What do weight loss shows have over me?
Replies
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I agree with the eat less food sentiment. If you aren't losing weight, you're not eating less than you burn, period. Have you lowered your calorie goal since you've last lost weight? The smaller you are, the more efficient your body is, the less calories you use. How many calories per day are you consuming?0
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With very little weight to lose now, it's going to be slow going...you're not doing anything wrong except for watching these shows and thinking that they're actually reality.
Also, what makes you say you need to lose 15 Lbs? Just some arbitrary number you told yourself you needed to be at or are you making this determination based on BF% or something else? How are you arriving at this number? If you're at a healthy BF%, your body is going to be reluctant to keep leaning out...the human body really doesn't like being super lean.
I based it on body fat% as tracked by trainer over a period of time. I'm currently at 21% BF with LBM of 106 and Fat Mass of 28. I know these numbers can be off but I've had measurements taken consistently so they've been off from the start :-D
I want to preserve LBM (or increase it later with a bulk) and cut down on BF% to about 17%. 15 pounds may be too ambitious but 10 is also cool. I'm only 5'2" so not tall.
I've only seen your arm, but I think that 21% is a little high for the amount of muscle definition you have. And it would still put you at about the mid-point of the healthy range for your age. 11.6% is essential fat for our bracket.
I would seriously try to recomp at this point.0 -
Is 120 lb a magic number?... You look awesome NOW (I assume it's your arm on the pic?), you're doing everything right. So why not just keep up with your routine and live your life, concentrate on other goals. Who knows, maybe in a few months your body will surprise you. If not, you know you're healthy and look great. I have my own weight goals on MFP, but already right now I'm happy with myself. I'm happy that I work out and eat healthier. And if my lb number stays the same for the next few months, so be it. I promised myself that I'm not gonna give up on my health anymore, and the number is just a number. I wish I could explain it to my body that for every 3500 calories I'm short it has to give up 1 lb, but I don't know how, it has it's own schedule. Of course I can stop eating, or cut my calories even more, but that wouldn't be healthy or sustainable for me, and I'm not going that way. Weight loss shows... we can quit our jobs, workout instead, eat like kids in Africa... but look how many of those biggest losers gained the weight back. I don't really watch TV, but when I do I prefer the Food Network
It was the magic number when I first started out and didn't know what I know now thanks to some very helpful people on MFP who are now part of my friend's list. I've had endless support and encouragement and I am truly grateful for what this site has given me.
Yes that is my arm!
I think what I'm gleaning for the responses is to focus more on BF%. That's a good goal to have anyway and something realistic I can work toward.0 -
Is 120 lb a magic number?... You look awesome NOW (I assume it's your arm on the pic?), you're doing everything right. So why not just keep up with your routine and live your life, concentrate on other goals. Who knows, maybe in a few months your body will surprise you. If not, you know you're healthy and look great. I have my own weight goals on MFP, but already right now I'm happy with myself. I'm happy that I work out and eat healthier. And if my lb number stays the same for the next few months, so be it. I promised myself that I'm not gonna give up on my health anymore, and the number is just a number. I wish I could explain it to my body that for every 3500 calories I'm short it has to give up 1 lb, but I don't know how, it has it's own schedule. Of course I can stop eating, or cut my calories even more, but that wouldn't be healthy or sustainable for me, and I'm not going that way. Weight loss shows... we can quit our jobs, workout instead, eat like kids in Africa... but look how many of those biggest losers gained the weight back. I don't really watch TV, but when I do I prefer the Food Network
It was the magic number when I first started out and didn't know what I know now thanks to some very helpful people on MFP who are now part of my friend's list. I've had endless support and encouragement and I am truly grateful for what this site has given me.
Yes that is my arm!
I think what I'm gleaning for the responses is to focus more on BF%. That's a good goal to have anyway and something realistic I can work toward.
Try gaining some muscle.
I don't want to be all negative, but eating more and increasing your lifts is so much more life-giving than reducing weight.0 -
from the link at cracked:
"They claim the weigh-ins you see are weekly, but that's a straight-up lie. When people exclaimed "I lost 12 pounds in a week!" that wasn't always the case. It's all based on filming schedules. Sometimes the real period between weigh-ins was over three weeks, and you got liked like a rock star for losing so much weight so quickly. Other times it was only five days, and the audience thought you were phoning it in that week"
"The healthy way to do it is to lose weight slowly by eating well and exercising. But turning down the second slice of pizza and going for a walk doesn't exactly make for dramatic TV, does it? "
"At the end of the series, my immune system shut down due to the effects of losing too much weight too fast. My hair fell out. I can't say I was in better health at 260 pounds than I am now, but doctors told me that everything I did to my body on the show was a physician's nightmare. Before the final big weigh in, I lost 19 pounds in two weeks."
"Once, during a speaking engagement in Colorado, an overweight teenage girl came up to me after my presentation. She was a fan and desperate to emulate the weight loss results she saw on the show. Obviously her results weren't as drastic as ours had seemed to be. She was so crestfallen that she resorted to anorexia and bulimia. At one point she felt like such a failure that she tried to kill herself and wound up in the hospital. "
So, yeah. Don't watch them, or do it to get the positive, not the obsessive.0 -
I agree that focusing on something else like BF% might be better. Running the numbers of your current BF, target BF, and lean body mass you can't loose 15lbs without loosing lean mass too. 9 lbs of fat loss will get you to your target BF% while maintaining your lean mass.0
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With very little weight to lose now, it's going to be slow going...you're not doing anything wrong except for watching these shows and thinking that they're actually reality.
Also, what makes you say you need to lose 15 Lbs? Just some arbitrary number you told yourself you needed to be at or are you making this determination based on BF% or something else? How are you arriving at this number? If you're at a healthy BF%, your body is going to be reluctant to keep leaning out...the human body really doesn't like being super lean.
I based it on body fat% as tracked by trainer over a period of time. I'm currently at 21% BF with LBM of 106 and Fat Mass of 28. I know these numbers can be off but I've had measurements taken consistently so they've been off from the start :-D
I want to preserve LBM (or increase it later with a bulk) and cut down on BF% to about 17%. 15 pounds may be too ambitious but 10 is also cool. I'm only 5'2" so not tall.
You are already very lean then for a female...the leaner you are, the harder it is...like I said, the body simply doesn't like being super lean. As a male pushing 40 I have a great deal of difficult maintaining a BF% much below about 15%...most women have difficulty maintaining a BF% below 20% as women naturally have more fat.
In my experience, when you're already that lean and wanting to get leaner, the quality of your diet really comes into play. I have to be bang on to maintain anything below 15% and I'd imagine that's about where you are then at around 21%. That's the point where I really have to start giving up things like beer (not worth it) and the like. It's going to be tough sledding.0 -
Also, I don't watch Biggest Loser but on Extreme Weight Loss they don't lose very steadily over the year. Did you watch this week's episode with Melissa? I think she lost like 70 lbs. the first 90 days, 40 the next 90, 5 the next 90 and like 20 the last 90 (with skin surgery). So in the last 6 months maybe 5-10 lbs. of her own doing. And her job was to lose weight that whole year....obese people lose 200+ pounds in ONE YEAR. I am positive they hit plateaus but still, to lose steadily in a year is awesome.0 -
There you go!On most of those shows, with the exception of the ones involving bariatric surgery, the participants can spend anywhere form 3 to 6 months on the "ranch" or at "boot camp". For the time they are there, they workout for hours each day, meals are prepared for them and losing weight is their full time job.
We, on the other hand, have lives and families and jobs as well as trying to lose weight.
Although I sometimes find myself rooting for these people and finding some of them inspiring (and others annoying) their weight loss journeys are so far from reality.0 -
Also, I don't watch Biggest Loser but on Extreme Weight Loss they don't lose very steadily over the year. Did you watch this week's episode with Melissa? I think she lost like 70 lbs. the first 90 days, 40 the next 90, 5 the next 90 and like 20 the last 90 (with skin surgery). So in the last 6 months maybe 5-10 lbs. of her own doing. And her job was to lose weight that whole year....obese people lose 200+ pounds in ONE YEAR. I am positive they hit plateaus but still, to lose steadily in a year is awesome.
I watched the one with the young coach guy. Made me cry to be honest. He lost so much weight and looked so incredibly fit.
My question really was about how to get through a stall or a major slow down in terms of loss. How do those people do it regardless of all the assistance they have. I mean, if I put in the work I will get the results. That much I know for sure.0 -
awesome arm~ it took me a while to figure out it was an arm...though....0
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I cried like 4 times in that one. He was very inspirational. Heck, YOU are very inspirational!
They all have stalls and slowdowns. They wear Spanx at the end and have a pro stylist, too.0 -
OP, although I didn't have 100+ lb to lose from start but I can totally relate to you current frustration....My so called "plateau" actually has been lasting for more than 1 year....Every time I manged to drop a few pounds, they just bounced back even I didn't change anything....I haven't given up because if I did only worse things can happen....it sucks but it motivates me...0
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^ThisOn most of those shows, with the exception of the ones involving bariatric surgery, the participants can spend anywhere form 3 to 6 months on the "ranch" or at "boot camp". For the time they are there, they workout for hours each day, meals are prepared for them and losing weight is their full time job.
We, on the other hand, have lives and families and jobs as well as trying to lose weight.
Although I sometimes find myself rooting for these people and finding some of them inspiring (and others annoying) their weight loss journeys are so far from reality.
They are burning an exorbitant amount of calories. I once listened to Jillian Michaels when she had a show on KFI say that it was not usual to burn upward of 2000 cals in a WO, and they have a nutritionist and doctors on duty to make sure the contestants are not malnourished or don't keel over from a heart attack but I'm sure they are creating huge, albeit unhealthy deficits daily.0 -
^ThisOn most of those shows, with the exception of the ones involving bariatric surgery, the participants can spend anywhere form 3 to 6 months on the "ranch" or at "boot camp". For the time they are there, they workout for hours each day, meals are prepared for them and losing weight is their full time job.
We, on the other hand, have lives and families and jobs as well as trying to lose weight.
Although I sometimes find myself rooting for these people and finding some of them inspiring (and others annoying) their weight loss journeys are so far from reality.
They are burning an exorbitant amount of calories. I once listened to Jillian Michaels when she had a show on KFI say that it was not usual to burn upward of 2000 cals in a WO, and they have a nutritionist and doctors on duty to make sure the contestants are not malnourished or don't keel over from a heart attack but I'm sure they are creating huge, albeit unhealthy deficits daily.
This is the reason I don't watch those shows. I know whatever they do I already know or can't do.0 -
We're attracted to them because of a promise of the quick fix. We all wish we could shed the weight quickly, don't we? I have to stop myself sometimes from dreaming up all the various scenarios that could get me to goal faster, such as if I exercise a certain number of hours i can lose this much by a sooner date. Other times I'll imagine cutting calories further. The good thing is that I've been there, done that and have enough diet fatigue to last me a lifetime.0
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I think I remember OP's stuggle last year when she was stuck at 140....good job at being persistent and making progress.0
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I think I remember OP's stuggle last year when she was stuck at 140....good job at being persistent and making progress.
^this
Regardless you are making excellent progress, and the kind of strides you've made toward your goal w/out a full team, well other than MFPers is nothing short of amazing.
I, too have a magic number in my head and I'm really just trying to focus on BF percentage, since that's really my ultimate goal, is to be leaner, not necessarily weighing less, but it's so hard to wrap my mind around how to do one without obsessing about the other.0 -
You guys are so sweet:flowerforyou:
Yes I did push through and went from 140 to 134. It was not easy. I had to change up my workouts frequently, cut back on running several miles at a time and switch up the foods I was eating a little bit.
It's not a struggle but it's just not a quick and easy process. I guess I am impatient at this point. I see the light at the end of all this and I just want to get there so I can set new goals.
Kimberly that's exactly it...which goals to focus on because, at times, they don't go hand in hand. I think BF% is the way to go for me. I've worked too hard to cut back on muscle for the sake of a scale number. Plus, I really enjoy being stronger 0 -
I have a question for OP Phaedra... how do I get arms like that?? I have about the same amount of weight to lose as you have already lost and my biggest worry is flappy arms (tummy I can hide).0
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This contains your answers:
http://www.cracked.com/article_21137_5-details-they-cut-from-my-season-the-biggest-loser.html
That's exactly what I was going to post! I know it's a humour site, but this guy was actually on the show...0 -
With very little weight to lose now, it's going to be slow going...you're not doing anything wrong except for watching these shows and thinking that they're actually reality.
Also, what makes you say you need to lose 15 Lbs? Just some arbitrary number you told yourself you needed to be at or are you making this determination based on BF% or something else? How are you arriving at this number? If you're at a healthy BF%, your body is going to be reluctant to keep leaning out...the human body really doesn't like being super lean.
I based it on body fat% as tracked by trainer over a period of time. I'm currently at 21% BF with LBM of 106 and Fat Mass of 28. I know these numbers can be off but I've had measurements taken consistently so they've been off from the start :-D
I want to preserve LBM (or increase it later with a bulk) and cut down on BF% to about 17%. 15 pounds may be too ambitious but 10 is also cool. I'm only 5'2" so not tall.
You're looking to lose 10% of your total weight, Simply put, your body is going to fight that, especially if it thinks it's healthy right now. For women our age, 21% BF is considered in the low range, actually, so it's going to be slow going.
Plus, a 3-4% reduction in BF doesn't equate nicely to a number on the scale. I went from about 25% to 16% but lost less than 20 pounds doing so. Looking at it from a scale-only view isn't usually the best way to go, especially if you're already pretty lean. You have a way to consistently track your BF. Just focus on that goal that and the scale will be whatever it ends up being, right?
Have you read anything on body recomposition?0 -
My question really was about how to get through a stall or a major slow down in terms of loss. How do those people do it regardless of all the assistance they have. I mean, if I put in the work I will get the results. That much I know for sure.
They do it in an unhealthy manner, and unsustainable manner and then they gain it all back. To do it in a healthy and sustainable manner, it takes a lot longer to do. And as previously noted, the scale number is just an arbitrary number, and there are better benchmarks other than weight once you get into the healthy range you are in now.0 -
What *should* I be doing?
Stop watching weight loss shows.
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What *should* I be doing?
Stop watching weight loss shows.
!!!This!! I stopped watching this pseudo-psycho-drama when I realized that one of the big motivators and goals they use is skin removal surgery. Sure, it's motivating to see that it's possible to lose a large amount of weight, even when quite obese to start. But I want to see that it's possible to do it in a SANE, HEALTHY WAY that leaves a prayer of skin recovering on its own. The vast majority of us with large amounts of weight to lose will NEVER be able to afford skin removal surgery, so we must lose in a healthy, slow way. By taking the time to permanently change thought patterns and coping strategies, to try and fail and then try again, you are giving yourself a permanent lifestyle change. I admire what these people are able to accomplish, keep in mind that they do it with an unrealistic amount of support, and do so without having to remain in their day-to-day lives. You are a reality TV star in your own life, by making changes in the midst of all your responsibilities and with the real-life limitations of jobs and kids and a budget. When these people lose so quickly, I worry that they haven't permanently changed the thinking that led them to be obese in the first place. Yes, Chris gives them some little poignant counseling sessions but honestly those aspects of the show make me frustrated because IMO they trivialize the real emotional pain some obese people are hiding behind. We don't see where these people are in 1 year, or 5 years, or 10 years. Have they regained the weight? Sure, some from the Biggest Loser have maintained there weight loss, but they do so by, again, being given resources to help them and, in most cases of the ones I've seen, a strong financial incentive through speaking engagements.
What we DO know is that you have undertaken a life-altering journey that has given you many gifts above and beyond your weight loss - You've listed them yourself! You've gained discipline, pride in your accomplishments, confidence in your strength and in your ability to see things through, the example you are setting for your friends and family.
Stay the course. You rock! Do what you know to work, and the weight will take care of itself. You have accomplished what a very small percentage of humans are able to do - lose weight slowly, safely, sustainably, and, by virtue of the fact that you're still at it after two years, maintain your weight loss. I speak from experience - I've worked REALLY hard to lose 58.6 pounds in 22 months. That's less than 3 pounds a month, but I know I will never see any of those pounds again. My naturopath is checking thyroid and hormone levels to see if I need thyroid support or progesterone, but other than that I've done it the tried and true way - eat less, eat real food, move more, log, drink water.
We got this. Who needs TV? Let's spend that time with our families or go for a walk.
This is beautiful. Thanks for writing it!0 -
I have a question for OP Phaedra... how do I get arms like that?? I have about the same amount of weight to lose as you have already lost and my biggest worry is flappy arms (tummy I can hide).
I do push ups every day for chest and arms. I do barbell rows. I do body\weight exercises with a heavy medicine ball and resistance bands for my arms.
I don't know how they got this way! I had huge, flabby, no-shape arms for the longest time and then some muscles popped out.0 -
With very little weight to lose now, it's going to be slow going...you're not doing anything wrong except for watching these shows and thinking that they're actually reality.
Also, what makes you say you need to lose 15 Lbs? Just some arbitrary number you told yourself you needed to be at or are you making this determination based on BF% or something else? How are you arriving at this number? If you're at a healthy BF%, your body is going to be reluctant to keep leaning out...the human body really doesn't like being super lean.
I based it on body fat% as tracked by trainer over a period of time. I'm currently at 21% BF with LBM of 106 and Fat Mass of 28. I know these numbers can be off but I've had measurements taken consistently so they've been off from the start :-D
I want to preserve LBM (or increase it later with a bulk) and cut down on BF% to about 17%. 15 pounds may be too ambitious but 10 is also cool. I'm only 5'2" so not tall.
You're looking to lose 10% of your total weight, Simply put, your body is going to fight that, especially if it thinks it's healthy right now. For women our age, 21% BF is considered in the low range, actually, so it's going to be slow going.
Plus, a 3-4% reduction in BF doesn't equate nicely to a number on the scale. I went from about 25% to 16% but lost less than 20 pounds doing so. Looking at it from a scale-only view isn't usually the best way to go, especially if you're already pretty lean. You have a way to consistently track your BF. Just focus on that goal that and the scale will be whatever it ends up being, right?
Have you read anything on body recomposition?
Thanks for your reply. I was looking to drop a little more in BF% before even attempting to understand the world of body recomp. I think I read somewhere that being a bit under 20% was a good place to start for women. I still have flab on me in many places so I thought it would be better to keep losing while preserving LBM first.
Thoughts?0
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