Frustrated

Sunibc22

Well here I am 6 weeks into eating healthier and exercising and I'm only down 5lbs. My boyfriend of course is down 20lbs and hasn't exercised at all.

I have not been perfect for the whole 6 weeks but before I started eating well I was eating at least 1 donut a day, easy packaged dinners like frozen pizza, a ton of ice cream, cheese, you name it!! I was eating do horribly and maintaining my overweight body, fluctuating 5lbs up or down.
I didn't exercise at all except for running after my 9.5month old son and keeping the house.
I try to compensate for my bad days where I can. Night out for dinner with the girls I only had 2 glasses of wine, didn't empty my plate and skipped desert. I didn't spend my exercise calories the day before or after and still I gained.
I'm wondering if maybe my body is mad after so many years of this diet or that and now that I've reduced my calories my body is in starvation mode so I'm not losing?
I set my goal as 1.5lbs a week and my recommended calories are 1210. I'm eating about 1300 a day plus about half my exercise calories...unless I'm compensating......or some days I eat all the exercise calories if I'm extra hungry. I have started running 4 times a week and am up to running a 5km route in 40 minutes, walking for 1 minute every 6 minutes so really only walking 6 or 7 minutes total during the 40. Burning between 400 and 500 calories each time.
I have no idea what to change to get things started?!?

Any advice is greatly appreciated!!!

rockstarmike000

Well here I am 6 weeks into eating healthier and exercising and I'm only down 5lbs. My boyfriend of course is down 20lbs and hasn't exercised at all.

I have not been perfect for the whole 6 weeks but before I started eating well I was eating at least 1 donut a day, easy packaged dinners like frozen pizza, a ton of ice cream, cheese, you name it!! I was eating do horribly and maintaining my overweight body, fluctuating 5lbs up or down.
I didn't exercise at all except for running after my 9.5month old son and keeping the house.
I try to compensate for my bad days where I can. Night out for dinner with the girls I only had 2 glasses of wine, didn't empty my plate and skipped desert. I didn't spend my exercise calories the day before or after and still I gained.
I'm wondering if maybe my body is mad after so many years of this diet or that and now that I've reduced my calories my body is in starvation mode so I'm not losing?
I set my goal as 1.5lbs a week and my recommended calories are 1210. I'm eating about 1300 a day plus about half my exercise calories...unless I'm compensating......or some days I eat all the exercise calories if I'm extra hungry. I have started running 4 times a week and am up to running a 5km route in 40 minutes, walking for 1 minute every 6 minutes so really only walking 6 or 7 minutes total during the 40. Burning between 400 and 500 calories each time.
I have no idea what to change to get things started?!?

Any advice is greatly appreciated!!!

you're doing fantastic. Losing 5 pounds and keeping it off is an achievement. It took me 4 years to lose 50 pounds (admittedly I wasn't trying very hard), which only came to like 0.2 pounds lost a week. If you want to change something, try not eating any exercise calories. Think of them as a way to lower your total daily calories rather than to give you permission to eat more. After all, if you're eating more, the exercising is only burning off the extra foods you eat, and not any of the other weight that you need gone in order to lose pounds faster.

rockstarmike000

oh and try to stay below the recommended daily calories. I know its tough. Learning to cook every meal for yourself makes it a ton easier than trying to go to restaurants or ordering out

mattedens

Hey Frustrated:

Lets focus on the positive, at the beginning of your turn-around, it sounds like you were eating some pretty typical natsy chow. doughnuts, boxed pizza, ice cream...

Now it sounds like you're running 4 times a week! Thats awesome!!! Hey, I wish I knew why the pounds are melting off as fast as you want, they don't for me either. Maybe men and women metabolize and burn calories/fat faster. I don't know, I'm an amateur at this.

The important thing is that you're committed to a healthy lifestyle now, the change will happen, stay focused!

photorific

1 pound per week is an acceptable, healthy loss! (Not that I don't understand the impatience - believe me - I do...) I'd say take what you can get and be grateful! And comparing loss rates with hubby (or any man) is a bad idea. Not sure how they do it, but they seem to average nearly double the losses of most women...

mfreeby

Just keep on going!!! 5 pounds of FAT is nothing to feel bad about. If you are wanting quicker results for motivation, try lowering your carbs, and make sure your sodium is low. Keep away from anything processed. However, I find that if not depriving myself of things I love (within my calories) keeps me from veering off course, I would rather have a bit of a slower weigh tloss. What I mean is, I COULD never eat pizza, which I love, and lose weight faster, but then one day, I'd just eat a whole pizza to myself. So don't deprive yourself and keep on keepin' on! It'll happen for ya! And don't compare yourself to a man. My husband drops an immediate 5 pounds if he stops drinking soda. If only it were that easy.

aLatz13

Don't give up hope yet! It's really frustrating, but 5lbs in 6 weeks for a woman is really not bad at all. I'm guessing your boyfriend is probably heavier than you are, and heavy people have a tendency to lose weight faster just because they have more weight to lose (think about it - they have to consume more calories to maintain their current weight, so they have more opportunities to cut back) I've been on here for about 5 months now and i've only lost 10 pounds, but i've also noticed a HUGE change in my body in terms of inches. 10 lbs may not sound like a lot, but i didnt have a lot of excess weight to lose in the first place.

Make sure you're mixing up your exercises, keep up with the cardio but also make sure you try to hit the weights. There are loads of studies that prove that lifting weights is a much more effective way to simultaneously burn fat and build muscle and also keeps your metabolism going longer than cardio alone. Women's Health has a lot of routines that are targeted to prevent you from getting bulky, and only require 1 or 2 different types of equipment (trust me, just invest in a dumbbell, it's worth it). I try to do 3 days of running and 2 days of weight training. Also try some circuit exercises - even on your run try doing a 1 min walk, 3 min jog, 1 min sprint interval to really rev up your metabolism. I like exercises where i'm constantly mixing it up, other wise i lose interest or motivation

in terms of eating, it takes a long time for your appetite to adjust to 1200 calories. On days that i dont work out, i feel stuffed if i eat more than 1300. Make sure you're spreading your meals out throughout the day - eat a snack in between meals. Aim for low cal high protein snacks like string cheese, celery with peanut butter things, like that. and make sure you have a cheat day, dont go crazy, but indulge a little one day and cut back a little the next, that also helps your metabolism.

The biggest thing you have to get used to is the notion that this will take time. Just focus on adjusting your lifestyle in little bits and it'll happen eventually!

CLBunny

In order to create fat buring weight loss, you need to create a calorie deficit, and various different fitness gurus present different ideas of what this should be. Jillian Michaels says a 700 calorie deficit is about right. Also though, you need to be extra careful with hydration and electrolite balance, if you're electrolites aren't balanced properly - you won't lose any weight. The idea is always to burn more calories than you eat in order to achieve a loss, if you eat your exercise calories, you will maintain your weight instead.

dointime

I have no real advice for you, but I wanted to let you know that I feel your frustration with you significant other. It is always so hard for me to lose weight at the same time as my husband because he always loses considerably more with almost no effort. Though I am glad he's losing weight, it sucks when I'm busting my butt and he's sitting on his and he loses 2 times what I do. Take comfort in the fact that you're not alone!!!

Sunibc22

In order to create fat buring weight loss, you need to create a calorie deficit, and various different fitness gurus present different ideas of what this should be. Jillian Michaels says a 700 calorie deficit is about right. Also though, you need to be extra careful with hydration and electrolite balance, if you're electrolites aren't balanced properly - you won't lose any weight. The idea is always to burn more calories than you eat in order to achieve a loss, if you eat your exercise calories, you will maintain your weight instead.

I thought that with eating 1200 calories and then burning 500 it was like only eating 700 calories which could put my body into starvation mode? My deficit would be well over 1000 calories on exercise days then....?

Sunibc22

Thank you everyone for the support and encouragement. It's just so hard to make such a complete change and see such little results. It almost....almost...doesn't feel worth it some days!!!

I know I am on the road to a healthier life regardless of what the scale says....it's just hard some days....today is one of those days...

smendozabrown

Hi Frustrated,

The way I see it, is do not look at the past and try and figure it out. It is the past, and we cannot change it. So, 5 lbs is a great accomplishment and a healthy rate too, and now you can move forward. Get in your 4 times a week exercise, eat small meals and drink your H20. Also, I know it is really hard not to compare your weight loss to your boyfriend, but try not to. Men lose weight differently and that is just a fact Hang in there, you will be fine, and you have your fitnesspal family to aid and encourage you.

janette130

Your body is mad at you but you can show it who's boss. I'm having the same problem. Three weeks of hard work and I got nothin. But I know it sometimes takes a couple of months to see the scale move. You also could be losing inches. In just the three weeks I have been working out - intense workouts and it sounds like yours are too, I have felt better in my clothes. The other day I was putting on a pair of jeans that had just been washed. You know the feeling when they feel all tight, well I thought I'd put on the bigger pair of the same jeans (see I have my favorite jeans in every size ) I was so glad to see some inches coming off. Not a lot of inches, but some.

Keep up the hard work - you can do it. And about the boyfriend - never try to compete with a guy. They always win.

CLBunny

Make sure that your BMR is correctly calculated and also make sure that your target weight loss is also correctly calculated. Your body can get to a point where it perceives the excess pounds you carry as perfectly healthy - Jillian refers to these as vanity pounds, which I'm sure we all understand. Love handles etc. They can be incredibly hard to shift but more importantly, are incredibly slow to shift because the body still sees it as necessary to keep some energy storage, we are genetically programmed to do this. Obviously I don't know enough about your entire history to be able to give sound advice - but if you feel like it head over to jillianmichaels.com and check out her podcasts - there is an absolute plethora of information there for free, including an excellent talk on the dreaded plateau and all sorts of other things you might find useful.

ecaz

You are right - net at least 1200 calories a day.

I feel your frustration and had the same experience when my husband dropped 23 lbs in the same time it took me to drop 7 lbs. F.R.U.S.T.R.A.T.I.N.G. And to top it off, when I hit 12 lbs I plateaued for a month and a half. So, what did I do?? Well, I kept working out, trying to eat right. And finally - as the last resort - I RAISED my calorie intake from 1200 to 1400. And I have lost a pound a week for the last 2 weeks. YAY!!

So - what I can tell you to absolutely do -that absolutely works for EVERYONE?? DO NOT GIVE UP. Simple as that.

Sunibc22

So - what I can tell you to absolutely do -that absolutely works for EVERYONE?? DO NOT GIVE UP. Simple as that.

This is what I needed to hear. I won't give up. I'm going to push through and keep at it. With that said I ran 5km today and feel great about it!

luvs_choc8

Hello fellow Canadian. Awesome run. Just remember all the baby steps that you take will eventually lead to a mile or km for us Canadians LOL. I too am at a bit of a stand still but unlike you, my husband is not doing any kind of life style change and really is no support at all to me. You need to stand beside your husband and appreciate the fact that the two of you are doing this together and not make it a competition (I know that is probably easier said than done). One of the key points that I have learned is to change things to make a better life for me, my husband and my kids. I want to be around for a long time. The changes that I have made already are life long changes and even though I am not at my goal weight yet I feel 100% better than I did 40 lbs heavier. Keep up the great work and remember to be honest with yourself.

Keep smiling,

ecaz

See - you are already making progress! Keep it up!