Overtraining....? Lack of progress...?

RenshiG

Good day everyone,

I have been back working on, yes, my weight, but also my fitness level. Over the last 5 years I have had about 30 lbs creep up on me.... changing relationships, jobs, health... you name it. Mostly however allowing myself to slide into bad habits nutritionally while gradually slacking more and more on physical activity (I developed into a martial arts instructor what is great, but instead of exercising myself now I was standing around most of 20 hours a week... feeling left too tired and with too little time to do anything else given my family & full time job on top of everything).......

About 3 months ago.....

The instruction part became a thing of the past.... I took most of my time back again (I started on another part time job but that is pretty flexible and nowhere near the 20 hours). First I shifted my eating habits a bit and started doing a little cardio... I was shocked, floored, devasted realizing how bad of a shape I was in. I used to be a serious athlete... matter of fact sports was what brought me to the US on a free ride to a pretty good university..... and now I struggled with 10 min of elliptical.... unreal!

About 2 months ago.....

While initially my weight remained the same... which I thought was odd given that I had made a few changes and felt I was doing much better... it suddenly went up from 168lbs to 172lbs. But in the end it made me more serious.

Since then....

I have lost a total of only 4 lbs.... it goes up and down tough with inbetween having been 166lbs, but generally not for long. I also took 2 1/2 weeks going to Germany inbetween where I did not log, was eating what I wanted, rode the bike all day, and came back as 165.8lbs. Right now I am lingering at 168lbs.

I have been training super hard, burning between 450-1000 most days with cardio (I only log the cardio, but also do lifting 3-4 times a week 1/2 hour). Generally I split my workouts into 2-3 sessions (partially do to time constraints partially due to not being able ot do that much at once). I really enjoy working out and feel pleasantly tired and sleepy in the evening. I started going to bed an hour earlier (voluntarily 'cause it just feels good). I initially had my calorie goal set to 1200 but felt that was low so I reset it to 1400. I eat back a portion of my work out calories but my goal is to stay in the 1800s. My BMR is around 1534 and TDEE 1841.. calculated as seditary because I intend control eating back my exercise calories.

CONCERN:
1) I feel 4 lbs of weight loss in 2 months is litte, given I have 30 lbs to go, eat much much better, exercise much much more....
2) Am I training too much? At what point am I overtraining? I think this is my biggest concern. I know when you overtain, undereat etc weightloss is a struggle. I really want to get in shape though so I don't want to necessarily train less unless I absolutly have to. Weightloss is important to me but fitness even more so... esp figuring that one should follow the other? Sigh!

How do I gage, determine whether I am overtraining? :noway:

Do I just need to be paitient for the weightloss to kick in? :huh:

Do I need to change the focus of my exercises? (btw when I weight train I usually alternate upper/lower body trying hard to give my muscles a break).

Any thoughts would be much appreciated!!!!

Thank you!

wilsoje74

What are you doing for cardio and how are you getting the cals burned?

MzManiak

I don't think you are overtraining... (but then you didn't say what, exactly, you are doing)

What is your TDEE at moderately active?

I'd guess you're either over estimating your calorie burn, under estimating your food intake. I'd suggest eating 1600 calories, rather than the 1800.. see how you feel there.

RenshiG

Hi MzManiak, Hello Wilsoje74

Thank you for your response!

At moderate active I receive a TDEE of 2378kcal/day.

Generally I do cardio, with my preferred method of torture being the elliptical... running on the treadmill messes with my knee and bike in the gym always seems to be such a low burn calorie wise that it is discouraging. lol

I like that I can set the intensity relatively high and get a good caloric expenditure from the elliptical and as such it is still my favorite.

I have started to add a little running to my selection, doing about 2-3 times a week. I started barely making it 15 min, but today I made it 25 min at good pace (def faster than before). So I absolutely see an increase in fitness I am very pleased with. Actually I am gambling with the thought of going for another 15 min run this afternoon.

What I have started doing just this last week is I take what the machine gives me (based upon weight & level) and round it down to the next 50. So if the machine tells me I burned 438kcal I write down 400kcal hoping that will compensate a little for overestimating equipment.

This last weekend I felt I did really well with the calories (around 1800), measuring everything etc, burned about 800-1000 kcal not eating them all back.... but was huuuungry. I also felt really sluggish by the end of it.... Yesterday I did 1 session of about 25 min elliptical (given 348kcal - noted down 300kcal) and 10 min upper body low impact in the am, and 25 min low impact on a stationary bike (given 152kcal - noted down 150kcal), and about 30 min of good hard lifting upper body after work. I stuck around 1800kcal for input but still had to go to bed early to not start eating again because I started feeling hungry by about 9pm.

Thank you so much for looking at this! I really appreciate your inputs!

P.S.: I also opened up my diary.

One other thing that is weird is that I really am pushing the weights (and I am not new to lifting) but I am barely to not sore today....

RenshiG

Wow only made it 10min this afternoon. Man it is hot here..... :grumble:

wilsoje74

You may be overestimating your exercise cal burns. Seems high for elliptical??

RenshiG

You may be overestimating your exercise cal burns. Seems high for elliptical??

Hmm by how much do you think they might be over estimating? I thought because they include your weight, age, & rpm etc they would be more accurate. I set the level to really really high to where it really gets pretty hard to move the paddles.

How do you suggest I adjust? Should I take of say 20%? 50%? More?

Do you think the MFP estimates are better? I read somewhere they are overestimated as well?

wilsoje74

How long are you on it? I know for running 100 cal per mile is a general estimate. The machines (elliptical treadmill etc) are generally really high.

RenshiG

My work outs are generally about 20 min long. Sometimes I do two (diff machines) in a row or one in the am and 1 or 2 in the pm.

Last weekend I did 20 min elliptical, then stairs, then treadmill or bike so my total work out was about 1 hour. I don't do that a lot though since it really wears me out. I was freezing by the end of it... which is... prob not good.

Also do you think the weight training makes up for some of the over est? How do figure that into your calorie expenditure?

wilsoje74

My work outs are generally about 20 min long. Sometimes I do two (diff machines) in a row or one in the am and 1 or 2 in the pm.

Last weekend I did 20 min elliptical, then stairs, then treadmill or bike so my total work out was about 1 hour. I don't do that a lot though since it really wears me out. I was freezing by the end of it... which is... prob not good.

Also do you think the weight training makes up for some of the over est? How do figure that into your calorie expenditure?

A 20 min elliptical workout would be about 200 cal max. In my opinion!
Why were you freezing after a workout? Strength can burn some but not a ton. I do hour long strength weight videos and its only about 200 cal burned.

RenshiG

Ok good to know about the strength and def good to know about the elliptical. I think I am just going to use that as a standard going forward.

I think I was over exhausted... maybe dehydraded? Though I do drink a ton of water during the day. I suddenly started freezing at the end of my bike ride, goose bumps and all. It felt my blood pressure was taking a tail dive.... and I don't have much room for it to go down.

The only time I have had that before was when I absolutely overdid it riding my road bike out in the heat. I never had that though inside a climatized set up like the gym I was in. So I might have just pushed a bit too much....

Overall I know I am healthy, just badly out of shape.... I just think my subconcious doesn't want to accept that. And no, I am not getting older.... who does? That's silly.... :-)

Do you have any general rule of thumb for the bike? I think I will use your 1 mile 100 kcal est for running rather than looking at time.

FizikallyFit

my thing was that I wasn't eating enough calories. It is very important that you are eating enough and working out enough

RenshiG

my thing was that I wasn't eating enough calories. It is very important that you are eating enough and working out enough

So where would you set your calories if you were me.... it might have been I hadn't eaten enough those days, but overall given my BMR/TDEE above and the exercise discussion... what would you set as your target?

wilsoje74

I think you are eating plenty.

RenshiG

I think you are eating plenty.

Do you think it is too much?
Should I go down to 1600?

Mr_Knight

I have started to add a little running to my selection, doing about 2-3 times a week. I started barely making it 15 min, but today I made it 25 min at good pace (def faster than before).

Is there a number (eg speed, distance) attached to the "good pace"?

lilawolf

Go post this is the Eat, train, progress forum Sarah and Sidesteel really know what they are talking about and have advised hundreds if not thousands of people by now. You may even get your answer by reading through the stickies there.
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/forums/show/10067-eat-train-progress-

Good luck!

AndreaL0918

Question to all...If you wear a heart rate monitor will that give you more accurate cal burn? I walked mod fast 3/ jogged 1 mile and my heart rate monitor said I burned 600 today. Just wondering if heart rate monitors over estimate too?!

Thanks!
Andrea

ilovemilkymoos

Have you considered that you may be gaining muscle mass while losing fat?
If you're doing heavy lifting (or any real lifting in fact) the weight loss may not be representative of your actual body composition?

I was in a similar position to you, started out doing a mix of lifting and cardio. Weight stayed pretty much the same for 2-3 months and started to get disheartened until i started to see clear body changes.

I went and got a DEXA scan to give me a starting point, and used photos to track my progess. I'll be getting another DEXA soon, just to see how far I've come!

ellew70

Question to all...If you wear a heart rate monitor will that give you more accurate cal burn? I walked mod fast 3/ jogged 1 mile and my heart rate monitor said I burned 600 today. Just wondering if heart rate monitors over estimate too?!

Thanks!
Andrea

Depends on the kind. The kind with the chest strap will give you a decently accurate reading. The wrist kind that you put your fingers on will not be as accurate because the monitor is essentially having to fill in the blanks between readings. It's using a mathematical algorithm to estimate but its not actual.

This is why I hate the eat back your calorie method. There is really not good way to get a decent read on calories burned. TDEE minus 20% is probably better.

cwolfman13

For your TDEE you might want to just try an average of light active and moderate active. It is possible that you are on the lower end of light active...which would mean some weight loss, but it would be pretty slow if you were starting with that as the base and deducting your 20% or whatever.

When I did my TDEE I started out kinda high myself because I really felt like I was doing a lot of exercise and also running around chasing a 1 y.o. and 3 y.o....turns out I'm more of an average of moderate and light active. Also, you can just play with your calories a little...if you've gone 4-6 weeks and you're not seeing the progress, dial it down 100 calories or something (provided of course that you're not under eating)