Am I helping my plateau?

taylorfriedchicken

So today I feel like crap. I did pretty well except I ate some chocolate (and it was a lot for someone who wasn't really eating any before). Also, I have no exercised yet but I always log in what I will do for the day so I knew how many exercise calories I would have. Feeling like crap and taking your advice I actually went over not just my regular calories but my exercise calories as well. Approx. 200 calories over.

I hope this is okay and doesn't completely screw my whole plan up!

taylorfriedchicken

I also forgot to mention that you should eat at LEAST 50% of your exercise calories. I find it really hard to do, but defintiely notice bigger weight loss when i eat GOOD calories to consume my exercise cals.
I dont mean this the way it is going to sound, so please dont take offense. But 20 minutes of cardio should be your warm-up if you want to lose weight. In my experience, the more physically fit I become, the harder it is for me to get my heart rate up into the target "fat burning" range. Now that I have been consistantly working out at LEAST 5 days a week, it takes me quite of bit of effort to get into my target range. It isnt necessarily the number of minutes you exercise, but the intensity of the workout. I could spend an hour doing a high intensity cardio DVD and burn 600+ calories...or I could do a strength-training DVD for 60 minutes and "only" burn 300 cals.The second DVD builds muscle, which will help me burn fat faster in the future, but the actual 60 minutes spent lifting those weights doesnt burn the same number of calories for my 60 minute cardio DVD.
So its not the number of minutes...its the intensity. Get your heart rate up and keep it up as long as your comfortable.
In my opinion, this close to your goal, you are going to need ot make some changes before youll see changes on the scale.

Thank you for this advice, I have thought about it before. And to be completely honest, my heart rate is always in the fat burning zone if not an even higher zone by my 2nd minute into cardio. I do about level 8 on elliptical (but go back and forth between 6-10) and for bicycling I tend to stay on 6 for the most part but pump it up to 10 during different songs and stuff. I know I am working intensely (people stare at me at my machine hahaha) because sometimes I tend to go back and forth with intensities during choruses of songs or even between different songs.

So, getting back to my 20 min cardio a day thing that me make it more clear by giving you guys an example of my schedule (in the past month and a half because it has sort of changed now)

Mondays: gym by 7:00am (20-30 min cardio & 15 min ab work)
Tuesdays: I had an improv class that was an aerobic workout so I counted that as about 400 calories burned for 90 min
Wednesdays: (same as mondays)
Thursdays: swimming (about 25 min moderate) and sometimes 30 min cardio in gym
Fridays: hip hop dance class for about 180 minutes which burns about 500 calories for me if not more.
Saturdays: break
Sundays: break


Sometimes this workout schedule would change depending on my mood including sundays and saturdays when I felt extra lazy and needed to get my butt to the gym.

Again, with this schedule I ate about 800 calories and lost 20 lbs in a month.

Now that I am/was consuming 1200 I have been doing about 40-60 min cardio at the gym per day and go 6 to 7 days a week.

I honestly don't know where I stand and I feel like I just need a new plan of a workout schedule and dietary schedule.

If anyone has any great advice that would be greatly appreciated since I usually am okay with scheduling but my latest plateau has me confused.

taylorfriedchicken

UPDATE:

So, since this past saturday, I have been home and while it has been hard to exercise everyday, eating has not been terrible. I stayed with my diet (and ate all my calories and then some) but the scale is telling me other wise: it is slowly going up. I've been weighing myself everyday just to see how each day affects me from food to activity and I just keep gaining about .4 pounds a day.


While this originally got me down, I finally went shopping for a new pair of jeans (well, an in between for now since all my jeans are too big on me) and.... I am a size 8!!! This is coming from a girl who before starting MFP was a size 13/14 and sometimes 11/12. So, I guess it's true when people say the scale doesn't matter when you notice the inches and I would have to agree.


HOWEVER, it would be nice to see the scale move down and actually see numerical progress! hmmmm.

While I am extremely happy with my success, I still am having issues with my program.

Thanks everyone for the support!

lisawest

While this originally got me down, I finally went shopping for a new pair of jeans (well, an in between for now since all my jeans are too big on me) and.... I am a size 8!!! This is coming from a girl who before starting MFP was a size 13/14 and sometimes 11/12. So, I guess it's true when people say the scale doesn't matter when you notice the inches and I would have to agree.

Great job!!! I know the numbers aren't showing it yet, but size 8!!!!:noway: :smokin: Great job!