Am I too late? Weight plateau and heavy lifting

If you eat below your TDEE you will not gain weight. It's simple math provided that you are accurate with your tracking. Also, cardio DOES NOT make you gain fat. Ever. Maybe you eat more because you're hungrier when you do it or maybe your glycogen stores increase causing a temporary water weight gain but cardio in and of itself contributes to a calorie deficit which leads to weight loss.

The TDEE is what scares me. If I eat even a few hundred calories over 1200, I gain. Yesterday I had close to 1500, I gained 1.6lbs, so today I'm going to go under so I can hopefully balance out to 178 again. I measure everything and log everything even my binges. My daughter was in the hospital on and for the past two months. I struggled to stay at 1200 since I stayed with her (hospital and fast food were my options) so it balanced out to about 1500-1600 calories a day ( I would be up with her 18-20 hours a day)...I gained about 5 lbs in that time. It came off when I came home and reduced to 1200, but 1500-1600 calories isn't a lot, yet the weight came back. So when I think TDEE-20% being 1700 range...I just picture the weight packing on and gaining everything I've lost back.

Will you open your diary?

Do you have medical issues?


To add - a weight gain of a couple of pounds when starting exercise is normal. As mentioned it's water retention in the muscles, not fat. If you keep going it evens out.
It is not the same as bloat.

As I said the scale is not always a reliable measure of progress.

People always seem confused about true weight gain and water weight. The other problem is an obsession with the scale. The scale can be helpful but if you freak every time it goes up you are probably going to have a cow when you see what weights will do the first couple of weeks. The weight gain won't be fat but with your current brain setting you will probably have a hard time emotionally at first. If you can get over it I think you would like the results and eating more. Good luck.

stop being married to the weight on the scale. Weight - once you're healthy - is a crap measurement of fitness.

#1 Eff the scale. Start using calipers and measuring tape
#2 Stop putting so much emphasis on your clothing size. Start making positive goals instead of negative ones like a pants size. For example, have a goal for how much you want to dead lift, doing a pull up, how many push ups, etc.
#3 Try looking up pictures of women who lift and their weight compared to the skinny minis or skinny fat girls out there.. more weight doesn't mean "worse looking". For example I fit in the same pants size I did when I was 15lbs lighter. That's muscle.

Many of your entries are a bit suspect, i.e the pizza, meatloaf, oatmeal. The calorie counts are extremely low.

Also, I would change your macros to get more protein and healthy fats and less carbs. Get away from the lowfat cookies, etc. They aren't any lower in calories, as they usually add more sugar and other carbs to make up for the lack of fat. Fat and protein will keep you feeling more satisfied and you won't be starving as much.
A 30P/30F/40C is a good starting point for most people. Especially if you are going to start lifting, you will need more protein to feed your muscles.

Hi.
I wasn't sure what to make of your post until I really asked myself where I'm at, then what you said made some sense to me. You don't sound frustrated or confused, you sound ... ashamed and afraid.

I was like you post baby. 120lbs soaking wet, not a spec of fat to be found; I could go braless and didn't get a rash from it. I started to attend gym regularly (I worked in one locally) and could put in whatever cardio or strength training I felt like doing in a day. I went up to 135lbs, was tight and ripped, 5'8" outgoing and perky/cheery. I loved myself and my body, I took good care of me, I had dreams and goals, and was working toward them; dating wasn't something I was interested in I believed that until men were over 40 they weren't worth paying attention to, they were fascinated with themselves (like a toddler in the bathtub) and had no clue how to treat women with respect - once they've failed a relationship or two, and owned why, gained some maturity, okay, they might be worth talking to, being friends with, and maybe at some point building a relationship and having children with. That was where I was at. Here the story (mine at least) gets painful. I was raped by someone who'd decided that he could "make" me his by doing so, or punish me for not wanting to surrender my dreams, hopes, goals, and life to "be his girlfriend". It only takes once, and my worst nightmare became my reality. I found out I was pregnant months later, when it became obvious that PTSD wasn't the source of my nausea and vomiting. I'd quit my job and isolated, was on Social Assistance and not able to make ends meet, dreading a life I hadn't wanted that I would now be forced to live. I couldn't believe that some jerk off of a male had done such a thing, worse, because he had connections and a reputation for being abusive and getting away with it, no one who knew about what had happened, would come forward and say anything. My life became a nightmare, and something I had always taken pleasure in taking care of now became part of that nightmare. I went from 135 (healthy, strong and confident) lbs over 10 months to 240lbs of pain and anguish that didn't end with the birthing of a baby that would allow me to have back my genetic integrity and my confidence that my own life WAS really MINE. I had the baby, I was refused an abortion on the grounds that the pregnancy wasn't jeopardizing my physical health or well-being, and the "biological father" who is a child of an RCMP officer, wanted the baby.

The weight gain isn't my problem, and from what I've read, it's not your problem either. If you've already lost weight, then you know your body, like everyone else's IS capable. The issue isn't in what your body can do - we all know bodies do what the brains tell them to. The issue is you're not being honest with yourself about something else...maybe you want to look good but are afraid to, afraid of that same kind of unwanted attention that our society teaches men and women that women "should" want and work for, and that men are "entitled" to have at our expense. I have to work harder now at the mindset behind losing the weight than I do at actually losing. I've lost 10lbs in a week only to put it back on in a one day binge; I am afraid to have people see me as attractive. So I struggle with keeping even 1lb off, my weight loss has been more of a "rape" loss. I don't know how to undo what "men" have forced into my life despite my choices. I'm safer in my weight than out of it, where more people will look, more ppl will envy, more ppl will lust, fewer ppl will take responsibility for their own actions and thoughts, and fewer ppl will choose to respect something they see as a normal/necessary part of human evolution. I can't change the thinking of the ppl around me, so how do I protect what I love from assault tactics designed to leave me harmed and therefore easier to re-attack? No matter how strong or in shape I was, it wasn't enough for someone with better training, and that is simply a fact no matter who we are - there is always someone bigger, stronger, tougher, more skilled and meaner and "willing" to be that way.

I have learned, and my weight loss is starting to show it, to trust only those people who actively intervene in situations where someone else is being pressured, with the intent to distract the person creating the issue. I've surrounded myself with people who speak their minds, don't hold grudges, aren't afraid to be wrong nor to learn for their own sakes so that they can be part of an egalitarian and compassionate world. I have learned that these people are "safe" to be around and spend time with, to invest resources in as friends; they are "being" the change they want to see in the world, and along side these people, I have been having more success at rebuilding my sense of safety and self without fear; this is what is helping me to lose my weight.

Who's in your corner? If you don't feel safe, have no sense of safety, losing weight may be more of a threat to your well-being than what you are wiling to admit. Where's your head at when you think about "the you, that you are working to be"? Are you feeing safe and confident? Do you have supports that are about making sure that your achievements are about you and not about competition?

Next

Here's what I know from being in the gym and from tracking my own ups and downs. When I am making attempts to lose weight my first efforts didn't require that I used extra weights (free weights or any others) because my body weight itself acted as the weights, all I had to do was make sure that (not including warm-ups) I did at least half an hour of *something cardio / day. My body weight was twice what it had been - I was essentially working with 120lbs of extra weights every day @ the weight of 240lbs, post baby. That was all it took to get me started, making sure to do 1/2 of something every day, not including warm-up time. To be very honest, when I started, warm up times were the daily workout, it took effort to get the fat to move out of the way so that I could do the stretches at the range they had been comfortable at before I put on the weight. After that, I found that I plateaued at a certain weight, so I began doing cardio on top of the stretching...then added ankle and wrist weights. Then my brain gets the better of me, because I start to notice that I look similar in the mirror to what I did pre-assault. Then of course the weight goes back on.

Having gym experience, I had watched many clients give themselves an "F" at this point, and come back in months later, with most of the previous weight back on; there were few who didn't. One I had been friends with told me that the routine had to change, weights had to be added to the efforts, the body mass that used to be there to act as strength in the midst of cardio, simply wasn't there any more. Some diet changes needed to be made; with increased efforts there had been an increase in a "need" for something that wasn't being included. Tracking food, efforts and sleep became necessary; snacking had become a problem. More protein was added, and when enough protein couldn't be gained naturally through dietary intake, protein shakes were added as well, the friend/client would come in 1/2 hour before the workout, have a (protein powder, bananas, strawberries and blueberries, I made it for him every day) we'd chat about everything, then the physical workout would begin. Over a period of a year we tracked that, every 10lbs of weight lost, this client would have to up the amount in free weights used during cardio, then moved to actual strength training sessions where the increase was more gradual, an added 15 - 20 extra pounds of weight for every 5 lbs lost, increased protein, decreased carbs, increased water, decreased added sugars, and increased healthy fats. The weight practically fell off. I have always remembered that person and their efforts; because when I started trying to lose the weight, this has been what I experimented with, and confirmed / learned through tracking my food and efforts. It was never a problem for me at my 120 when I loved my body and believed that what happened to me was about my choices, it's been a harder road to get back to that mentality - so be compassionate, but brutally honest. On the days when you do cardio / strength, how much protein have you had to eat before you do the work? How much protein overall during the day? Are you finding that snacking becomes an issue on days when protein intake didn't occur prior to efforts or consistently throughout the day? Were the workouts harder because you had sugar an hour before you started? Do you need to stick to proteins in the morning, veggies in the afternoon, and proteins and treats s "supper" items? Do you gain eight at night when you sleep by eating after 7 p.m.? 8 p.m.? What does your body have to say about what your intake cut-off time is?

The experiment for you. Research how much effort your body has to expend to digest protein, versus carbs versus sugars, and what your body does with them once broken down, how you react to them in your system and what it takes for you to feel satisfied (not stuffed, or full, but just,...not hungry...a.k.a. you "could" eat, but you "choose" not to quite yet.) Understanding the basics of how our bodies work is necessary in helping you succeed. Play with your food intakes and decide for yourself, by keeping track, which days are harder to get your workouts done on and which days you seem to be ready to go; pay attention to what you've eaten, when you made the efforts, is there a pattern forming that may become an effort / dietary rut? Your brain craves sugars your body craves carbs, both need proteins and oils, but neither one will ask for those, they aren't instant highs they're long term burns requiring continued effort to break down and use. Learn to give your self your treats, when you've gone above and beyond, not before, and plan for those days, don't just "will this be the day" think it. Example...Friday I want those cocktails after work, and I want a five lbs loss to still have been achieved on Saturday weight- in, which means to be safe (given what I lose recently during sleep) I need to have lost an extra Xmany lbs by Friday; plan it out, and keep your goal. If you don't meet all the requirements, reward yourself with what you can, even if it's only one cocktail instead of three - your brain keeps track, like numbers in a ledger and if it rebels, you're in trouble. If you attempt to deprive yourself, your body and brain will work against your will to "force" you to do what they want - they will rebel, like any teenage child, to being over-controlled. Don't be your own Helicopter Fascist.

How much weight have you lost and have you tried to find ways to add that "lost strength training weight" by adding free or wrist weights to your efforts? What happens when you do? Don't track over a two day period, your first efforts will be gentler to you emotionally when you span the tracking and goals for a month at a time. Also, weigh yourself in the morning before you do anything else, then weigh yourself in the evenings - you'll begin to notice different things about how much weight you lose while sleeping depending on what you've eaten, and what your routine was like...Keep Tracking / DON'T JUDGE...Your first efforts here aren't about success, they're about learning to listen to what your body needs, learning to listen to what your brain needs, and learning to work with both of them so that they are motivated AND APPRECIATED in helping you to succeed; it's no good doing P90X for three months straight and looking all that at yourself when a month later you're back up to an even greater weight because you don't love yourself enough to have changed out of love for yourself - self-sabotage, deprive and "force" yourself, slave like mentality is not what loving yourself and choosing to make changes is about, that's about punishing yourself for something that you've refused to be honest with yourself about that may need some compassion before you can resolve it. What you're looking for is to see what makes a difference, what helps, and what doesn't, when, how much or little it takes, and to work with yourself holistically rather than tyrannically...

Judging these first efforts is like telling a child they'll never succeed in life every time they color you a picture or tell you they love you...That's the damage your self judgements will do to your efforts - Don't Do That To Yourself! It's Intra-personally Abusive. You're building up your emotional and psychological reserves as well as efficacy in self-compassion and success in self-awareness (key needs to identity and management) and body.

When you've played with your foods, intake amounts, sleep / rest and exercise needs and are confident that you have built up a loving relationship with your own body and mind and self, then you can begin to make small changes and see even huge successes in reaching your goals. That person I talked about who left they gym, then came back, whose weight just fell off - that's what they had taken three months of time to focus on.

As you lose, if you want to keep losing, you will learn from tracking that you will have to add handheld or wrist weights to your work out to get the same results that you had when you were physically heavier, or you will plateau (which means that food intake + efforts during 24hour period = no change / balanced)...You now know how to maintain your weight like a movie star at XXX lbs for you. I wonder what actors and actresses do to keep themselves in good spirits when managing their weight for flicks where they have to add or lose weight and play the roles of badguys...what a double whammy.

What you need to lose weight is??? I know you know this part -> Food Intake + Effort = Deficit Calorically. When you lose physical weight, you are no longer working the muscle at the range you had been (the weights are not present and getting used) in asking your body to eat the reserves in order to help you shape up. You have decided essentially to do the workout, but not to use the free weights / put in the same efforts this time...Voila...No change in weight loss.

Before you eat in the morning, get up early, go for a quick walk with some extra weights in hand or on ankle, this tells your body you want it to eat the excess, before you're wiling to put more in...You'll have learned how much protein etcetera per meal you need / snacks and all - to keep your body eating body fat, and using what you put in to further those efforts rather than hinder them. If your body can eat what you readily provide, it won't touch the stores you've got - it's looking out for you so the extra goodies will stick around unless you make it known that now is the time to use them. IF that's all you do, make sure that for every 5lbs you lose, you increase 5lbs in free weights. This is a challenge because adding 5 lbs to one hand and not another stresses your muscles, asking your body to keep up, to compensate, to eat the excess stores to help lose the excess, while asking your brain to find an entertaining way to help you keep hold of that extra stress physically; how can we play with the extra 5lbs while we walk, without getting bored and setting it down? Track things and see how it goes.

Sweat IS fat crying, AND your brain selfie-tripping, AND your body smiling as it plays hard ^^.

Muscle and added bone mass do weigh more than fat, so as you increase the weights don't fret over a small plateau, it's your body adding that new muscle permanently just before it kicks in and starts using that new muscle gained to lose more fat with. I think you and I both were likely below our fat ratio and petite in build to boot, so *shrug - track things for yourself, play with the (lost body weight = increased strength training efforts) and protein intake before strength or cardio in the afternoons, and quick heart rate increase before breakfast thing.

The only thing holding you back, really, is you (and that is painful to have to admit, emotionally, so remember to be painfully honest, and to be gratefully compassionate to that inner child who is coloring you a new picture of you). So, if you choose not to lose weight, ask yourself why you feel safer without a healthier body? Is it time to find new friends and restrictions on certain family members and their choices to express themselves or meet their needs in ways that hurt??

Congratulations on the success you've seen so far, remember to celebrate in ways that entrench your healthier choices AND your why (I love myself, and I don't need that extra weight anymore), rather than in ways that exploit the old habits (*drools, at the seven layers of icing and crusted chocolate, after the five helpings of Lasagna Florentine, and the way it all makes you feel so full - like an internal hug - while convincing yourself that it's all good, cause you didn't eat anything else today until now, and you're committed to doing three hours of exercise in a row tomorrow...lol). I wish you all the best, and hope that in your efforts, you find that place in you where you need to heal, and that it happens joyfully.



-> In case of emergency when you need one in future -> (( ))

I think the important thing to remember is that muscle is denser than fat, so a pound of muscle takes up less space than a pound of fat. In this respect the scale isn't always the most useful measurement as you may gain on the scale or just maintain, but your body could look very different due to lifting weights. Inch measurements can be more useful once you have reached a a lower weight like yours than the scale. I don't do really heavy lifting but I do strength training with dumbells and bodyweight exercises a couple of times a week. Sometimes the scale doesn't move or goes up but I have lost inches and can see the difference in my body as my muscles develop.

There are some interesting threads on here about women who lift heavy and their before and after photos. In almost every case the woman started eating at maintenance or above, lifted heavy and the scale went up but their bodies got lean, not fat. If you build and tone muscle and you look how you want, does it matter so much what the scale says?

I don't see fruits or vegetables. Most fresh vegies are really low in calories depending on how they are prepared. You can eat larger volumes of vegies for way less calories.

If you eat below your TDEE you will not gain weight. It's simple math provided that you are accurate with your tracking. Also, cardio DOES NOT make you gain fat. Ever. Maybe you eat more because you're hungrier when you do it or maybe your glycogen stores increase causing a temporary water weight gain but cardio in and of itself contributes to a calorie deficit which leads to weight loss.

The TDEE is what scares me. If I eat even a few hundred calories over 1200, I gain. Yesterday I had close to 1500, I gained 1.6lbs, so today I'm going to go under so I can hopefully balance out to 178 again. I measure everything and log everything even my binges. My daughter was in the hospital on and for the past two months. I struggled to stay at 1200 since I stayed with her (hospital and fast food were my options) so it balanced out to about 1500-1600 calories a day ( I would be up with her 18-20 hours a day)...I gained about 5 lbs in that time. It came off when I came home and reduced to 1200, but 1500-1600 calories isn't a lot, yet the weight came back. So when I think TDEE-20% being 1700 range...I just picture the weight packing on and gaining everything I've lost back.

My TDEE scared me, too. I was exactly where you were, doing the exact same thing, so I'm not going to say you messed up your metabolism, but you may be experiencing some of the same hormonal issues I had on a VLCD. Once I got over this fear and started resistance training and increased my calories, it was like my body finally figured out I was going to feed it and strengthen it, and I dropped almost 10% body fat in six months and have been maintaining on 2600/day. Check out this thread:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/931670-bmr-and-tdee-explained-for-those-needing-a-guide

Start now, and best of luck!

Thank you everyone for replying. I know you are all correct about lifting. I know I need to hide the scale and measure. I've read quite a bit before posting, I just needed some reaffirmation, a final push so to speak. So I did. I had my first Strongifts workout, if you can call it that. I felt like a sack of fat because I couldn't even start at the bare minimum given on the app of 45lbs squats, 45lbs bench, 65 rows. It was more like 40lbs squats, 45 bench, and then 20lbs rows. I know what you are thinking about the 20. I did start with 45, but my husband said my form was awful (he lifts regularly), so he dropped it to 20 so I could do it correctly. The move still felt awkward. I'm sore. I felt like Gumby when I was done, but I finished so I'll give myself that. My next question is....when can I start increasing calories? Should I do it immediately (that kind of freaks me out), gradually, or give it a month? Do you just say...okay I lifted today so I'm going to eat TDEE-20%. Do I still eat TDEE-20% on my off days. Since I'm not weighing(that is going to be a heck of a withdrawal), how can I tell if I'm eating too many or too little calories? Second question. My husband said I use my right arm strength more to compensate for a weaker left arm. So he had to stop me several times to make sure the bar was even. Should I do something on the side to strengthen my left arm so I do not continue to do that? They are the same size, but I guess the left is weaker.

You started thats all that matters. Dropping weight to get form is exactly what you should do. It will come.

When to increase calories? I'd start now, even if by 100 a week. Change the macros too.
TDEE is meant to be the same everyday, its your activity averaged out over the week. You selected 1-3 days per week for activity which is good.

You can't tell yet if you are eating too much or too little. The scale won't tell you either, not over a course of a day or two or even a week or two, especially at the beginning. You have to trust the process and wait. That's why I stress the importance of accuracy of logging and patience. The photos and measurements should tell you at the end of a few weeks. The scale will too eventually, but like I said, my weight went up and stayed there for an entire month at the same weight and changed all over my body for the better. Only after 4 weeks did the scale start to move.

The left side vs right - not sure. We all have a stronger and weaker side. I wouldn't worry unless it is quite significant. Its good he is keeping an eye on it, I'd just be aware and try to correct the compensation.

Thanks for clarifying the recipes. They actually sound good. I may have to check out that site myself. You have lost 80 lbs, so you are definitely doing things right.
After losing 50 lbs, I plateaued for awhile, but actually I was just eating at my new maintenance level. I didn't stress too much about it, as I figured my body could use a diet break, but when I started trying to lose again, I found it very difficult to do so. I didn't want to lower my cals too much more, and couldn't increase my exercise, so I tried Intermittent Fasting/5:2. I was able to finally break thru the plateau and lose another 5 lbs over a couple of months. You might want to do some research on it and see if it is something that might help you as well.
Best wishes!