Help! Not sure what I'm doing wrong

allacson

I'm trying to lose weight for a wedding that's approaching in a few months and also just for my well-being, but I'm so confused at what I'm doing wrong that's preventing me from losing weight. A little background on myself: I'm a very athletic person, played varsity sports throughout high school and partially through college(swimming and water polo). I've had success losing weight in the past with weight watchers, but every time I try it now I don't see any results. When I was doing weight watchers and saw results I did kickboxing 6 days a week for an hour on top of running 3 miles a day and doing 40min of abs and weights.

I used to aim to eat between 1200-1500 calories a day, depending on whether I work out or not, but recently I had my BMR tested at the gym and the results showed my BMR to be 1851 calories. For the past 2 months I've tried to eat 1900 calories a day and I've been doing bootcamp 3 days a week and some form of exercise for 90min on 2 other days. I've lost about 7% body fat (down to 32%), but I've gained 7lbs (up to 170lbs) and my clothes feel tighter. I'm thinking I'm just eating too many calories, and I'm trying to cut it back again to 1200, but I have yet to see any results. I don't drink soda and I don't eat fast food. I eat pretty well most days and I've cut out processed foods with the exception of eating out once in a while with friends or family (even then I try and be very aware of what I eat). I feel stronger and more in shape than I have in a while with bootcamp, but I drifting farther and farther from my original goal of dwindling down for this wedding.

Does anyone have any suggestions of what I'm doing wrong or what I should be doing?? I'm not a complete angel and I know there are small things I can improve on (exercising longer and cut out going out altogether), but it seems like I'm putting in a ton of effort and seeing 0 results. Seriously any suggestions and tips will be greatly appreciated!!

PS I'm 5'1" so I'm pretty darn big for a short person

pitbullmama

What was your BMR when you calculated it on here? Can't see your diary so don't know what your eating every day.

Bub1971

I had a similar problem and it turned out to be not enuff water due to the extreme workouts doubled up on my water consumption and it got me right back on the program hope this helps.

barbiecat

:bigsmile: :bigsmile: :bigsmile: :bigsmile: if you make your food diary public, you will get some good suggestions

:bigsmile: be sure you are accurately weighing and measuring your food and logging every bite

:bigsmile: be sure you aren't over-estimating the calorie burn of your workouts

:drinker: :drinker: :drinker: :drinker: :drinker: :drinker: :drinker: drink a lot of water :bigsmile:

:bigsmile: never,never, never give up :bigsmile:

zornig

If 1900 calories is too much, the answer is not to drop down to the extreme of 1200 calories! From your description of your activity/exercise level, I would say that you qualify as "moderately active." Here's a good place to start:

Step 1: for a moderately active person, your daily maintenance level should be BMR * 1.2. In your case that's 2200 calories.

Step 2: To lose about a pound a week, they recommend you go into a 500 calorie caloric deficit. This would put you at 1700 calories per day. You can adjust a bit lower if you want to lose faster--but not too much!

Step 3: Cycle! And by this I mean calorie cycle, not bicycle (although you should do that too). A good cycle for you might be something like Days 1-3 @ 1700, Day 4 @ 2000-2200, Days 5-7 @ 1700, repeat.

Try this for two weeks and see if you get results. If not, drop the calorie levels by 100 for both deficit and maintenance days, and see if that helps. The other thing is that *what* you eat really makes a difference--eat lean protein at every meal, eat your starchy carbs in the morning and your fruit/veg carbs in the evening, drink lots of water, etc.

barbiecat

:flowerforyou: now that I've looked at your food diary I think you should consider letting go of the processed and packaged foods and adding lean meat and fish (broiled, baked, without sauces) and lots of fresh or frozen veggies (also without sauces).

:flowerforyou: what you eat is as important as how many calories you consume.....try to make everything you eat "nutrition dense".....it will take time to create those new eating habits but it will be worth it.....your body is a complex machine and it needs good quality fuel :bigsmile: