Newbie needing help - muscle soreness, sleep, etc

thestoryofangelina

Hi there! I am sorry this may be long but don't want to leave any details out. I am needing help with muscle soreness, sleep, what to do with your daily calories when you sleep in, etc...

I am 37, started at 370 lbs and the big goal is to lose 200 lbs. For a girl, I do have a lot of strength (farm kid) but also, a lot of fat obviously. I recently went from couch potato, no activity except one PT session a week and alcohol intake 15+ alcohol drinks a week, 4-5 times eating out a week, averaging 5-6 hours of sleep per day to starting a HITT program (3x 30 min per week), trying to hit 5000 steps a day, 1 time eating out per week, 2-3 alcohol drinks per week and 7-8 hours of sleep per night.

In 5 weeks I am down 13 lbs and while my brain is saying that isn't good enough I know it is great progress (of course we expect to lose it overnight right?)

My questions...
1. Muscle soreness question - As I have started ramping up trying to get more cardio and walking in during the past 2 weeks, my calves are killing me! I have done foam rolling and stretching, putting on icy gel and I've gone for a massage but can't do that everyday... They are fine until at night when I got to bed and then they ache something fierce and I cannot sleep. There is some relief from all of what I am doing but they are still keeping me awake. I aslo want to caveat that I do have good shoes with my orthotics. Any pointers?

2. Sleep - so with this new routine by the time Friday and Saturday come I am beat. I am sleeping for like 12 hours and missing breakfast. Should I try and force awake after 8? What do I do with those missed breakfast calories? Try and eat them still? Or eat them?

4. Speaking of calories... I have MFP set up for the 1.5lb weight loss (not adding back in exercise calories and set at sedentary lifestyle) but because of my current weight that is a LOT of calories. Do I need to eat them all? I find I am some days 200-300 calories short. (usually eating 1800-1900 with suggested 2120)

5. Rest days - I know I have put my body through a shock; so how many of these should I be aiming for? Right now I have the 3 times a week HITT (did that for 3 weeks, then started to increase walking on alternate days to 2 times per week) so are the 2 rest days enough? With being so tired I wonder if I am running myself ragged but also don't want to be lax with such a big goal.

6. Pre-workout - So before my workout I have a protein shake (almond milk, protein powder, tbsp peanut butter) but I find I need a little extra oomph. My trainer said to get some carbs - any tips of good carbs before a workout (I typically go to the gym between 5-6pm)

Thanks in advance for any insight. This has been a very trying 5 weeks but I have better energy when I am not dead tired and am feeling a lot better!

FunkmasterRex

Hi Angelina, welcome to the discussion boards.

It seems to me that HIIT is way too much when you weigh over 300lbs. It is too much intensity and you don't need that right now. If your goal weight is say 180 and you weigh 350 now, then every time you take a step it is as if a 180lb person is walking with a 170lb backpack everywhere she goes. On top of that if you are doing HIIT, it is as if a 180lb person is doing a high intensity workout with a 170lb backpack on her back. This is a recipe for you to fail and get hurt.

A better approach may be to just walk around the farm. Start with whatever distance you can handle briskly but comfortably for 15-20 minutes, and ramp that up as you get stronger. See what you can do to bring your muscles to failure by just walking after a full day of work. To get the aerobic benefit, select a comfortable pace and don't stop until you feel you've reached the end of your energy for the day or 20 min whichever comes first. You don't want to overdo it on any day because you want to do this 4-6 times a week depending on your capacity. Be consistent and get your body acclimated to regular exercise.

If you want to raise intensity, walk a little faster or find a small hill that you can walk over as you develop strength. As you lose weight and get stronger, it is as if the 180lb goal person is carrying a lighter backpack by the amount of weight you have lost, and if done consistently you will be stronger. That is when you need to ratchet intensity up a little bit to keep getting the same results - not now when you don't have the fundamentals to do high intensity. The goal at this stage is to lighten the load and get stronger. I'd be concerned about your heart's ability to handle the high intensity shocks as cardio is important at your weight. Be patient and get there slowly at your pace. During the process, listen to your body and adjust to your physical capability, always guarding and keeping at the forefront the state of your wellness and health. We do exercise to benefit and strengthen our bodies, not to punish it for its perceived shortcomings.

Best of luck! I'll be cheering for you from the sidelines.

AnnPT77

Let me start by saying that I understand that you have quite a lot of weight you want to lose, and that (from a health risk standpoint) you can probably afford to lose a bit faster than someone with less to lose.

Even so, I'd encourage you to think about how to make your path relatively easy, rather than ultra-fast. (I'm not going to try to be specific about numbers, just suggesting a cognitive orientation to you, to individualize with your own metrics.) Losing any meaningful total amount of weight is going to take quite a bit of time for anyone: Weeks, months, maybe even a small number of years. IMO, that puts a priority on finding sustainability, manageable strategies and tactics. You may be a very special person - certainly are, in many ways - but most of us would find it difficult to sustain motivation and willpower for an extended time period, alongside a normal busy and challenging daily life.

OK, enough preaching about generalities. On to a few point by point comments.

thestoryofangelina wrote: »

Hi there! I am sorry this may be long but don't want to leave any details out. I am needing help with muscle soreness, sleep, what to do with your daily calories when you sleep in, etc...

I am 37, started at 370 lbs and the big goal is to lose 200 lbs. For a girl, I do have a lot of strength (farm kid) but also, a lot of fat obviously. I recently went from couch potato, no activity except one PT session a week and alcohol intake 15+ alcohol drinks a week, 4-5 times eating out a week, averaging 5-6 hours of sleep per day to starting a HITT program (3x 30 min per week), trying to hit 5000 steps a day, 1 time eating out per week, 2-3 alcohol drinks per week and 7-8 hours of sleep per night.

In 5 weeks I am down 13 lbs and while my brain is saying that isn't good enough I know it is great progress (of course we expect to lose it overnight right?)

Losing more than 2 pounds a week, on average, is very fast loss. One common (not universal) scenario is to lose a little faster on the scale in the first week or two, just from changes in eating patterns (i.e., partly water weight and lower average digestive contents). Still, that's pretty fast, and not surprising giving the very significant changes in your habits.

Yes, it's good progress, very good. Don't be influenced by stupid things that happen on reality TV, headlines on tabloids in the grocery checkout line, or that sort of thing. You're doing exceedingly well.

My questions...
1. Muscle soreness question - As I have started ramping up trying to get more cardio and walking in during the past 2 weeks, my calves are killing me! I have done foam rolling and stretching, putting on icy gel and I've gone for a massage but can't do that everyday... They are fine until at night when I got to bed and then they ache something fierce and I cannot sleep. There is some relief from all of what I am doing but they are still keeping me awake. I aslo want to caveat that I do have good shoes with my orthotics. Any pointers?

Honestly, if you can't get to comfortable sleep via stretching, self-massage, OTC creams . . . I'd suggest backing off the exercise routine a bit, and going for a more gradual ramp up of exercise. You'll get where you want to be in a surprisingly short time still, I think . . . without the misery along the way.

Misery is optional. Misery can be counter-productive.

2. Sleep - so with this new routine by the time Friday and Saturday come I am beat. I am sleeping for like 12 hours and missing breakfast. Should I try and force awake after 8? What do I do with those missed breakfast calories? Try and eat them still? Or eat them?

Exhaustion is also counter-productive. When we're fatigued, we not only sleep more (as you're discovering), but also tend to reduce daily life movement in various ways, some of them subtle. That reduces our calorie expenditure, and can foster less-active habits that carry over into our long term habits.

Here again, I'm going to encourage you to consider a slower ramp-up in activity level, even if that means you lose a little bit slower. Your fitness will increase with exercise and daily life activity that's just a manageable bit of a challenge, and you'll gradually be able to do more without the exhaustion effect.

If you're exhausted to the point of needing that much sleep, it seems like that's a symptom of fairly high physical stress. I would not increase that stress by cutting even more calories out of the day. Whether you eat breakfast, have more snacks, eat more at dinner, eat some more calorie-dense foods instead of "diet foods", I'd suggest you try to get close to your calorie goal most days, one way or another.

4. Speaking of calories... I have MFP set up for the 1.5lb weight loss (not adding back in exercise calories and set at sedentary lifestyle) but because of my current weight that is a LOT of calories. Do I need to eat them all? I find I am some days 200-300 calories short. (usually eating 1800-1900 with suggested 2120)

You're set at 1.5 pounds and sedentary. You're currently losing faster than 1.5 pounds a week. You're set at sedentary, but not eating back any calories to fuel your significantly increased exercise. Stress. That is stress.

Eat your sedentary calorie goal. Eat at least a fair fraction of your exercise calories, too. I suspect that you were eating more than 2120 calories before starting down this particular weight loss path. Why is it hard to eat 2120 (plus exercise) now? Have you ruled out large groups of calorie dense foods? Maybe don't do that.

Calories and nutrition are important. Getting too few calories, too little nutrition (totals, not percentages) is increasing the stress on your body.

If you're strongly wanting to stick to so-called "healthy" foods, eat some calorie dense but also nutrition dense foods, to reach reasonable total calories. Examples: Full-fat dairy foods, if you eat dairy. Fatty cold water fish (for Omega-3 fats). Avocados, if you like them. Nuts, nut butters, seeds. Starchy vegetables. Sweet fruits. Grains. It's also fine to include some less nutrient-dense treat foods, in moderation, if you can moderate them.

5. Rest days - I know I have put my body through a shock; so how many of these should I be aiming for? Right now I have the 3 times a week HITT (did that for 3 weeks, then started to increase walking on alternate days to 2 times per week) so are the 2 rest days enough? With being so tired I wonder if I am running myself ragged but also don't want to be lax with such a big goal.

It's hard for me to say. The rest days part of it doesn't sound terrible to me, honestly. I'd encourage you to consider limiting the HIIT, and instead doing some more moderate-pace cardio and standard rep/set strength training, maybe some flexibility/mobility work - something less intense or taxing, during your exercise time, at first.

Intense exercise has its place in fitness, but (speaking from my coaching education), usually the best route to fitness starts with a base of moderate pace cardiovascular fitness and strength as a foundation, then adds intensity as one's endurance and cardiovascular fitness evolve - weeks to even months into a progressive program.

People use the term HIIT to cover a lot of exercise types these days, so I'm not sure what you're doing specifically, but even as an experienced (20+ years, 6 days most weeks) exerciser, I wouldn't do anything I'd call real HIIT 3 days a week, every week. Even elite athletes don't do all high intensity workouts all the time. Why would us regular people do that?

6. Pre-workout - So before my workout I have a protein shake (almond milk, protein powder, tbsp peanut butter) but I find I need a little extra oomph. My trainer said to get some carbs - any tips of good carbs before a workout (I typically go to the gym between 5-6pm)

Thanks in advance for any insight. This has been a very trying 5 weeks but I have better energy when I am not dead tired and am feeling a lot better!

Any carbs can be good carbs, when you need carbs, even something like honey or maple syrup. Other options would be things like banana, other sweet fruit you like, oatmeal, cooked sweet potatoes, applesauce, dried fruit.

You're working really hard, and that's admirable. I'd just encourage you to think about whether this routine is going to be sustainable for you going forward (for how long?). If you're losing even 2.5 pounds a week (which would be too fast part way through, of course), you'd be looking at keeping up a weight loss lifestyle for 80+ weeks, which is 20+ months.

I'm not trying to be discouraging, truly. Try to think of me as a concerned internet granny (I'm old enough!) who'd really like to see you succeed, long term. Long term success is about finding sustainable habits that can happen alongside a balanced, happy, productive life in other respects - enough time and energy for family, job, social connections, home chores, etc.

Wishing you complete success, sincerely!

FunkmasterRex

One of the things that I do in order to avoid cramping at rest and recovery is to drink loads of water. Your body needs it so I make sure it is always available for whatever internal functions your body needs at any time. I have a pitcher with a water filter so that I always have filtered water available for me to drink. Get two pitchers with filters if necessary, but I keep water filtering all the time.

As water passes through you, vitamins and minerals are being flushed out of your body. In order to replenish these, particularly potassium, I keep bananas or berries around to replenish these nutrients. I do not eat vitamin supplements or gels or protein powder or pre-workout. They may be fine but who knows what they put in it that is not on the label. I prefer to get nutrition from food if it is available, but having worked on a farm, you probably know food production is not perfect either. It is a choice I make, but may not be practical for everyone.

kshama2001

Count me as another voice discouraging the HIIT. I injured my knees in 2009 and they are still not back to normal, despite considerable physical therapy and weighing much less than you do.

I totally understand the impulse to drop the weight as fast as possible, but that can end up being counterproductive if you hurt yourself.

thestoryofangelina

Hi all! Thanks for your comments and advice. Gonna reply to a couple things and clarify too...

- I started the 6 week HITT program to give me some discipline and the rest on my own walking and weight training. I also wanted to mention that it isn't a hardcore HITT per say; the trainer is one on one and tailors it to your body and fitness style. They're super watchful about my heart rate, recovery and often moves are modified for someone at my low level. Maybe I should have used LITT or MITT (low/medium ITT)

- That being said - the timing and jumping from nothing to 3x a week was pretty intense and I am looking forward to dialing it back a bit but am thankful for the jump start and discipline it gave me. I also need to dig deep and do some of that work on my own too (will be moving to twice a week training)

- Thank you for the tips on walking. Often I pressure myself to be going faster but it solidifies that a good walk at a steady pace is OK!

- I suspect that you were eating more than 2120 calories before starting down this particular weight loss path. Why is it hard to eat 2120 (plus exercise) now? Answer: a lot of it was eating out and alcohol (wine)

FunkmasterRex

Thanks for the update. I suggest that when you walk, find the pace where you are comfortable while just at the cusp of being uncomfortable. That is the pace where you want to live in while breathing deeply and intentionally with good posture. Here you are concentrating on moving you body weight from point A to Point B efficiently and as easily as you can muster. This is a 100% body weight strength and endurance exercise using the largest muscle group in your body - your legs. Shed a little weight and gain a little strength every day.

At your current weight, it is not an easy exercise and you have to be very aware of whether you are straining your heart, joints, bones, etc. You only get one body in your entire lifetime and it is up to you to take care of it the best way you can. You don't get another body. I try to take care of my body the way Yo-Yo Ma takes care of his instrument - as if it were a Stradivarius. In fact your health depends on your body-instrument so why not treat it as an immensely expensive Stradivarius? [As a side note, Ma plays a cello built by Domenico Montagnana although he borrowed the Pawle Stradivarius while his Montagnana was undergoing repair].

Best to you and think of losing weight and gaining health as recrafting your body to be the best it can be to serve you in the best way that it can. If you find it difficult, I find it inspirational to watch athletes training for the special olympics. They are missing arms, legs and other things we take for granted. And it never deters them from getting to the goals that they are trying to achieve. Hope we all get there.

feisty_bucket

Hi. Good job so far. Out of order responses, sorry:

>Should I try and force awake after 8?

IMO, no way. If you can sleep, then sleep. I wouldn't force myself awake unless it's a must like a job or time-sensitive chores, etc. Sleep is our friend.

>my calves are killing me! I have done foam rolling and stretching, putting on icy gel and I've gone for a massage but can't do that everyday... They are fine until at night when I got to bed and then they ache something fierce and I cannot sleep.

That's a lot. I'd dial things back to walking and lifting. Save the HIIT for when you're lighter, 'cuz it's intense and can wreck you if you're trying it too early. DOMS is normal and will go away on its own after a few days/week, but I think you're pushing too hard. I'm skeptical that there's a real need for foam rolling.

>Do I need to eat them all? I find I am some days 200-300 calories short. (usually eating 1800-1900 with suggested 2120)

It's fine. Everything to do with CICO is not nearly as precise as we pretend it is here. Just get the calorie balance somewhere in the ballpark and it will work over time.

>Rest days - I know I have put my body through a shock; so how many of these should I be aiming for?

I'd just walk every day and again: stop beating the crap out of your calves (and knees!) with the HIIT for a long time.

>My trainer said to get some carbs - any tips of good carbs before a workout (I typically go to the gym between 5-6pm)

Eh. I've been lifting for a very long time, and never found pre-workout stuff to make much difference either way. Definitely not enough to worry about. Maybe just eat a little of what you normally eat post-workout, but earlier if you want.

You're doing great so far. The important thing is to keep up the improved physicality and sort out what you eat, and you'll be so far advanced a year from now that it'll blow your mind.

zebasschick

thestoryofangelina wrote: »

Hi all! Thanks for your comments and advice. Gonna reply to a couple things and clarify too...

- I started the 6 week HITT program to give me some discipline and the rest on my own walking and weight training. I also wanted to mention that it isn't a hardcore HITT per say; the trainer is one on one and tailors it to your body and fitness style. They're super watchful about my heart rate, recovery and often moves are modified for someone at my low level. Maybe I should have used LITT or MITT (low/medium ITT)

- That being said - the timing and jumping from nothing to 3x a week was pretty intense and I am looking forward to dialing it back a bit but am thankful for the jump start and discipline it gave me. I also need to dig deep and do some of that work on my own too (will be moving to twice a week training)

- Thank you for the tips on walking. Often I pressure myself to be going faster but it solidifies that a good walk at a steady pace is OK!

- I suspect that you were eating more than 2120 calories before starting down this particular weight loss path. Why is it hard to eat 2120 (plus exercise) now? Answer: a lot of it was eating out and alcohol (wine)

you definitely need to dial it back. if you hurt a muscle or tendon, you may not be able to work out for some time (this happened to me, and it sucked!). besides, that level of exhaustion is your body telling you this is too much.

do you have a heart rate monitor? i use one, and it's very helpful; i also occasionally check my blood oxygen level with a finger oximeter (which also shows pulse if you can't afford a heart rate monitor).

best of luck to you, and remember that taking it a little slower means it'll be easier to keep going, stay healthier and feel better!