Would love some advice

loislenski

I've been on here for a few months now and have loved most every minute of it. I can't imagine every quitting.
I started out with what MFP gave me... 1250 calories per day. That is how I lost the thirteen pounds represented on my ticker. I then went up to 1430 calories for several reasons... I felt like I was becoming a food crank, I tended to be hungry a lot, and I was concerned about my BMR being more than 1250 calories. Since then I have lost no weight. At a point I did go back down to 1250 calories but still lost no weight so I went back up to 1430.
I have been messing around with calculating BMR and TDEE and I tend to get different numbers depending on what website I calculate it on. That makes me hesitant to try and mess with my calorie goals again. I'm 5 foot 3 inches and 133 pounds. I wanted to get down to 120.
I'm not going to open up my diary... sorry. However, food items that are daily in my diet are greek yogurt, and fruits and vegetables. The rest of what I eat depends on the day but in my opinion I eat a pretty healthful diet. I normally sneak in something that isn't the healthiest into my day but it will fit into my calorie goal.
For exercise I don't do anything super intense. I walk a lot, sometime do a little jogging intermittently with the walking, stationary bike occasionally Zumba, and T-Tapp. The amount of time depends on the day... thirty minutes to an hour probably. I can do more intense things... I have done the P90X plyometrics and the Enviga bootcamp calorie burn workouts before. However, I don't really feel like I have the structure in life to plan on doing something like that regularly. I do eat back most of my exercise calories. I don't have a heart rate monitor by the way... I really can't afford one.
I'm not exactly sure what question I am asking... I guess what I am wondering is.... should I be eating more? If not, what should I be doing to drop these last ten or so pounds?
Thank you!

loislenski

I forgot to mention but I am only nineteen... I live at home with my family, who has done a great job of encouraging me with this.

loislenski

bump

_Waffle_

I'm not exactly sure what question I am asking... I guess what I am wondering is.... should I be eating more? If not, what should I be doing to drop these last ten or so pounds?
Thank you!

You're going to need more patience with the last few pounds. You can do all of this through calorie restriction but I think at this point you need to start looking into body modifications. No, not tattoos and piercings. I'm talking about doing some strength exercises even if it's only body weight exercises. You're probably after a specific look more than an actual number on a scale. You might not fully realize this yet but trust me you are. Don't fixate on the scale so much at this point. It's just one measurement of your health and not the total sum.

Food. If you want to eat more there's nothing wrong with jumping up the intensity and amount of exercise to allow for this. If you burn an extra 300 - 500 calories working out you can eat that back. Sounds counter productive but the exercise will up your metabolism and most likely give you some additional improvement on body composition and general fitness.

Find a fitness goal. Pick something you want to do as a measurement of success. 10 normal push ups, running a 5k, doing a plank for 3:00. Be creative. Find something challenging and achievable and work for it. You'll think less of the scale and probably have more success.

theskyisbluewoohoo

1200 calories should be the bare minimum that ANY women eats. The substantial weight loss that you have adhered is probably muscle loss, because it seems like you don't lift weights or exercise intensely. Being 5`3 and 133 pounds, my guess is that you'd like to be trim and fit, not flabby. I would suggest that you raise up your calories to 1500- WHAT you eat is more important than the calories you consume. If you're eating veggies, fruits and Greek Yogurt, that's fine, maybe cut back on the fruit if you aren't exercising much. Fruit can cause weight gain for those who seem to be insulin resistant. Also, add more protein in your diet (meats, eggs, fish, etc... you know) so you won't be as hungry.

You need to EXERCISE because it will change your body and speed up metabolism (with increased muscle mass). So I would aim to exercise 2 hours a day (if you can)... For me I run at least 3 miles, and then hit the weights. I do circuit training in which I do each workout extremely intensely for 2 minutes. It's the best way to build muscle and explosiveness. I'm pretty gung ho about my workouts though, because I'm a wrestler which requires me to be in shape, (it's pre-season... i'm lazier though), BUT if I can do it, you can.

There are so many different ways to lose fat and it all depends on your needs. Do you not care about muscle loss? Or are you looking to be cut and muscular?

And LOL sorry if I sound like some cocky *kitten*... I'm obsessed with nutrition and fitness and I know a lot! I'm willing to help

loislenski

Thank you for all of the thoughts so far.
I have done a little light weight lifting in the past, but not within the last month or two. I didn't enjoy it enough to want to keep it up. To be honest, I would rather do something that I enjoy and therefore know I will be able to keep up with for the rest of my life... not just for a few weeks. I actually do have some noticeable muscle, even my brothers reluctantly acknowledged that. I think I got that from doing T-Tapp. I don't really care about getting a ton of muscle, just looking trim. I don't regularly go to the gym (YMCA) as I don't have a car... so I don't have that freedom, and I have a lot of responsibilities to keep up with that make it hard too. I do though when I can.
I always have gotten enough protein... mostly from the greek yogurt. I eat meat, just not all of the time... which isn't because I don't want to, it's just it doesn't always come up in the day. I have had problems with eating fish.... it has given me an upset stomach. I do eat eggs.
Any other thoughts? Thanks!

theskyisbluewoohoo

I mean, honestly looking at your picture and seeing your height and weight you're not OVERWEIGHT or anything- you look great and you don't need to lose weight, but if you want to be super trim then it's going to be hard. You can try going keto, which is the fastest way to lose body fat but also a lot of strength as well. I personally HATE going keto because I get these horrible headaches and life just sucks. But yeah, if you wanna go keto i would suggest you eat less than 50 grams of carbs a day to hit ketosis WITH exercise. I personally can get into ketosis in one day after wrestling practice, but it varies for other people.

Or, you can carb cycle. I've found that to be quite helpful, although it does take awhile in figuring out how your body reacts to carb cycling and what your grams of carbs should be. You can do it this way:

Sunday- Under 50 g of carbs
MOnday- Under 50 g of carbs
Tuesday- Under 50g of carbs
Wednesday- Cheat Day (Under 300 g of carbs)- Also the highest intensity exercise day
Thursday- 50-100 g of carbs
Friday- Under 50 g of carbs
Saturday- 50-100 g of carbs

This is a sample of carb cycling. This is a little extreme but you will lose weight FAST. I hope this helps...