Realised the error of my ways
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joybedford
Posts: 1,680 Member
I have never truly starved myself always eaten well always fuelled my body and worked out hard. However over the past year I have had some health issues (fibromyalgia, gastritis blah blah blah) that has caused weight gain due to the meds, fatigue causing me to not stick to my workout regime. I became desperate due to my weight gain and a holiday on the horizon and was persuaded to try herbalife. I only dropped my calories to 1500 but the herbalife made me feel really ill (I have many food intolerances) I didn't lose weight and I felt miserable. I am currently on that holiday and have never felt so uncomfortable, honestly I feel fat. I have the exercise down to a fine art even working out on my holiday but have become a total screw up with food. I have realised thanks to this forum that eating to fuel your body is the best way to go about things and I can't live my life on low calorie diet. I enjoy food, I enjoy cooking but most of all don't want to give my kids the message that food is the enemy (my daughter who is 10 is gaining weight rapidly despite an active lifestyle i need to help her too). I have about 30 lbs to lose and I have no idea what my calorie intake should be. All of my family are obese and I feel I have a slow metabolism. I lift weights 3 times a week, run 3 times a week and do a 2 hour dance class once a week. I have an active lifestyle being on my feet all day at work and walk the children to school and back. I will not be this size on holiday next year, I am enjoying myself but would have a much better time if I had the body I want. My husband says it's not possible at my age, I have poor genetics, have had 3 children etc but I refuse to accept this. I am friends with some of you here but could really use support on this journey. I am determined to do this.
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I can totally relate. The causes for me being where I'm at are not the same but the situation sounds very similar. My bust up knee means limited exercise which forces is me to pursue a low calorie diet. Trouble is I love food, hate feeling hungry, and this is compounded by my passion for cooking and baking. I have two kids (which surprises some people) who are completely different in terms of build, activity level, and interests. My daughter has a real sweet tooth like me and at 15yrs old weighs over 10kg more than me. I'm struggling with the dilemma of how much to push her as I don't want her to have a bad relationship with food, but I worry for her size, health, and happiness when she's older. Trouble is she still expects to match her older and more active brother when it comes to portion sizes and treats. I'm hoping that my example on MFP will help to guide her, but only if I'm successful of course!
Didn't want to steal your thread but wanted you to know you are not alone and hope I can be supportive in some way.0 -
You are supportive and I appreciate your input. Where kids are concerned it so hard to know how to play it. I don't want to push too hard and cause an issue but I don't want her to have a bad relationship with food either and I hate seeing her head for all the unhealthy food. I have the opposite with my youngest son who has little interest in eating food at all and is very underweight. We can both figure this out and support each other I am sure.0
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Hi Joy and welcome to EM2WL! I'm so happy to see that you are realizing that low calorie is most certainly not the way to go, especially when wanting to lose fat and change the body. It's so important to learn how to have a healthy relationship with food and then to model if for our children as well! You are on the right track! You may not have as slow of a metabolism as you think. You have a very active lifestyle and I think you have just been under eating for the amount of activity that you put in and our bodies do not respond well or give us the results we want when under eating, believe it or not!
You said you have no idea what calorie level you should be eating at. The first thing you will want to do is go to the Scooby website here (http://scoobysworkshop.com/accurate-calorie-calculator/) and calculate your TDEE (or your maintenance level). Enter all the specifics it asks for and make sure you choose the correct activity level. I am thinking you will fall under the 5-6 hours a week (strenuous) activity level - possibly even more- with the amount of exercise you do and also because you are on your feet all day. Then you want to select a 15% calorie reduction. This will give you the amount of calories to eat daily in order to lose fat. This amount will probably be a lot more than you are expecting and most certainly more than 1500. You can slowly increase your calories to this 15% cut and stay there for several weeks and monitor your weight loss. Increasing your calories slowly (maybe 100 calories per day per week) will help to minimize some of the water weight gain that we can sometimes see when increasing calories. Once you have eaten at that 15% cut for 6 weeks, monitor your loss and if you aren't seeing your weight decrease (or inches lost), be sure to post back here and we can rework your numbers again for you.
I hope this helps to give you some direction! Feel free to check out the EM2WL website at em2wl.com for additional support from a great group of ladies and moderators that will help you along your journey! Also, feel free to add me for support as well!
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So glad you have joined us! EM2WL is certainly not a "quick fix", but instead a road to a life free of starvation, low calorie "diets" and endless cardio (with diminishing returns). ^^^ You have gotten some excellent advice above ^^^, and please know I am here (and on the EM2WL Forum as well) for support.
The one other thing I might suggest is that you might want to cut back on those 3 days of running. That in addition to the 3 days of strength training and 2 hours of dance class is a lot of exercise (especially when placed on top of what looks like a really active daily schedule). The body will see all of that exercise as stress, and we all know how our bodies react to stress (and it's not good :-). Maybe consider scaling back some of that running. If you do decide to do that, use your "new" activity level and enter your stats in the Scooby calculator and follow the rest of the instructions above and you should be off to a good start!0 -
Everyone here is so wise and I have nothing more to add at this stage, but wanted to say, I am here to support you in this!0
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As you apply that advice above to rethink your workout routine and lighten up, think also why you are doing that much.
Is it purely to burn calories, because you think it's needed to lose weight?
Only thing exercise has to do with diet and losing weight is the fact you burn more in the day, so that when you eat less than you burn, you may still be eating a decent level you'll adhere to.
Exercise if done right tears the body down.
It's the rest for recovery and repair that actually build it back up, stronger if diet allows.
So exercise done well rarely causes weight loss, but weight gain for many reasons.
Diet causes weight loss, hopefully just fat loss if done right.
But for the sake of the exercise, do you want the most improvement from what you do and effort put in to it, or merely spinning the calorie ticker, not getting much or anything from the exercise?
Think about priority of those different workouts - which do you really want focus on? Because jack of all trades - master of none.
And in what you list, negative effects of one to the other actually.
It may even be a shifting focus, now one thing, different later.0 -
I use running as stress relief I enjoy the feeling of just me and the open road it helps me get perspective on my complicated life. I also enjoy lifting and the effects it has in my body. I can't imagine giving up either. I actually exercise a lot less than I used to. The dancing is time for me to meet other people as I exercise alone all the time it's nice to meet others and have fun. My problems began when I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia it really shook me and I haven't been able to get a grip on it again. I don't think the meds help either but I refuse to let illness drag me down.0
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To that end then, I'd suggest confirm your running, which is being done for stress relief, is not going to impact your lifting, which I'm guessing is for the potential strength and muscle gains.
Most don't do decent lifting for maintenance sake, or at least not purposefully. Now, someone may use the pink 2 lb dumbbell and do 50 curls, and could have done 100 more - and maintenance lifting is the end result, but usually because someone doesn't know better.
So to the end of having fresh leg muscles to lift heavy enough with to get benefit, and time to repair after using them in a good workout, just think about a routine.
You could get by with 1 x lifting session a week that includes the legs, but 2 x would be better.
But the day before and after should be jogging at slow pace so as not to impact the lifting, if you want to run on those days. Perhaps the dancing then workouts out.
This would be the Active Recovery HR zone, sadly given the fad name lately of fat-burning zone. But it's valid and has it's purpose.
www.calculatenow.biz/sport/heart.php?
But then you could have a day where you hit the run harder, and do an upper-body only routine.
And/or a run after lifting lower body can be done with whatever energy you got left, that doesn't impact recovery yet.
So this is really no different from the short gals that like the running because for them to be able to eat at what they consider realistic level, they frankly just need to burn more daily.
Do you do the lifting with high reps, like 15-20, few sets like 2 x? I recall reading that helped fibro better, as less possible tension to already tight areas.0 -
Hi joy! I agree with hey bales about cutting back on the running; as a former marathmer who ran to ease stress I now find as much peace with meditation and enjoy the fast workouts at cross fit. The #1 thing I've learned since coming across this group is to be consistent and trust the calories, though I think of it as trust the nourishment. The last 6 months are the first time in my life I have consistently gotten enough protein and had consistent nutrition. No more freaking out about a pound or two....just trusting the numbers. Some days 2200 calories seems like a lot....some days I feel I could eat it all for breakfast, but each day I stay in my range and attempt to hit my macros, scale hasn't changed but I am slowly recomping. If you can make peace with the fact that this is going to be sllllllllloooooooow and that slow is good because its causing real change its not a yo-yo diet but lifelong nourishment and you can trust the calories, you are on your way to long term success. But things like 30# less next year....that should be something that you just have to wait and see on. Goals like, eating enough, modeling a healthy food relationship for your children, not taxing your body with compulsive exversize, body acceptance, and nourishing yourself....these things take years and I know you can do it!!! 0
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The above realistic view just reminded me of something else I should have comment on.
Stress. You might view it as a total scale your body can take before it rebels, or adapts, or does something usually negative.
Yours already has the stress of a disease then. And the running is for stress relief from perhaps that, perhaps other things in life.
Throw in the fact a diet is a stress to some degree, depending on how extreme it is, and unrecovered exercise (frequent) is a stress too.
You can only control so much of that stress, so when you have a disease, you'll need to purposely back off some you have control of. That likely means the diet and exercise.
So what might be a reasonable deficit for some with certain level of exercise with otherwise healthy body - isn't for you.
So just keep that in mind to as you think about past routines, and adjustments you might make.
Spikes of cortisol are good, elevated constantly is bad.0
