Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle - Motivation Buddy?

Hi All,

I could have titled this entry, "How to gain 20 lbs, No Effort Required". That would summarize my last two years nicely. A lot of factors contribute to our body composition but I never really gave thought to what exactly happened to bring me to my heaviest ever weight until recently.

Three years ago my life looked very different than it does today. I was a Parisienne, single and going to an office every day. I also walked about 15000 steps every day without doing exercise. I weighed 124lbs and had about 18% body fat. Then I met my future husband. We kissed, we romanced each other and we dined.....a lot. All the best restaurants and to Relais Chateau on the weekends...to sleep ...and eat. I gained 4 lbs.

My weight stabilised at 128 but then he proposed and we left Paris for another city here in France and I started working from home. No longer was I walking to the metro or moving around an office.

We got married a couple of months later and then I started cooking dinners to socialize with my husband in the evenings at home. *Before we met I almost never ate dinner*. Living alone my natural routine was coffee for breakfast, then a large lunch, maybe a snack around 4 with another coffee and no dinner, except maybe a glass of wine at home.

Eating dinner with my husband every night added another 800-1000 calories to my diet per day.

The weight started creeping up and I got up to 136 lbs.

I have always been muscular and gain muscle easily but when I do gain fat, it went to my stomach (like my dad). So getting up to 136, I had a nice roll around my mid section. Then I made a huge mistake. I had liposuction of my midsection, back and flanks included and arms. I was so miserable after the liposuction (in hell actually) that I ate myself into oblivion. I could hardly move from the pain. The pain was terrible for for three months.

I gained MORE weight! But this time it went to my legs, calves, butt more than it ever had before. I went up to 145 lbs.

I was so despondent that I made the second mistake. Out of desperation I did the HCG diet. I lost 15 lbs in one month but half of it was probably muscle and water. My thyroid started to flutter in the evenings . I was literally starving my body. I also couldn't sleep the entire time I was having the injections. In the end I got so sick that I ended up in the hospital for 3 days while they checked my endocrine system. I was OK but I learned a lesson.

All the weight that I lost came back and I was weak for months.

So in the summer of 2013 I stopped dieting. Instead I started doing a lot of walking and running. I averaged 7 miles a day, 5-6 days a week. I dropped down to 139 and could see my muscle definition peaking through just a bit.

But I stopped and eventually my weight crept back up again.

This February I started exercise again, lots of running and walking. I combine the two. I haven't dieted but I've logged every bite I eat and used a spread sheet plus Fitday (which I hate). I wanted to lose fat from running/walking alone. But after 3 months I've only lost 2 or 3 lbs on the scale.

So I've changed my approach and am following the Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle protocol. Tom Venuto's book has helped me finally grasp that nutrition comes before sport but they still go hand in hand.

If anyone else is doing Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle, I would love to have a buddy. Feel free to send me a private message on MFP.

All the best,

DH