Help!

md804
md804 Posts: 9 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi

I'm new here (hello!) and was hoping someone could give me a bit of advice. I've recently changed to a wheat and dairy free diet as about a year ago I started suffering from terrible cystic adult acne. I tried all sorts of things like the pill (which made me put on over two stone and caused swelling in my legs), and antibiotics, but nothing worked until I gave up wheat and dairy. I feel much better since. and my skin has cleared up massively. Yay!

Anyhoo, as a result of eating much healthier I've lost 16 pounds in the last five weeks, and have been able to return to the hardcore boxing workouts I enjoyed in my twenties.

The problem I now have is that my weight loss has stalled, and I'm getting rather tired all the time. My job is completely sedentary, so any exercise I get is from my workouts which I really enjoy. I think I'm most likely not eating enough, but am not sure if this is the case. Is it? And also, what else does anyone think I should add to my diet?

I've made my diary public, but am generally eating between 1000 to 1600 calories a day. I do around 4 boxing workouts a week, maybe some Zumba too. I eat a lot of my calories through fruit and vegetable smoothies and wondered if this could be causing the stall?

Any help would be much appreciated!

Replies

  • pinkminy
    pinkminy Posts: 286
    Hi I log in every day , I am happy to be a support friend :)
  • md804
    md804 Posts: 9 Member
    Hi

    Thank you! Me too! I've tried so many crash/bad diets over the years and my health and fitness has suffered terribly as a result. I want to get it right this time!
  • nxd10
    nxd10 Posts: 4,570 Member
    You sound like the perfect candidate to have MFP calculate your calories for you, set yourself at sedentary, log your boxing worksouts, and eat back those calories. That sounds like a good start to see if you're eating too little.

    Second, with that very fast weight loss (congrats!) I'm going to guess that 80 or 90% of it is water. I doubt you could lose that much fat that fast and typically weight loss starts out as mostly water (which is why it's fast) and then muscle and then increasingly fat. It slows, but it will keep going if you keep it up.

    Your body has had a big adjustment and I'd stick with that for a while. Obviously a lot of things were messed up. You're stabilizing. I bet it's exhausted partly from that. Let your body do it's job. Eat healthy and enough. Enjoy your workouts. Give it two months.
  • rjmudlax13
    rjmudlax13 Posts: 900 Member
    "Hardcore Boxing workout" screams to me HUGE calorie burn! Therefore, you most likely are creating a very big calorie deficit if you are only eating 1000 - 1600 cals a day. This can cause problems such as fatigue and a metabolic slow down. Figure out your estimated BMR and TDEE (Google them). When figuring out your TDEE set the activity level to moderate (at least!). This is your ESTIMATED (all caps because reality can be much different) maintenance calorie number. This is the most (in theory) you can eat without gaining weight. Most people recommend that you eat 20% less than your maintenance to lose weight, but you need to tailor it to your goals and lifestyle.

    Also, it looks like you do not eat any complex carbohydrates. I know you said you don't eat wheat, but you can still eat grains such as rice, quinoa, oats, etc. Complex carbs fill you up and provide sustained energy for your hardcore workouts. Your protein looks good and you eat plenty of fruits and veges. Also, don't be afraid to add some fats. Nuts, avocados, hummus, peanut butter are all great sources of healthy fats.
  • md804
    md804 Posts: 9 Member
    You sound like the perfect candidate to have MFP calculate your calories for you, set yourself at sedentary, log your boxing worksouts, and eat back those calories. That sounds like a good start to see if you're eating too little.

    Second, with that very fast weight loss (congrats!) I'm going to guess that 80 or 90% of it is water. I doubt you could lose that much fat that fast and typically weight loss starts out as mostly water (which is why it's fast) and then muscle and then increasingly fat. It slows, but it will keep going if you keep it up.

    Your body has had a big adjustment and I'd stick with that for a while. Obviously a lot of things were messed up. You're stabilizing. I bet it's exhausted partly from that. Let your body do it's job. Eat healthy and enough. Enjoy your workouts. Give it two months.

    Hi, thanks so much for this advice, I've done what you suggested and it looks like I've been under eating by quite a bit on my exercise days. To be honest, I did feel it a bit when I was working out last night; I felt faint and a bit sick, so I'm going to eat much more on those days.

    I'm definitely finding it harder to make up calories without bread/potatoes, but I just have to keep telling myself this is a long term thing and remind myself of how ill those products made me, which was pretty ill.

    Looks like I'm getting sensible in my thirties!

    Thanks again!
  • krissy_krossy
    krissy_krossy Posts: 307 Member
    You sound like the perfect candidate to have MFP calculate your calories for you, set yourself at sedentary, log your boxing worksouts, and eat back those calories. That sounds like a good start to see if you're eating too little.

    Second, with that very fast weight loss (congrats!) I'm going to guess that 80 or 90% of it is water. I doubt you could lose that much fat that fast and typically weight loss starts out as mostly water (which is why it's fast) and then muscle and then increasingly fat. It slows, but it will keep going if you keep it up.

    Your body has had a big adjustment and I'd stick with that for a while. Obviously a lot of things were messed up. You're stabilizing. I bet it's exhausted partly from that. Let your body do it's job. Eat healthy and enough. Enjoy your workouts. Give it two months.

    Hi, thanks so much for this advice, I've done what you suggested and it looks like I've been under eating by quite a bit on my exercise days. To be honest, I did feel it a bit when I was working out last night; I felt faint and a bit sick, so I'm going to eat much more on those days.

    I'm definitely finding it harder to make up calories without bread/potatoes, but I just have to keep telling myself this is a long term thing and remind myself of how ill those products made me, which was pretty ill.

    Looks like I'm getting sensible in my thirties!

    Thanks again!

    Things like nuts, avocados, and cheese are calorie dense so if you add some in you can up your calories without feeling really stuffed. Also cooking with oil (I use olive oil) adds calories easily.
  • md804
    md804 Posts: 9 Member
    "Hardcore Boxing workout" screams to me HUGE calorie burn! Therefore, you most likely are creating a very big calorie deficit if you are only eating 1000 - 1600 cals a day. This can cause problems such as fatigue and a metabolic slow down. Figure out your estimated BMR and TDEE (Google them). When figuring out your TDEE set the activity level to moderate (at least!). This is your ESTIMATED (all caps because reality can be much different) maintenance calorie number. This is the most (in theory) you can eat without gaining weight. Most people recommend that you eat 20% less than your maintenance to lose weight, but you need to tailor it to your goals and lifestyle.

    Also, it looks like you do not eat any complex carbohydrates. I know you said you don't eat wheat, but you can still eat grains such as rice, quinoa, oats, etc. Complex carbs fill you up and provide sustained energy for your hardcore workouts. Your protein looks good and you eat plenty of fruits and veges. Also, don't be afraid to add some fats. Nuts, avocados, hummus, peanut butter are all great sources of healthy fats.

    I've just done the estimated BMR and TDEE and I'm really eating too little. Can you believe I forgot about grains? What a dope I am! I love me some brown rice, so I think I'll start adding that and avocados. I'm allergic to nuts (I'm sorry if I sound like such a nightmare!), so avocados it is!

    Thanks so much!
  • md804
    md804 Posts: 9 Member
    You sound like the perfect candidate to have MFP calculate your calories for you, set yourself at sedentary, log your boxing worksouts, and eat back those calories. That sounds like a good start to see if you're eating too little.

    Second, with that very fast weight loss (congrats!) I'm going to guess that 80 or 90% of it is water. I doubt you could lose that much fat that fast and typically weight loss starts out as mostly water (which is why it's fast) and then muscle and then increasingly fat. It slows, but it will keep going if you keep it up.

    Your body has had a big adjustment and I'd stick with that for a while. Obviously a lot of things were messed up. You're stabilizing. I bet it's exhausted partly from that. Let your body do it's job. Eat healthy and enough. Enjoy your workouts. Give it two months.

    Hi, thanks so much for this advice, I've done what you suggested and it looks like I've been under eating by quite a bit on my exercise days. To be honest, I did feel it a bit when I was working out last night; I felt faint and a bit sick, so I'm going to eat much more on those days.

    I'm definitely finding it harder to make up calories without bread/potatoes, but I just have to keep telling myself this is a long term thing and remind myself of how ill those products made me, which was pretty ill.

    Looks like I'm getting sensible in my thirties!

    Thanks again!

    Things like nuts, avocados, and cheese are calorie dense so if you add some in you can up your calories without feeling really stuffed. Also cooking with oil (I use olive oil) adds calories easily.

    Thanks for this, avocados are delicious, so I'm going to tuck into some of them!
  • nxd10
    nxd10 Posts: 4,570 Member
    Milk and ice cream have lots of calories. NUTS!

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