Is this enough at the gym to see results?

khallock78

Is 40 minutes on an ARC trainer (sort of like an elliptical) on the Weight Loss setting, level 5, burning about 450-500 calories each time enough?

I also plan to add in some circuit training a la Jillian Anderson or Tae Bo at home a few nights a week.

I'm eating about 1200 calories a day, lots of salads and lean protein. Burning 470ish calories at the gym 5x a week. Maybe an additional 150-200 cals if I do an exercise routine at home.

I've seen a 2 pound weight loss over the last 2 weeks total. I thought it would be more? Does it take a few weeks for your bod to really start shedding pounds?

Mel147

Sounds like you are doing plenty of exercise, maybe not eating enough calories. Be sure to add in the weight lifing or some type of resistance exercise as well.

stringcheeze

Sounds like you are doing plenty of exercise, maybe not eating enough calories. Be sure to add in the weight lifing or some type of resistance exercise as well.

This. Also, measure yourself. It's a more accurate way of gauging progress -- inches lost off your body doesn't necessarily translate to the scale.

mia66

make sure you eat back the calories that you burned working out. Very important.

lady_of_steele

Hi! Don't get discouraged--for some reason, I was running three miles a day, four times a week, for three weeks and saw NOTHING. I started looking for the source of my frustration, and found that I was only drinking 1-2 cups of water a day. I up'd it to the recommended 8 and during week four, all the previous weeks' weight fell off (4 pounds). It might just take a while, but I'd recommend checking your water levels, because without it, your body can't dissolve the fat as well.

Also, Mel is right about the food. I know it sounds weird, but eat the extra calories you burn. That has really helped with the metabolism and keeping things *ahem*regular*ahem*. Good luck, and keep it up!

CommandaPanda

How long have you been doing this routine?

I go to the gym about 4x per week (well, as often as I have time for.. but usually 4x per week). I start off with weight lifting and then follow it up with cardio. If you're burning 450-500 calories, that's excellent. I have to push myself to the max to burn more than 400 calories from cardio.
So far this routine has lost me 30 lbs in 8 weeks (I've lost 30 lbs in 6.5 weeks, but this past week and a half my body hasn't really done much of anything with losing weight).

But from looking at my trend in exercise vs. weight loss, I've found that when I eat more and healthy I lose weight faster than I do when I eat less and healthy. Eating poorly just doesn't do anything.
So as long as you don't deprive your body of food, you should be seeing great results soon


*edit* After reading some of the previous posts, I realized that I forgot to mention water. I drink at least 32 oz of water per day and when I don't drink water my body doesn't lose any weight. The more water you drink, the better results you will yield!

khallock78

I drink a liter of water while I am at the gym, and probably another liter thruout the day (is it bad to add those "Totally Light" ice tea packets to my water (not when at the gym))? Or is that just awful?

I sometimes drink a seltzer water with dinner - does that count as more water? I have 1 diet coke usually in the AM, since I am not a coffee drinker.

I've been doing the exercise for a week. This is week #2.

A few months ago I was logging food and exercise here and eating so much to make up for my calorie loss at the gym and it did nothing for me. I was eating not great food though - Lean Cuisines for lunch, 100 calorie packs. But I was eating like 1600/day. That was my 1200 calories + whatever I was burning at the gym. And really i think i got fatter then. This time I was going to try to switch up my diet a bit and eat less. I am still getting 1200 or so total each day though. I am not really exercising on weekends. Not at a gym anyways. I did do a 6 mile bike ride yesterday with the kids. I am not as anal on weekends with my diet, but I am still keeping it in control.

I almost always have a nature Valley granola bar for breakfast. For the past 2 weeks I have been eating huge salads and sometimes chicken or tuna with them for lunch. Lots of fruit for an afternoon snack, either diced watermelon, or today I have cantalope. For dinner chicken or fish and steamed veggies, or a veggie burger on a bun. After dinner I often have a yummy snack, like an italian ice or Weight Watchers ice cream bar. Both are about 100 calories.

I would like to lose 25 pounds. 15 by the end of Sept would be great.

khallock78

I made my diary public in case anyone wants to peek and give me some pointers.

CommandaPanda

No, that's an excellent amount of water. You're doing great! A diet coke isn't a bad thing. When I first started out, I used to have a diet coke a couple (<6) per week to satisfy my sweet tooth so starting out I'd say it's absolutely fine to treat yourself. Eventually you'll end up dropping it (it just tends to happen when you start to eat healthy and drink more and more water). Now, to throw off my sweet cravings, I have one piece of chocolate every now and then. Certainly not the best choice but it works.

As for the Totally Light Ice Tea mix, that's fine. Well, from what I know it's fine as I'm not a certified nutritionist (though I have taken courses on Nutrition and Health). You don't need to worry about that, it simply gives flavor to your water. I know many athletes who do this to load up on water (for some, water is intolerable and those people require flavor).
The most athletic person I know actually put Crystal Light packets in all of his water bottles, whether he was in practice, gym, or other. However, I'm not advising you to do this but what I'm trying to convey is that flavor-enhancing packets such as the one you are drinking hasn't done any harm to any of the athletes I've known. (As I stated before, I'm not a nutritionist so there may be an article somewhere on the internet that negates everything I've just told you).

Alright, so you're JUST beginning your exercise/workout portion of weight loss. Congratulations, I know many people who restrict themselves to cutting down on foods and ignore exercise. Exercise is vital in weight loss and cardiovascular exercise is even more effective in weight loss than nutrition (however, the two put together makes a magical combination).
By the end of my week 2 I weighed around 219 from 225, mainly because of how hard I pushed myself with my cardio training. Eventually when I plateaued after my week 2, I looked into nutrition and exercise research.

Your calorie intake looks pretty good. I don't think you need to worry about what you're eating as much as you probably think you do. It's okay to give weekends a break, as long as you don't lose your momentum to go to the gym. Everybody needs rest to let their bodies heal and repair itself. I think the weekend is a wonderful time to let this happen. Especially if you have a family that you must take care of as well, I understand how time consuming that may be and you could be proud of yourself for that as people such as myself with little to no responsibility other than school/military are doing just as much in the gym as you are.


Your meals are looking excellent. They actually look extremely similar to mine (trading out some foods). I usually start off with cereal/fat free milk in the morning and then the rest of my meals are just like yours (except if I'm hungry in between meals, I enjoy a Nature Valley bar).
Weight loss takes time, for the past 8 weeks, I've been weighing myself in everyday and there have been a few weeks where I swore at myself along with the scale for not having lost any weight. Keep in mind that some weeks will be stronger than others (as I've lost as much as 5 lbs in a single week and 0.6 pounds the next).

I believe you can lose that 25 lbs. You've given yourself about 6 weeks to take care of business and if you really work hard at it then you will do it. As I said, I lost the bulk of my weight within the first 6 weeks and then the past 2 I've been struggling to lose more weight. If you don't meet your goal by the 15th, don't get down because you'll probably be extremely close to it.

(I always write too much by the way, I think it's a genetic handicap)

CommandaPanda

You may also want to have a look at these:
http://muscleandstrength.com/articles/transformations.html

Those articles really helped motivate me to the max. I understand that many women look down upon weight lifting because they see it as a masculine activity, but I urge you to consider it. Read some of the articles of the women on that list and I'm sure you will be surprised to see how much they've improved. (Some of them are even married with children.. something you may be able to relate to?)

Lifting weights doesn't mean bulking up and looking manly. You get out of it what you put in (as everybody always says) and if you put yourself into a program looking to look leaner and more toned, then that's how you will walk out of it.

Just something to think about, it's not vital in weight loss. I've found that it's helped me to the extreme so I like to show people those articles if they have doubts about their progress or anything like that.

khallock78

Well I may start doing my Jillian Anderson 30 day shred workout some nights as well. Its just hard to get that in sometime because

1. I am tired after working all day and coming home to 2 young children. Once they get to bed I usually want to passout myself!
2. I do it in my basement and its been hot down there this summer!

I have started that workout many times and I'll do it for 10 days and then I stop and never get back to it.

I do like cereal and skim milk for breakfast also, but the granola bar is something I can eat at my desk at work when I come in.

I've actually been on and off exercising for 1.5 years now. Ever since I started working at a college where I have free access to the gym. Thats the main reason I do go to the gym, because I can do it during my lunch. So since January 2009 I have been going. But sometimes I skip a week or 2. But now I really want to commit and try to get there at least 4 days a week. Hopefully 5. And combine that with diet to lose 25 pounds.

I know people say to look at measurements too, but really I am 5'2" and 155lbs so I should see weight loss. I'd be happy to be 135. Even better to be 130. And if I got to 125 then I'd weigh about what I did at my wedding 7 years ago. But I'm OK giving myself an extra 5 pounds since I did give birth to 2 kids.

I've always eaten decent dinners. But its snacks that get me. I have a huge sweet tooth and love love love chocolate. I've been doing a decent job cutting that out lately.

Blondebookworm

You're actually losing weight at a stable rate. Most people should lose weight less than a pound a week but if you're losing a pound a week that's excellent! I'm doing pretty much the same as you. I do the elliptical for 65 min. The 5 extra minutes is cool down time and that seriously is important but I put the resistance at around 6 and occasionally 7 and the most I've burned in a session was last night and it was almost 800 Calories! I also spend a lot of time on doing crunches on the machines and working on my legs. I also take Aerobic classes and Yoga and still do the elliptical after them. So we're pretty much doing the same thing xD It helps to take different classes because it confuses the muscles and helps you gain more tone muscles.

I was at a plateau for about 2-3 weeks staying at around 152 to 153 the whole time and just this week upcoming week I dropped about 3 pounds. I'm at 149.4 right now. It takes some time but stay with it! Your body just needs to adjust!



Also, whatever you do the night before you get on the scale, it may not show. It takes a couple of days for your body to completely get rid of the fat. So don't get discouraged, just think that my body is going to look HOT! ;D


KEEP IT UP! You're doing amazing!

aippolito1

No, that sounds great. How much you lose per week depends on how much you have TOTAL to lose...the more you have to lose, the easier and faster it will come off (at first)... I would say definitely reconsider eating more because of how much you're burning. Either increase to 1400 or if you're not eating exercise calories, eat them ALL. You know how much you typically burn per day so you can put it in and eat those calories throughout the day so it's not as cumbersome.

Blondebookworm

My dad and I just came up with an AWESOME treat. We go and buy fresh fruit at Walmart or Krogers and buy Whipped Cream that is 15 calories per 2 tbsp. We cut up fruit, stick it in a cup and put a little whip cream in between and it's amazing! I actually opted out Skinny Cow (ice cream) to make that yesterday after dinner and I love it

I also had Black seedless grapes which are very sweet and juicy (recommending them btw, lol) and put a little whip cream on top and dunk them into the cream and ate them. It was about 100 calories. Could be less, it matters how much whip cream you use and how many grapes you eat but other than that. It filled me up and I was content until dinner came along! I'd recommend trying it