AM I THE ONLY ONE?

DynamicArete

Hi and congrats on losing 25lbs that is an awesome feat!
I'm gonna try and toss out some information for you that may help you out. Ill come at this in two ways.

The first thing is that it is very important to understand, when taking on this kind of healthy project, is that the scale is only a useful tool to a certain point. Muscle weighs more then fat so there can be situations where the scale should be tossed under the bed and the measuring tape should be brought out. Because, and this comes from personal experience, its starts getting really irritating when the scale seems to stop or move in the other direction even if your working your butt off. In this case the measuring will give you a far more truthful answer then the scale as to how you are doing.

The second thing and I cannot stress this enough (again I fell into this trap and successfully killed my motivation for yet another 6 months) is the dreaded Plateau. If you keep doing the same workout ( no matter how hard) over and over again for more then 4 weeks your body will get used to it and adjust accordingly. So you may last longer when you run but your body being very efficient at its energy distribution, will not progress as far as it had as far as losing weight is concerned. The same goes for muscle building. The best thing you can do is keep your body guessing. Plan ahead and blast your body with different types of cardio, weight training, etc. You don't have to revamp your whole workout but changing things up every 3 to 4 weeks will really keep the body guessing. I usually change everything every 4 weeks but i'm beginning to think that throwing in big challenges whether it be for strength or cardio every week that is completely different will really pump things up.

In my opinion your body needs a certain amount of calories and nutrients to survive so for me with my height, age and weight, to go below 1800 calories will leave me lifeless and brain dead (just ask my fiancee it happens sometimes when im knee deep in writing and I forget to eat. oddly enough that does not happen very often anymore thanks to MFP). Knowing that I know what range I have to eat in every day and what range never to go under. So ive my workouts are designed around that ( which all of ours on MFP are then I already know how to plan my workouts. However, if I do the same workouts everyday for months on end it will get to the point where I plateau and despite my eating habits my weight loss will stop progressing even if I do get better at running or stronger or something.

I hope this helps and sorry for writing my finger tips off here haha.

Thank you for your post

Keep kicking butt out there!
Feel free to add me as a friend everyone! The more motivation the better!

psuLemon

I have the same problem. I started a little over 2 months ago. Going to the gym 5 times a week, doing 20-30 minutes cardio and then targeted weight training for each muscle group each time I go. I watch what I eat and have my calorie intake set so I am suppose to loose 2 lbs a week but so far I barely have lost 10 lbs. I drink plenty water etc etc so I really don't understand it.

You are probably over extending your and have too large of a calorie deficit. Do you eat back your exercise calories? Maybe for a month you should try and set your calories to 1 lb per week and eat 50-75% of your exercise calories.

psuLemon

It's completely normal. Generally, your first 10 lbs is water weight. And the closer you get to your goal, the harder it will be. This is why, if you set non weight goals, it will provide you more reassurance. For example, losing XX % body fat, which in reality is a bigger goal than cutting weight. Cutting body fat is what makes you lose dress sizes and become fit. Losing weight is just a part of cutting fat. Also goals like, being able to increase my rep count (for weight lifting) or improve my time running a mile, etc.. are all NSV (non scale victories).

How do you ensure you are losing fat?

A small calorie deficit (20% less than tdee) and heavy weight training.

Sorry I'm still very new to all this... what does tdee mean?

Tdee= total daily energy expended. Its the total amount of calories a person burns throughout the day to include metabolic rate, lifestyle and exercise. So lets say your estimated bmr is 1400 calories, a stay at home mom, and burn 300 calories then your tdee would be

=1400*1.375+300 = 2225.

It means on average you burn 2225 calories. This is where you should cut 20% from. Because too large of a deficit and your body will start to conserve calories since there isnt enough calories to convert to energy.

MummyOfSeven

It seems to me that everyone on this thread has completely missed the point here. I think the original problem was that she's lost 25 lbs (great work!) and is not seeing much of a result in the mirror...

And no, you're not the only one. I feel exactly the same way.

It's taken me over 10 months to lose 32 lb. I look in the mirror and I see the same person that I saw a year ago. I haven't lost many inches and I'm still wearing the same clothes. :sad:

wurgin

It seems to me that everyone on this thread has completely missed the point here. I think the original problem was that she's lost 25 lbs (great work!) and is not seeing much of a result in the mirror...

And no, you're not the only one. I feel exactly the same way.

agreed

I suffer from the same issue - my tummy shape isn't changing yet... and loss has slowed. 20 more lbs and it will show. I just have to stick to it.

MaraDiaz

And add on another that didn't read the OP carefully. :sad:

Sorry OP.

I am just now starting to see a difference in the way my clothing fits, unfortunately. I saw a small difference around the time I hit 210, but before that, none at all. It takes time to show, maybe, but it's nice when it finally does.

crimznrose

I lost my first 25 pretty easily/quickly between November and January. Since then, I've been struggling to keep off the additional 10 lbs I've lost and lose more. I know I'm not gaining weight from fat because my cals or not out of this world and I watch what I eat daily, but the added exercise has definitely let me know I'm on the right track. I'm down two pant sizes and gaining strength and muscles in places that were once goo.

I've lost 35lbs total since the start and while I look in the mirror and don't see a difference in myself, others are constantly saying how different I look and the clothes fitting different don't lie.

sandylion

When you have a lot to loose, unfortunately the first chunk of the weight tends to take a long time before anyone notices. When I first started and was at my heaviest, no one noticed at all that I had lost weight until 30lbs! And then it was like "Have you lost 5lbs? you look a bit slimmer." I wanted to yell at them "NO! I've lost 30! Thanks for noticing all my hard work!" It was so frustrating. My mother lost about 70lbs and she had the exact same experience. As you get farther toward your goal the pounds seem to make a bigger difference though. Try to think of the reasons why you are trying to slim down. Health reasons? Having more energy? Stuff like that, so that you can look at your day and think 'I'm not seeing the changes I want yet, but I am still working toward my goal', and hopefully that will help pull you through.

I also found when I stopped looking at it as a temporary diet and started looking at it as a "This is what I am doing for the rest of my life", it became a bit easier. Am I not going to have pizza for the rest of my life? Absolutely not! So, now, if I want pizza, I get a thin crust with NO EXTRA CHEESE, and make sure I dab off the grease, and i have 2 slices instead of my usual 4 of my thick greasy double cheese double pepperoni. That is a change I can stick with, therefore it made it easier to stick to the plan.

Does that help at all?