and 2 weeks ago upped my net to 1850 cals.

My weightloss has been slow and steady. Some weeks I gained, some I lose, some I stayed the same, but the overall trend is that I'm losing at a rate of 1-4 lbs each month. I've had 3 consecutive weeks of staying the same since I've upped to 1850 net but my body fat has dropped so I'm not too concerned. What are you netting at the moment? My advice is to experiment. Maybe start netting at 1500 or 1600 which you could do with your stats and activity level and still be losing. Stick at it for a few weeks and then add on 50 - 100 cals each/every few weeks until you reach a level you are comfy with.

It may take a while but at our height and weight we have little to lose so have to be patient. I am 3 lbs away from my goal and don't expect to hit it until August at the earliest but it's a marathon not a sprint and should be about lifestlye change. Just hang in there

I change my net calories constantly. The trouble I feel is, my number will depend on what system I use to calculate my TDEE- MFP, BMF, Fitbit, Scooby calculator etc and I keep changing my mind on that. I need to choose one system and stick to that for a while. I think I will use MFP and my Fibbit, using MFP calculation for strength training. I will set my deficit at 500. Is this a good idea?

Angela707Wade

I know it might sound hard to do but you will probably just have to work out and push yourself through the muscle pain. I started with turbo fire and did 90 days of that and now I am on my 5th week of p90x. It is something that I had to push through the soreness but seeing the results. I was 204.8 to start and now am at 184.3 so down 20 lbs. Weight loss is a combination of exercise and eating right. making a meal plan will be key to your weight loss as well.
one great product that has helped me to cut out my bad foods was shakeology. Now i have gone over a month without having a pepsi and don't even crave it.
Also another question to ask is are you eating too many carbs?
Are you eating too little or too much calories.
Even if you are not seeing results stick to it you might be losing inches and not necessarily lbs so that is not a bad thing. but if you stop exercising all together even if you are not seeing the results that will hurt you more in the long run.

Like i said earlier your meals are key. you won't get the results you want if you keep eating the bad foods and not enough of the good foods.
weight loss is 30%exercise and 70% diet. you need to fuel your body right to get the results from the exercise you are doing.

Also I know for myself I hit my plateau so I changed my workout programs up and then started seeing weight loss again. Anywho hope I was helpful.

FrustratedYoYoer

We are similar. I'm 31, 5'8, 146 lbs and run 3 x per week (started with C25K back in Dec) and strength train 2 x per week. Up until Feb I was prob only netting 1000 a day after exercise but I made more of a concious effort to get it up to 1200. Then I upped it to 1400, 1500, 1600 week by week. Then I settled there for a few weeks, and once I could see I was still losing I upped it by 50 cals a week til I got to 1700. I sat there for a while and 2 weeks ago upped my net to 1850 cals.

My weightloss has been slow and steady. Some weeks I gained, some I lose, some I stayed the same, but the overall trend is that I'm losing at a rate of 1-4 lbs each month. I've had 3 consecutive weeks of staying the same since I've upped to 1850 net but my body fat has dropped so I'm not too concerned. What are you netting at the moment? My advice is to experiment. Maybe start netting at 1500 or 1600 which you could do with your stats and activity level and still be losing. Stick at it for a few weeks and then add on 50 - 100 cals each/every few weeks until you reach a level you are comfy with.

It may take a while but at our height and weight we have little to lose so have to be patient. I am 3 lbs away from my goal and don't expect to hit it until August at the earliest but it's a marathon not a sprint and should be about lifestlye change. Just hang in there

I change my net calories constantly. The trouble I feel is, my number will depend on what system I use to calculate my TDEE- MFP, BMF, Fitbit, Scooby calculator etc and I keep changing my mind on that. I need to choose one system and stick to that for a while. I think I will use MFP and my Fibbit, using MFP calculation for strength training. I will set my deficit at 500. Is this a good idea?

I should have added that I use my own custom settings on MFP, not the standard ones. And I don't work off TDEE calculations. I've worked through experimenting. Net X amount for anything from a week to a month. See how it affects my weight. If I lose, add on 50 or 100 to my net and repeat. If I had of gained on 2 consecutive weeks 1 lb or more I would have gone down by 50 cals and then repeated. That way you can see for yourself what your TDEE is. Simple as that, no fancy calculators needed. Bear in mind, you have little weight to lose you are bound to see fluctuations in weight and it make take a couple of weeks after upping your net for your body to adjust and settle before you start to lose again. Patience and consistency are the most important things. Hope that helps

EDIT: Also, I think a 500 deficit is too great. I personally could not cope with a 500 deficit now I'm down to this size, otherwise I'd be binging every 5 mins like I used to. This is the smallest of been size-wise and the most consistent I've been since I used the method I mentioned so I'd recommend it. For my macros I only focus on fats and proteins. For me this is a minimum of 100g of protein and a maximum of 146, and fats are a minimum of 47g and I limit myself to 100g a day, although I never get that high. It's usually around 70-80g on average with about 75% of that coming from good fats. As long as I hit those targets it doesn't matter about the carbs.

jaz050465

We are similar. I'm 31, 5'8, 146 lbs and run 3 x per week (started with C25K back in Dec) and strength train 2 x per week. Up until Feb I was prob only netting 1000 a day after exercise but I made more of a concious effort to get it up to 1200. Then I upped it to 1400, 1500, 1600 week by week. Then I settled there for a few weeks, and once I could see I was still losing I upped it by 50 cals a week til I got to 1700. I sat there for a while and 2 weeks ago upped my net to 1850 cals.

My weightloss has been slow and steady. Some weeks I gained, some I lose, some I stayed the same, but the overall trend is that I'm losing at a rate of 1-4 lbs each month. I've had 3 consecutive weeks of staying the same since I've upped to 1850 net but my body fat has dropped so I'm not too concerned. What are you netting at the moment? My advice is to experiment. Maybe start netting at 1500 or 1600 which you could do with your stats and activity level and still be losing. Stick at it for a few weeks and then add on 50 - 100 cals each/every few weeks until you reach a level you are comfy with.

It may take a while but at our height and weight we have little to lose so have to be patient. I am 3 lbs away from my goal and don't expect to hit it until August at the earliest but it's a marathon not a sprint and should be about lifestlye change. Just hang in there

I change my net calories constantly. The trouble I feel is, my number will depend on what system I use to calculate my TDEE- MFP, BMF, Fitbit, Scooby calculator etc and I keep changing my mind on that. I need to choose one system and stick to that for a while. I think I will use MFP and my Fibbit, using MFP calculation for strength training. I will set my deficit at 500. Is this a good idea?

I should have added that I use my own custom settings on MFP, not the standard ones. And I don't work off TDEE calculations. I've worked through experimenting. Net X amount for anything from a week to a month. See how it affects my weight. If I lose, add on 50 or 100 to my net and repeat. If I had of gained on 2 consecutive weeks 1 lb or more I would have gone down by 50 cals and then repeated. That way you can see for yourself what your TDEE is. Simple as that, no fancy calculators needed. Bear in mind, you have little weight to lose you are bound to see fluctuations in weight and it make take a couple of weeks after upping your net for your body to adjust and settle before you start to lose again. Patience and consistency are the most important things. Hope that helps

EDIT: Also, I think a 500 deficit is too great. I personally could not cope with a 500 deficit now I'm down to this size, otherwise I'd be binging every 5 mins like I used to. This is the smallest of been size-wise and the most consistent I've been since I used the method I mentioned so I'd recommend it. For my macros I only focus on fats and proteins. For me this is a minimum of 100g of protein and a maximum of 146, and fats are a minimum of 47g and I limit myself to 100g a day, although I never get that high. It's usually around 70-80g on average with about 75% of that coming from good fats. As long as I hit those targets it doesn't matter about the carbs.

But what if my activity levels vary from day to day depending on if I'm working, if I'm exercising or if its me or my partner who walks the dogs?

FrustratedYoYoer

We are similar. I'm 31, 5'8, 146 lbs and run 3 x per week (started with C25K back in Dec) and strength train 2 x per week. Up until Feb I was prob only netting 1000 a day after exercise but I made more of a concious effort to get it up to 1200. Then I upped it to 1400, 1500, 1600 week by week. Then I settled there for a few weeks, and once I could see I was still losing I upped it by 50 cals a week til I got to 1700. I sat there for a while and 2 weeks ago upped my net to 1850 cals.

My weightloss has been slow and steady. Some weeks I gained, some I lose, some I stayed the same, but the overall trend is that I'm losing at a rate of 1-4 lbs each month. I've had 3 consecutive weeks of staying the same since I've upped to 1850 net but my body fat has dropped so I'm not too concerned. What are you netting at the moment? My advice is to experiment. Maybe start netting at 1500 or 1600 which you could do with your stats and activity level and still be losing. Stick at it for a few weeks and then add on 50 - 100 cals each/every few weeks until you reach a level you are comfy with.

It may take a while but at our height and weight we have little to lose so have to be patient. I am 3 lbs away from my goal and don't expect to hit it until August at the earliest but it's a marathon not a sprint and should be about lifestlye change. Just hang in there

I change my net calories constantly. The trouble I feel is, my number will depend on what system I use to calculate my TDEE- MFP, BMF, Fitbit, Scooby calculator etc and I keep changing my mind on that. I need to choose one system and stick to that for a while. I think I will use MFP and my Fibbit, using MFP calculation for strength training. I will set my deficit at 500. Is this a good idea?

I should have added that I use my own custom settings on MFP, not the standard ones. And I don't work off TDEE calculations. I've worked through experimenting. Net X amount for anything from a week to a month. See how it affects my weight. If I lose, add on 50 or 100 to my net and repeat. If I had of gained on 2 consecutive weeks 1 lb or more I would have gone down by 50 cals and then repeated. That way you can see for yourself what your TDEE is. Simple as that, no fancy calculators needed. Bear in mind, you have little weight to lose you are bound to see fluctuations in weight and it make take a couple of weeks after upping your net for your body to adjust and settle before you start to lose again. Patience and consistency are the most important things. Hope that helps

EDIT: Also, I think a 500 deficit is too great. I personally could not cope with a 500 deficit now I'm down to this size, otherwise I'd be binging every 5 mins like I used to. This is the smallest of been size-wise and the most consistent I've been since I used the method I mentioned so I'd recommend it. For my macros I only focus on fats and proteins. For me this is a minimum of 100g of protein and a maximum of 146, and fats are a minimum of 47g and I limit myself to 100g a day, although I never get that high. It's usually around 70-80g on average with about 75% of that coming from good fats. As long as I hit those targets it doesn't matter about the carbs.

But what if my activity levels vary from day to day depending on if I'm working, if I'm exercising or if its me or my partner who walks the dogs?

My activity levels also vary. I workout Sat-Weds and have Thurs & Fridays off.
It goes something like run, weights, run, weights, run, rest, rest. Some periods I am highly active outside of my workouts, other periods I am sedentary aside from my workouts. The same principles would apply. If I had 2 consecutive weeks where I gained 1 lb or more I would cut my net the following week by 50 or 100 cals depending on how much I thought I needed to tweak.

Keep things simple and consistent. Have 1 day where you weigh and record your weight (my day is a Saturday). If u want to weigh in between that's fine but don't record it. And also have 1 day where you change things if you are going to. Again, the day I do this is a Saturday if I want to up my net of change macros or whatever. I'm well rested and less likely to be retaining water weight from sore muscles and will have eaten less the 2 days before the weigh in with them being my rest days where I eat 1850 cals rather than 2000-2600+ which I do on the other days. Then you can see the effect of your tinkering over the next 7 days.

jaz050465

I fluctuate a lot though so think I will have to give it longer than a week before I adjust things. Thanks for your help

MelStren

"But what if my activity levels vary from day to day depending on if I'm working, if I'm exercising or if its me or my partner who walks the dogs?"

If you are using MFP, you could set your activity level to your lowest day. Say, set it up for calories needed on a day you are least active. THEN when you do exercise or walk the dogs or work extra hours, you plug those into your "exercise" tab on MFP and it will tell you how many extra calories to eat on THAT day.

melaniecheeks

A week? I'd give any new settings at least 2 weeks before changing them. As for activity level varying day to day - of course it will. Take an average over a week.

jaz050465

Thanks so much for all your advice.