slow metabolism

Acg67

as for HIIT vs Steady State

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/stead-state-versus-intervals-finally-a-conclusion.html

cramernh

You do not have to eat clean to lose weight. If you want to eat clean, awesome, but if eating pre-packaged meals makes your life easier and helps you stick to your diet, then that's what you should do.

The most important thing is finding a lifestyle you can stick with. I personally could never make the 'eat clean' work. So please don't feel like you have to drastically change your eating habits. The more complicated and difficult you make your diet, the less likely you will be to stay with it. Keep it simple That's my diet strategy.

I personally like the weight lifting/strength training suggestions to get your metabolism going. I'd honestly focus on repairing that metabolism before I worried too much about losing weight.

Good luck.

No one at all said to 'eat clean" .... her food logs show nothing but prepackaged - processed - frozen foods, all high in sodium, high glycemic ingredients, sugars in some cases on top of high glycemic foods... no where did I see an actual composed meal made from fresh ingredients... right now she is eating plenty of processing chemicals and its bascially all junk...... She will never learn about proper eating if she relies on frozen meals, open-the-can/box-and-heat-and-serve type of meals.... her food related choices are definitely contributory....

ddiestler

Wow, I guess I didn't know this would spawn such controversy. First of all I do cook fresh meals with fresh ingredients. Secondly, I feel a little attacked.. I have done alot of changing my eating habits and feel good about most of the choices I make.

I understand if you go back to the last week it does show that I've gone out or eating a lean cuisine. However, thats not all eat by all means.

Learning to eat healthy is a work in progress for me. I was raised on non healthy foods made with plenty of butter..I am trying to adapt to a new lifestyle. There is so much of eat this don't eat that..

I welcome any suggestions on what kind of "home cooked" meals I should make.

LabRat529

You do not have to eat clean to lose weight. If you want to eat clean, awesome, but if eating pre-packaged meals makes your life easier and helps you stick to your diet, then that's what you should do.

The most important thing is finding a lifestyle you can stick with. I personally could never make the 'eat clean' work. So please don't feel like you have to drastically change your eating habits. The more complicated and difficult you make your diet, the less likely you will be to stay with it. Keep it simple That's my diet strategy.

I personally like the weight lifting/strength training suggestions to get your metabolism going. I'd honestly focus on repairing that metabolism before I worried too much about losing weight.

Good luck.

No one at all said to 'eat clean" .... her food logs show nothing but prepackaged - processed - frozen foods, all high in sodium, high glycemic ingredients, sugars in some cases on top of high glycemic foods... no where did I see an actual composed meal made from fresh ingredients... right now she is eating plenty of processing chemicals and its bascially all junk...... She will never learn about proper eating if she relies on frozen meals, open-the-can/box-and-heat-and-serve type of meals.... her food related choices are definitely contributory....

Actually... if you re-read some of the posts, at least one person DID say specifically to try clean eating... and your suggestion is pretty close.

My point is... it's much more important to find a life style you can live with than it is to cook and eat the foods you describe. So what if she eats frozen meals? If it makes it easier for her to stick to her diet, then great!

People in general make dieting far more complicated than it needs to be. Whole grains, quality proteins, lots of fruits and veggies... these are good things!!! But good heavens, "frozen meals, open-the-can/box-and-heat-and-serve type of meals" are fine too. Most of them are high in sodium... but... eh... sodium is not the devil either. It should be minimized, but no need to freak out about it.

LabRat529

Wow, I guess I didn't know this would spawn such controversy. First of all I do cook fresh meals with fresh ingredients. Secondly, I feel a little attacked.. I have done alot of changing my eating habits and feel good about most of the choices I make.

I understand if you go back to the last week it does show that I've gone out or eating a lean cuisine. However, thats not all eat by all means.

Learning to eat healthy is a work in progress for me. I was raised on non healthy foods made with plenty of butter..I am trying to adapt to a new lifestyle. There is so much of eat this don't eat that..

I welcome any suggestions on what kind of "home cooked" meals I should make.

You know what... you have lost 27 lbs which is awesome! You should be proud of yourself for that. And Lean Cuisine isn't going to hurt you now and then. You are doing fine. Do whatever you need to to stick with your program. Short-cuts are fine if they help. In my opinion anyway

If you do want to incorporate some changes into your life, I'd recommend adding things slowly here and there that are "nutrient dense": Dark green veggies- raw or lightly steamed/sauteed, nuts, berries, whole grains, lean meats... I've gotten out of the habit, but when I was being "good", I'd try to eat at least one cup of raw or lightly cooked veggies with every meal.

Edit: Actually dark veggies period. They dont' have to be green. Beets are awesome. I can't stand 'em, but they're awesome and dark purple/red. Dark is usually good.

Rae6503

So, I had a test done that proved I have a slow metabolism. My resting BMR is 1250 and with the little bit of walking I do in a day bumped it up to 1500. With that said, realistically I can only lose about 1 pound a week. UGH! I'm not able to create a 500 calorie deficit from food.

I eat 1200 cals a day and exercise 5 days a week. I do elliptical and running. I burn between 350-500 calories per workout depending on what I do.

I drink 6-9 glasses of water a day as well

The problem is, My damn scale still isn't moving.. any suggestions?

I am making huge improvement on working out but the scale reflects a different story. I'm feeling very frustrated..

Thanks for any advice.

Dawn

First, how did they test your BMR? Just curious.

Second, I think you are calculating things wrong. You're BMR is what you'd burn in a coma. You then multiple that by a coefficient to determine how much you burn a day. MFP uses about 1.25 for a sedentary lifestyle. That'd give you 1562. So then you'd subtract you deficit. 500 for a pound a week. BUT that'd give you less than the magical 1200. So when you don't exercise you eat 1200 which should set you up to lose 0.72lbs a week. Still not bad.

Then you work out and burn your 500 calories. Then you can get your 500 calorie deficit by eating 1562. Not bad.

But honestly some people's bodies do not respond well to big calorie deficits. You might do better with a half pound a week setting (and eating all your exercise calories).

And lastly, yeah, I'm not a "clean" eater either (don't think you have to be) but I do try to add fruits, veggies, protien shakes, fish oil and a multivitamins to my processed foods.

MercenaryNoetic26

One pound a week is very normal and the recommended setting. Nothing to be disappointed about. Women, it takes you a long time to gain your weight. Please be patient with losing it. High expectations result in all the depressing forums. Shoot for realistic goals and you'll have nothing to worry about and great results.

ddiestler

I went and had a test done through a dietician..It's called an indirect calorimeter reading. You fast for 4 hours..in my case I went to bed and went right when I woke up. I breathed into a machine for 10 minutes and it calculated my BMR. So my BMR number was 1250 which the dietician then multiplied it and gave me a BMR of 1500.. However, I still can only create about a 300 calorie deficit with diet alone.

ddiestler

Thanks for all the responses. I do keep my diary open as it keeps me accountable. I know some of my food choices are bad, however, I do and have made better choices. You see McDonalds on there but what you don't see is I used to eat a big mac and large fries.. You see olive garden where I would eat several breadsticks, coke, salad, and fettuccini alfredo.. Now, I eat 1 breadstick, salad with lite dressing on the side and a bowl of soup.

My breakfasts generally consist of a protein shake or kashi whole grain ceral, skim milk and a piece of fruit. My snack is 1/2 cup cottage cheese.. yes, somedays my lunch is a lean cuisine and dinner is meat, potato, and vegetable.

I don't drink soda and consume 8-9 glasses of water a day.

I would hardly say I'm not making positive choices.

I have had nothing but positive experiences on this site and find it beneficial. Thanks to all that respond

heybales

Regarding HIIT vs Steady State cardio.

Very nice articles on comparing the pro's and con's.
I noticed they seemed to have indeed commented on the benefits for the regular person, but forgetting it is the pro with time on their hands.

For those that are in the beginning of a long term life time of exercise, intervals (not all out sprints, but increased efforts), even that blog seems to bear out it would still be useful.

Other studies besides the one he says is debunked still show the benefit for intervals for active or untrained people exercising.
Especially with the fact we all only have so much time, and exercise is fit into a schedule. Our jobs usually don't give us exercise as training.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19088769
High-intensity aerobic interval training increases fat and carbohydrate metabolic capacities in human skeletal muscle.

This study demonstrated that 18 h of repeated high-intensity exercise sessions over 6 weeks (3 d.week-1) is a powerful method to increase whole-body and skeletal muscle capacities to oxidize fat and carbohydrate in previously untrained individuals.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17991697
Similar metabolic adaptations during exercise after low volume sprint interval and traditional endurance training in humans.

Given the markedly lower training volume in the SIT group, these data suggest that high-intensity interval training is a time-efficient strategy to increase skeletal muscle oxidative capacity and induce specific metabolic adaptations during exercise that are comparable to traditional ET.

And why intervals can be almost as useful as weightlifting.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21451146

These findings support the hypothesis that an acute bout of low-volume HIT activates mitochondrial biogenesis through a mechanism involving increased nuclear abundance of PGC-1α.

LabRat529

About the high intensity interval training...

I did read in New Rules of Weight Lifting for Women, that HIIT is not recommended for the obese and/or the new to intense exercise. Those types of people (which include me) would be better off doing mild cardio + lifting until they build up strength and improve fitness.

That advice makes sense to me... I personally would be concerned about my blood pressure/heart if I did interval training. I'd also be concerned about injury.

BUT I've heard it is totally the way to go once you've become a bit more fit.

bellawares

I went and had a test done through a dietician..It's called an indirect calorimeter reading. You fast for 4 hours..in my case I went to bed and went right when I woke up. I breathed into a machine for 10 minutes and it calculated my BMR. So my BMR number was 1250 which the dietician then multiplied it and gave me a BMR of 1500.. However, I still can only create about a 300 calorie deficit with diet alone.

@ddiestler - I've had this test done and believed just like you that I had a slow metabolism according to my "dietitian" :noway: . After several years of believing this and finally getting fed up I ditched the dietitian and found a good personal trainer (one who specializes is sports medicine / rehab. I changed my eating habits to include foods that fuel my body, added strength training and have in the last year lost 76 lbs. I lose an average of 1-2 lbs a week depending on my calories in VS calories out. This is a normal healthy weight loss. I would suggest focusing on your diet / exercise more so than what your indirect calorimeter reading is.