Should I be seeing results? Please help.

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gdan80
gdan80 Posts: 2
in Health and Weight Loss
Hey all,
please stay with me while I give you a quick overview over my current situation. I am about to turn 34 years old, I am 5'11" tall and currently weigh 207 lbs.

I'd like to start out by saying that I've never been a very active or healthy eating person, but I quit smoking about 4 months ago after smoking non-stop for about 15 years. I never drank water, coffee, tea or juices, only soda and later I switched to diet soda. To give you an example of how bad it was, the first thing I would do every morning is reach for my Diet Mountain Dew and throughout the entire day once I finished a can I'd immediately get another. I probably averaged about 12-16 cans a day. If I wasn't drinking soda, chances are I was drinking beer.

Fast forward to about two months ago. Quitting smoking caused me to put on a lot of weight on top of the weight I was putting on from drinking beer and eating fast foods and microwave meals. I had finally had enough and decided I needed a change and that I wanted to loose weight and get a flat belly again.

I stopped eating fast food, chips and other junk food and candy. I stopped drinking soda and switched to water. I now exclusively only drink water and on top of that I started eating healthier. I now eat fruits and vegetables, unsalted almonds and stuff like that. I dusted off the old treadmill in the basement and set up the Weider home gym (nothing fancy, very similar to a bowflex). For weeks I've pretty much done nothing but read about nutrition and exercising and I thought I had a pretty good grasp on things.

I work out on average 5-6 days a week for probably 35mins-1hr. Mostly cardio at the moment and some strength training with the Weider or bodyweight exercises. I use MFP to track my calories and I'd like to believe I do a pretty good job at it, I even weigh my veggies and such on occasion. I picked up a heart rate monitor to know exactly how many calories I was burning during my workouts as well.

When I started I could barely do 3 proper push ups or jog for a mile without having to slow down. I was very out of shape. I can definitely tell there have been improvements overall in my fitness level now, but I have hardly lost any weight or inches. I don't understand why?! I feel like every time I lose a pound, the next time I weigh myself it's back. The clothes I wore before I quit smoking still do not fit any better than they did when I started all of this.

I'm simply out of ideas. I cut out all sugar, hardly use any salt, prepare all of my own meals, watch my calories and usually eat somewhere between 1400-1700 and have at least 100g of protein a day. I make protein shakes, eat lots of salads, only drink water and I work out pretty hard but nothing is changing other than my fitness level. After almost 2 months of eating healthy and a full month of working out, shouldn't I at least see some sort of change?

I plan on going to the gym starting on Monday with a friend of mine who has been going for several years and he said he would explain and show me how to get started, but everything I read says my diet is the most important part to successful weight loss. So what's going on? What am I doing wrong? Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

I also used to only sit around and play video games when I wasn't busy working or with school, now I'm trying to constantly move around and do things around the house. I've pretty much transformed my entire way of life and I'm not seeing any results. It's discouraging.

Replies

  • dboodram1
    dboodram1 Posts: 3
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    The scale is probably not moving because you are gaining muscle mass
    You should try the 30DS workout, its a combination of strength and high intensity cardio and only 20 minutes and makes the pounds fly off. Stick to cardio 3 times a week at most and up your strength routine
  • Stage14
    Stage14 Posts: 1,046 Member
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    You arent gainjng muscle mass.

    What is 'not much' weight or inches? It may just be a matter of unrealistic expectations. However, your post also says you weigh things on occasion. If you aren't weighing things all the tune, my first guess is that you are eating more calories than you think you are.
  • jillian_fan2425
    jillian_fan2425 Posts: 167 Member
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    Opening up your diary will answer a lot of questions folks are likely to have - what your calorie goal is ("between 1400 and 1700" doesn't tell us much), how much of your exercise you are logging, how many exercise calories you're eating back, etc.

    Just based on what you've written here, though, it could be the fact that you've started up a fairly intense exercise program (or at least it sounds that way). Sometimes you have to give the body some time to adjust, though 2 months may be a bit on the long side.

    Good luck to you!
  • MBrothers22
    MBrothers22 Posts: 323 Member
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    The scale is probably not moving because you are gaining muscle mass
    You should try the 30DS workout, its a combination of strength and high intensity cardio and only 20 minutes and makes the pounds fly off. Stick to cardio 3 times a week at most and up your strength routine

    He is not gaining muscle mass.

    However you do say you weigh things occasionally so that is likely your problem. If you were really eating between 1400-1700 calories, you would lose weight. Frankly, no 34 year old male should be eating that little. You need to get a food scale. It's the only way to be sure how many calories you are consuming.

    Heart rate monitors are only good for steady cardio and even then are not "exact" like you said. I usually cut off 10% from what my Polar FT7 gives me just to be safe.

    I think with a combination of not weighing all your foods, and most likely overestimating your exercise burn, is why you haven't lost.

    Also just a reminder, 1700 calories is pretty low for a male if that's what you think you want to eat. My guess though is that you aren't really eating 1700 calories.
  • gdan80
    gdan80 Posts: 2
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    I weigh all meats/fish/chicken. The only stuff I do not weigh all the time is veggies, I figure too much of those wouldn't be the end of the world. I don't go crazy or anything. Most things I use measuring cups for and go by serving sizes. For example my dressing and feta cheese I always use measuring devices and I scan all bar-codes that I can to make sure stuff is accurate.

    My parents have been in town and brought a few things from a German butcher which are impossibly hard to enter. So I weigh it and pick the closest things that I can find. I also had a few beers with my dad, but again, other than 1 day, I've never used all my calories for the day and I enter absolutely everything I put in my mouth, even if I use salt/pepper when I make an omelette.

    I have a feeling I may not be eating enough honestly, could that halt my weight loss? I do feel uncomfortably hungry occasionally, but it's been like that ever since I quit smoking.

    I will open up my diary if I can figure it out. Keep in mind if you look at it, every time it says treadmill or whatever for exercises for the day, it's just a placeholder name and the total amount of workout time / calories burned taken directly from my Polar FT7.

    Also I've only been tracking food in MFP for about 2 weeks since I was using Spark before it.

    Figured it out, so diary is public now. Ignore the beer the last 2 days, that's only because I had my parents in town and will be completely cut out again.

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