No progress.... EVER! Frustration!

TexasTroy

I was listening to a Jillian Michaels podcast where she talks about people trying to lose "vanity pounds", ie your body isn't overweight and therefor wanting to lose weight. She talked about how it's a totally different ballgame to someone who is trying to lose 50 or 100 pounds, because your body is healthy at the weight that it is and will do anything to keep it that way. She had callers who had the exact same problem as you, that they were incredibly fit, ate very clean and restricted calories and couldn't lose any weight.

Apparently anything over a 1,000 calorie deficit (750 is ideal) is far too large of a deficit if you're not overweight, and your body will slow it's metabolism down, going into starvation mode to resist losing what your body views as necessary weight. Even if you are eating 1600 cals, if you're burning 3,000 a day then you might not lose any weight, it might cannibalize your muscle to reserve the fat.

If you can afford it, maybe buy a fitbit or a body bug to accurately measure your bmr, and then you can determine what your true deficit is. Otherwise, if you've been going at it since March (well done) then maybe its worth experimenting around with changing your macros (ie proportion of carbs, protein and fat) and make sure that you are changing your workout routine every few weeks.

Hope it helps

^^ likes this.

atxdee

HANG IN THERE!!

magj0y

I suggest switching up your exercise routine, maybe heavier lifting.

If you can do swimming where you are, I -highly- suggest doing that.

RKAY89

I was a vegetarian for 6 years and I would never have eaten as low as 1000 cals! Maybe we just have to agree to disagree.. but about a month ago I had been on a 1200 cal diet for about 3 weeks, I went out for my run as usual in the morning of the last day of this "diet" and I literally nearly FAINTED, actual fainted. I had to stagger back to my house and nearly threw up.. I ate some food and felt better.. it was then that I was sure that eating that low is just plain dangerous. Personally, I could not and would not want to put myself through a 1200 calorie diet even if it wasn't dangerous.. I mean don't get me wrong, I push it to the max and work my *kitten* off in exercise and eating, but I don't want to feel pain because I'm so hungry.. that ain't any kind of life for anyone.. a diet isn't for the weekend, it isn't for a month - it's for life.. that's why people tend to yoyo diet, they go too extreme and eat 1200 cals of rabbit food per day and wonder why they want to kill themselves after a week, then they go back to binge eating.. you need to find a "diet"/lifestyle that makes you happy as well as does what you need it to do... that's my opinion anyway..

Someone else said to me about food intolerances so I might go get that checked out, although I don't feel that I have any.. like I don't feel sick or anything after eating anything...

Gunna push it real hard tomorrow morning on the bike!

RKAY89

P.S. what does calorie deficit mean? In simple terms? Lol

zyxst

A calorie deficit is eating less than you burn.

deniseearheart

well I just lost about 10 pounds in the last week from stress and it is making me sad cause I already see flab :-( time for sit ups and push ups and whatever else I can do!

RKAY89

I was listening to a Jillian Michaels podcast where she talks about people trying to lose "vanity pounds", ie your body isn't overweight and therefor wanting to lose weight. She talked about how it's a totally different ballgame to someone who is trying to lose 50 or 100 pounds, because your body is healthy at the weight that it is and will do anything to keep it that way. She had callers who had the exact same problem as you, that they were incredibly fit, ate very clean and restricted calories and couldn't lose any weight.

Apparently anything over a 1,000 calorie deficit (750 is ideal) is far too large of a deficit if you're not overweight, and your body will slow it's metabolism down, going into starvation mode to resist losing what your body views as necessary weight. Even if you are eating 1600 cals, if you're burning 3,000 a day then you might not lose any weight, it might cannibalize your muscle to reserve the fat.

If you can afford it, maybe buy a fitbit or a body bug to accurately measure your bmr, and then you can determine what your true deficit is. Otherwise, if you've been going at it since March (well done) then maybe its worth experimenting around with changing your macros (ie proportion of carbs, protein and fat) and make sure that you are changing your workout routine every few weeks.

Hope it helps

^^ likes this.

So does that mean I need to eat 750 cals less than I burn in a day? So my BMR is roughly 1400, I burn about 200 on top of that = 1600.. so I'm only supposed to eat 850 cals per day?!?!?!? Whaaa?? Surely I'm getting the wrong end of the stick here?

runlaugheatpie

it's not only about food. again you could be overtraining - I had a plateau for 2.5 years because of that.

If you only focus on food then yeah you may be frustrated.