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Stuck in a rut
tlongarms
Posts: 9 Member
Hi Everybody,
I am a long time reader but a first time poster. I8 months ago I was 22.5 stone and would get out of breath climbing stairs. I now hover between 17-18 stone and in the past 12 months have completed many 5k, 10k runs, 2 sprint triathlons and multiple Obstacle Course Races (including Spartan Race, Dirty Dozen, Pain and Suffering and Tough Mudder). Now the issue for me is I still hold a good 3-4 stone of weight thats holding me back from bigger dreams but I don't seem to be loosing the weight. Carrying this extra weight means I struggle to acheive much under 35 minutes for a 5k and 1h15m for a 10k.
Following injury I have gone back up to 18st4lbs and have been trying to eat 1600 calories a day as MFP advises (18st4lbs, 33, 5'11 and office worker). But the problems are two fold:
1. The weight seems mostly static
2. I feel tired and lethargic and it impacts my excercise negatively.
Last week I clocked up 116km (mixture of bike, running and walking and 11.5 hours of excercise), including 2 bootcamps and 1 obstacle course. Thats across 5 days with two total rest days in the week. This is probobly a lighter week, I will often do more miles.
Can anyone offer any advice? Have I set my calories too low/high?
I am a long time reader but a first time poster. I8 months ago I was 22.5 stone and would get out of breath climbing stairs. I now hover between 17-18 stone and in the past 12 months have completed many 5k, 10k runs, 2 sprint triathlons and multiple Obstacle Course Races (including Spartan Race, Dirty Dozen, Pain and Suffering and Tough Mudder). Now the issue for me is I still hold a good 3-4 stone of weight thats holding me back from bigger dreams but I don't seem to be loosing the weight. Carrying this extra weight means I struggle to acheive much under 35 minutes for a 5k and 1h15m for a 10k.
Following injury I have gone back up to 18st4lbs and have been trying to eat 1600 calories a day as MFP advises (18st4lbs, 33, 5'11 and office worker). But the problems are two fold:
1. The weight seems mostly static
2. I feel tired and lethargic and it impacts my excercise negatively.
Last week I clocked up 116km (mixture of bike, running and walking and 11.5 hours of excercise), including 2 bootcamps and 1 obstacle course. Thats across 5 days with two total rest days in the week. This is probobly a lighter week, I will often do more miles.
Can anyone offer any advice? Have I set my calories too low/high?
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Replies
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Are you logging what you eat accurately, including using a food scale? How much of your exercise calories do you eat back, and how do you determine your burns?0
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We need stats to give you input. Height? Age?
Are you getting enough sleep?
You might feel better eating more fresh or frozen vegetables: lettuce, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, yellow squash, asparagus, green beans, peas.0 -
Sorry if I missed it, but how long have you been stuck at that weight for?0
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6-8 months. Maybe I go half a stone either way.0
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Do you have a goal weight in mind ?0
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Are you logging what you eat accurately, including using a food scale? How much of your exercise calories do you eat back, and how do you determine your burns?
Mostly 100% accurately. Most of the time I try to eat little of my exercise calories back. Always try to keep it below 50% if I do.
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Following this thread! Something very similar has been going on with me. I highly suspect the 0.5 loss setting in MFP is actually my maintain now, but when I go to set it to 1 lb or 1.5 lb loss, I feel weak, tired, and can't perform as well. I feel ravenous if I don't eat half or more of my exercise calories back. I had 2 months of no movement, bounced around the same 2-3 lbs. I've since cut back on exercise and re-focused on my diet when I hurt my hip and lost 1 lb in the last month. I also weigh my food. I still have like 35-40 lbs to lose....
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Following this thread! Something very similar has been going on with me. I highly suspect the 0.5 loss setting in MFP is actually my maintain now, but when I go to set it to 1 lb or 1.5 lb loss, I feel weak, tired, and can't perform as well. I feel ravenous if I don't eat half or more of my exercise calories back. I had 2 months of no movement, bounced around the same 2-3 lbs. I've since cut back on exercise and re-focused on my diet when I hurt my hip and lost 1 lb in the last month. I also weigh my food. I still have like 35-40 lbs to lose....
I feel your pain. Some days I burn around 1500-2000 calories through exercise and I rarely eat much of it back at all.
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How are you logging though?
Do you weigh everything on a digital scale - everything
do you log with care
How are you logging your exercise
I will warrant you are consuming more calories than you think because in 6 months you have maintained / increased
it's a logging issue - focus on that0 -
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Well, I've lost 111 lbs and I've done this over a span of 2 years. I've done it by trying to log accurately, weigh my food, and I wear an HRM to calculate a closer calorie burn than say what MFP tells me. I used to eat only half or less of it back. But when I started performing more intense exercise, I would feel super hungry, tired/weak, so I ate most of them back and settled on just knowing I would lose slower. That's partly why I cut back on the exercise (partially due to my hip pain), but so that I could just re-focus on my logging and diet. I did see the 1 lb loss, haha it's something. If I go too low, I feel so low energy/ weak. At one point, when I was like in the low to mid 200's, I could do 1200 cals, but I don't feel like I could do it now without feeling awful.0
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Yes, weigh and log everything (much to the mrs annoyance).
Also track fitness with Garmin/HRM and try not to replace the calories.0 -
Yes, weigh and log everything (much to the mrs annoyance).
Also track fitness with Garmin/HRM and try not to replace the calories.
either you've had errors creep in that you keep repeating .. easily done
or you have a medical issue
I would strongly suggest it's the former and that you should read the link I posted0 -
Yes, weigh and log everything (much to the mrs annoyance).
Also track fitness with Garmin/HRM and try not to replace the calories.
either you've had errors creep in that you keep repeating .. easily done
or you have a medical issue
I would strongly suggest it's the former and that you should read the link I posted
Will take a read later, I agree its unlikely to be a medical issue.
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oops wrong thread0
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I guess one thing I want to know is can I safely eat some exercise calories back or should I just leave them alone.0
This discussion has been closed.
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