Please help me with my next steps
kristendeyell
Posts: 80 Member
I’ve been a member of this group for a while and searched around for a bit when I first joined MFP. I recently asked a question on the forums, but nobody seemed to be able to help me. Someone pointed me in your direction. I’m hoping I’m following the rules posting this, if I’m not please feel free to delete with my apologies. Thanks so much!
So it's taken me awhile, 2 1/2 years be down 30 pounds. I'm pretty excited about the loss, but I still have about 5 pounds to go. These pounds seem to be stuck to me like glue! I'm pretty close to maintenance, there's a bit of tummy and love handle fat that needs to go first but once that's gone what I'd like to look into is getting more definition on my abs and maybe a bit more muscle on my arms.
My food diary is open and this is what I have it set to. I try to not eat back my calories, but the past few weeks have been dicey. Especially today because I’ve come down with some sort of stomach flu that’s prevented me from really eating on my regular schedule today.
In the upcoming weeks I will be adding at least an extra hour of jogging or bike riding (My Chocolate lab gets exercise through both of these)
I'm not willing to cut out any of my cardio classes or my martial arts classes. I love doing them and don't want to stop.
I am more than willing to fix my diet if that's what it takes and add on to my current exercise plan. I have been a bit sloppy with my eating the past few weeks.
Any suggestions would be appreciated. Here's what I look like now. Please don't mind the bruises, they're from martial arts.
Provide your stats (height/weight/age/bodyfat% if you know it/etc)
Height: 5’7”
Weight: 134
Age: 31
Body Fat: I have no clue!
What's your current gross intake of calories, on average? 1600
What's your current average intake of protein, carbs, and fats, in grams? (GRAMS, not percent!)
Protein: 120g
Carbs: 160g
Fat: 53g
Do you use a food scale and measure everything? Yes most often
Do you track all of your intake, daily? (Everything?) No, Guilty as charged I am a kitchen grazer when I get home from work. I sample dinner, and multiple other items in my kitchen. It’s a problem I’m currently trying to work on.
Do you take cheat days or days off? No, however if I’m at a friend’s house for dinner I find it difficult to track so I just do my best. A couple of weeks ago I spent a day training at an MMA seminar and found it impossible to track accurately.
How much weight have you lost so far and over what time period? I have lost 30 pounds in roughly 2.5 years.
Describe your activity (exercise and non exercise) and did you change that activity withing the last couple of months?
I am a teacher so I’m up and about all day long.
Currently my weekly exercise looks like this....
Sunday - Rest day (Maybe a 5k jog)
Monday - 50 minutes of Warrior Kickboxing (MMA conditioning at the end)
Tuesday - Either a 30 minute bike ride, walk or jog
Wednesday- 50 minutes of Warrior Fitness (this is high intensity interval training, which includes strength training)
Thursday- 2 hours of Martial arts
Friday - 50 Minutes of Warrior Fitness
Saturday - 60 minutes of Warrior Kickboxing and 60 minute hike in the conservation area
Are you breastfeeding? No
Do you have thyroid issues/risks or PCOS? Not that I know of!
Thanks for the help I appreciate it.
So it's taken me awhile, 2 1/2 years be down 30 pounds. I'm pretty excited about the loss, but I still have about 5 pounds to go. These pounds seem to be stuck to me like glue! I'm pretty close to maintenance, there's a bit of tummy and love handle fat that needs to go first but once that's gone what I'd like to look into is getting more definition on my abs and maybe a bit more muscle on my arms.
My food diary is open and this is what I have it set to. I try to not eat back my calories, but the past few weeks have been dicey. Especially today because I’ve come down with some sort of stomach flu that’s prevented me from really eating on my regular schedule today.
In the upcoming weeks I will be adding at least an extra hour of jogging or bike riding (My Chocolate lab gets exercise through both of these)
I'm not willing to cut out any of my cardio classes or my martial arts classes. I love doing them and don't want to stop.
I am more than willing to fix my diet if that's what it takes and add on to my current exercise plan. I have been a bit sloppy with my eating the past few weeks.
Any suggestions would be appreciated. Here's what I look like now. Please don't mind the bruises, they're from martial arts.
Provide your stats (height/weight/age/bodyfat% if you know it/etc)
Height: 5’7”
Weight: 134
Age: 31
Body Fat: I have no clue!
What's your current gross intake of calories, on average? 1600
What's your current average intake of protein, carbs, and fats, in grams? (GRAMS, not percent!)
Protein: 120g
Carbs: 160g
Fat: 53g
Do you use a food scale and measure everything? Yes most often
Do you track all of your intake, daily? (Everything?) No, Guilty as charged I am a kitchen grazer when I get home from work. I sample dinner, and multiple other items in my kitchen. It’s a problem I’m currently trying to work on.
Do you take cheat days or days off? No, however if I’m at a friend’s house for dinner I find it difficult to track so I just do my best. A couple of weeks ago I spent a day training at an MMA seminar and found it impossible to track accurately.
How much weight have you lost so far and over what time period? I have lost 30 pounds in roughly 2.5 years.
Describe your activity (exercise and non exercise) and did you change that activity withing the last couple of months?
I am a teacher so I’m up and about all day long.
Currently my weekly exercise looks like this....
Sunday - Rest day (Maybe a 5k jog)
Monday - 50 minutes of Warrior Kickboxing (MMA conditioning at the end)
Tuesday - Either a 30 minute bike ride, walk or jog
Wednesday- 50 minutes of Warrior Fitness (this is high intensity interval training, which includes strength training)
Thursday- 2 hours of Martial arts
Friday - 50 Minutes of Warrior Fitness
Saturday - 60 minutes of Warrior Kickboxing and 60 minute hike in the conservation area
Are you breastfeeding? No
Do you have thyroid issues/risks or PCOS? Not that I know of!
Thanks for the help I appreciate it.
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Crap - sorry, just noticed we did not respond to this (other than a less than helpful 'tagging'). Bumping up to the top so we get to it soon.0
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Thank you
I know you both must be busy responding and thank you for taking the time! 0 -
So there's a few things to note:
Given your stats, it's not surprising to me that you may need to make a slight reduction in intake. We are also taking into consideration your admission that you don't log everything (grazing/etc). We're not judging you just to be clear -- it's just that the ~1650 logged calories could realistically be substantially higher. Even if it were 1750-1800, that still leaves room to make some reduction as needed.
Alternatively, you had mentioned the desire to add in additional activity and we wanted to address this too.
- It may be beneficial to add in additional resistance training on some sort of a formal program. Something like a full body program done 2 x week may be a good start (something like All Pro's done 2/week instead of 3).
- You mentioned adding in some additional cardio. If you add in additional activity then you may not need to make as significant of a reduction in intake since the additional activity can increase your energy output.
We would like you to consider the above weight training recommendation provided you have the time to do so. Also, providing more detail about the nature of your MMA training and various activity that we don't recognize (don't know the details) may effect this recommendation. Adequate resistance training can help you retain LBM during calorie restriction and we are making the assumption that the resistance training portion of your program may not be progressively demanding or of significant volume/intensity but that's an assumption that you can clarify by providing some detail.
In the meantime, can you take the next week to track as accurately as possible and leave your intake as is? We would like to see what happens over 1 week of proactively logging the nibbling/grazing so we can see what effect this has over the week.
We will then take this info combined with your replies to the above and fine tune things.
Sound reasonable?0 -
Thank you so much for the help, sounds very reasonable! I logged accurately last week on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday as I was attempting to get myself in the mindset of logging everything I put into my mouth so I know I can do it. Starting today anything in will be logged and weighed.
The MMA is 2 to 2 1/2 hours every Thursday. It starts with a basic warm up. Continues with self-defence training which can range anywhere from ground fighting, to learning how to disarm a person who has a knife, to learning how to get out of being attacked from a variety of holds. It ends with 15-20 minutes of meditation. It's different every time, sometimes I'm sweating profusely from the exertion and sometimes not so much. It's a hard one for me to log.
The MMA training I did a few weeks ago was a seminar that was the whole day, but I won't be doing another one of those for a long time.
The warrior fitness which I do on Wednesday's and Friday's also varies every time. It's a combination of weights (I use the 12.5 dumbbells) and cardio. I used a fit bit once (borrowed it from a friend) and it was one of his lighter workouts, it registered 456 calories burned. So I log that number every time. It is intervals so he takes us through a variety of exercises, 60 seconds on and maybe a 10 second break after a set of 5 different exercises.
Hopefully that was all the info you asked for, I'll check again when I get home from work to make sure I included everything. I appreciate the help!0 -
Hi!
I hear you re the exertion doing MMA. I used to do no-gi jiujitsu and sparring was exhausting.
As noted earlier, we think that it would be beneficial to include some resistance training (with progressive loading), and it does not appear that your current classes would fall under this (they seem to be more endurance/cardio).
It is hard however to recommend when you would be able to fit this in based on your current schedule, as you expressed that you did not want to give any of your current classes up. The only days that seem to be available are Tuesday and Sunday - but that would not leave any rest days.0 -
Could I double up on another day? So say I do a warrior fitness class and weight training in the same day?0
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in to learn,,I also have a hard time fitting in every thing I want to do,so I did just this week start my lifting in the AM of the days I have TKD..so far the only problem I am having is eating enough on these days as I dont usually start eating until noon,its just my schedule,and I want to be done eating by 4:30 as class starts at 5:30 and I can not eat and run,but I have no problem drinking a protien shake after class.0
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Could I double up on another day? So say I do a warrior fitness class and weight training in the same day?
Yes provided you're getting adequate recovery and it may take some experimentation. You could potentially have some performance issues but you won't know until you try.0 -
Okay so I've logged as accurately as I possibly can all week. I stopped "grazing" and started weighing those little bits and nibbles. I notice that I think I'm too high on my carbs, especially on weekends. Also am thinking I'm pretty close to maintenance eating. I fluctuated between 134 and 135 all week (I weighed every morning). Any thoughts on food intake? I do try not to eat back my calories, but am clearly unsuccessful on some days.
I'm also thinking that as you said I could double up I'll leave Sunday as my rest day and go for Tuesdays to do a all body lift program and Fridays.
Does that seem reasonable? Does anything else need to be tweaked?0 -
Moving this up.0
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So at this point we've got the following for average intake in calories and macronutrients:
1750 calories
213 carbs
61 fat
94 protein
Given that you are weight stable at this intake it would make sense to make a slight reduction to this and see if that starts your weight moving again.
We think a reasonable strategy would be to drop about 100 calories. You also may benefit from an increase in protein in that it may help with satiety and could potentially help with LBM retention although you're not far off the mark as is.
1650 calories
180 carbohydrate
50 fat
120 protein
Give this a try if you'd like, and you can follow up with us in another week with an update.0 -
Thanks so much will do this week and let you know what happens. I really appreciate the help!0
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Clearly sabotaging myself on weekends. Going to stick with 1650 and see if I can't get my weekends under control. Started lifting last week (basically just played around in the weight room as I had no clue what I was doing. I started Sunday with what I think is a full body routine. Will go again today. Will post an update about weight next week to see if it's budged.0
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Okay so first and foremost thank you for the help. I think I'm getting the hang of this weight room thing lol Although it's only been 4 weeks, I think I'm seeing a bit of improvement in my arms, now if only my stomach would get there!
Anyway, I am going to keep trying at the 1650 calorie intake, which is apparently difficult for me, but alas we all need goals to work towards and eating the right amount of calories is apparently mine.
As for the lifting I think I've found an all body program that works. If there is anything I should change though please let me know. Thought I would add my weight in too. It took me a long time to figure out what was heavy enough. Also wondering how long I should keep the current weight before moving up and how much do I increase by? Right now I'm doing this program twice a week.
I do 3 sets of 12 reps
A Day
Squats - 100 pounds
Bicep Curls - 40 pounds
Tricep Extensions - 25 pounds
Leg Press - 200 pounds
Bench Press - 40 pounds
Deadlift - 90 pounds
B Day
Squats - 100 pounds
Bicep Curls - 40 pounds
Tricep Extensions - 25 pounds
Leg Press - 200 pounds
Bench Press - 40 pounds
Bent Over Row - 55 pounds
I have been doing the program on Sunday's and Tuesday's along with a 5 k run. I've also still kept all my other activities. I consider Thursday's (Martial Arts Day) my rest day.
Monday's - 50 minutes Kickboxing
Tuesday's - 5K and Lift Day
Wednesday's - 50 minutes Warrior Fitness
Thursday's - Rest and Martial Arts (2 hours)
Friday's - Warrior Fitness
Saturday's - 60 minutes kickboxing, 2 hours Martial Arts
Sunday's - 5K and Lift Day
Please let me know if I'm on the right track! Thanks 0 -
I will only throw in that you really don't have a rest day at all if you're doing 2 hours of martial arts on that day. I would keep an eye on how you feel physically and mentally just to avoid overtraining.
It's tough to do, but you'll know it if it happens.
Other than that, continue kicking major butt. I know I couldn't maintain that schedule for more than a month or so without getting hurt/needing time off.0 -
Thanks I feel slightly addicted now, so that when I have a day off I'm antsy lol
I will keep watch though and if I'm feeling like it's too much I will cut back!0 -
Hi!
We would suggest that you do the AllPro routine twice a week - it has progression laid out and is a more well rounded program.
The program can be found here: http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=4195843
It is a 3 day a week routine, but can easily be adapted for 2 days a week by just dropping the third day.0 -
Locking so we can track active threads easier. If you want to update, or have more questions, please do not hesitate to contact either myself of SideSteel, including a link to this thread, and we will unlock so you ca do so.0
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