Need a Second Opinion Please

luluinca
luluinca Posts: 2,899 Member
edited November 8 in Social Groups
I have a new trainer since Sept 1st and he's an EM2WL advocate (also a former Marine....yikes). I was generally eating in the 1400 calorie range with an occasional 1500 day and seemed to have stalled out after losing about 48 lbs in a year, most of it in the first 8 months. He looked at my food diary and I gave him copies of the workouts I'd been doing and he convinced me to gradually eat more.

Long story short I've worked up to an average of 1600/day with one cheat meal per week. I'm eating on average 20 to 25 more grams of protein per day and less fat. He also asked me to give up added sugar when I could. I've lost 5 pounds so far since Sept. and still have about 18 to 20 more to go. He thinks I should try to get to 1700 cals a day because I'm working out really hard and lifting heavier.

I'm wondering what anyone else here might think.

I'm 64 years old, 5'7" and weigh just under 180. Looks like my TDEE should be around 2000 and my BMR about 1400 now. I don't think I did much damage to my metabolism in the 1400 range but could be wrong since my weight loss seemed to stall for several months. In July and August my husband was ill and I couldn't get to the gym as regularly so that may have had something to do with my stall as well.

I work out at the gym 5 mornings a week for an hour to an hour and a half, three days are hard workouts pushing my limits on both weights and plank and pushup types of exercises, the other two are more circuit type workouts with at least a half hour swim afterwards. I don't do much other cardio but do spend 5 to 10 minutes on either the stairmaster or the elliptical all five mornings as part of my warm up routine. I wear a HR monitor and estimate my calorie burns in the 300 to 400 range depending on the activity of the day. My trainer agrees that's pretty close. He also thinks I should quit worrying about my scale weight and concentrate on my strength and activity/balance type gains.

I still work, we have our own business, and I'm up and down from my office chair all day long and then pretty tired at night. I guess I'd be considered moderately active if that makes a difference.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions. I'm a little afraid to eat more still as I'm enjoying losing the weight again. I have also lost several inches all over in the last two months.

Replies

  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    I'd suggest your non-exercise activity by itself is middle of Lightly Active range.
    Your exercise by itself is upper end of Moderately Active.
    You put the 2 together you are Very Active easily.

    Unless you lost a lot of muscle mass undereating, and metabolism is just slower because of that, yes, you did suppress your daily burn. Even if you were doing some strength training, undereat enough and you will lose muscle mass that is being used, the least.

    With a BMR of 1390 now weighing less, and you were eating mainly 1400 to maybe 1500 when it was higher - I hope you sense a problem there if you had that schedule in the past too.

    You didn't damage your metabolism, your body did exactly what it needed to for the stress you put it under - it slowed down, became more metabolically efficient, burning less than it could.

    And since you are bumping up in calories, you have no idea of the extent it could go, because it's likely still running slower than it could.

    Knowing your Katch BMR based on bodyfat% would be tad more accurate, but based on info given.

    HRM calorie burn info isn't going to be valid except for the cardio you mentioned, resistance training and circuit training are wrong exercise for the calorie burn formula.

    How do you do resistance type training one day hard, followed by circuit type workouts the next day? That sounds like potentially the same muscles being used, which means you really aren't going as hard as you could if muscles were rested.
    Unrecovered exercise turns workouts in to much less than they could be - which means they no longer cause any improvement because you aren't overloading the muscles with weight, but just being tired.
    Since recovery takes place 24-36 hrs later, and is longer in a diet, of which you are in an extreme one, I really doubt you are getting nearly as much from your workouts as you could be.

    Since you do strength training, you'll get this analogy. Which workout could you push more weight on?
    A - do 10 reps, rest 5 seconds, 10 reps, 5 sec rest, 10 reps.
    B - do 10 reps, rest 90 seconds, 10 reps, 90 sec rest, 10 reps.

    Now, as far as gaining strength or asking the body to make improvements related to strength training and not cardio, which workout is going to cause that effect?
    Of course B.

    That same principle applies day after day. Just something to think about, because along with undereating by a decent amount, that makes workouts much less effect, especially with little to no recovery time. Each workout turns into maintenance level, not asking the body to improve at all, just burning some calories.
  • ItsLessOfMe
    ItsLessOfMe Posts: 374 Member
    I'm still figuring this out but it seems like if you use the scooby calculator you are still under eating. You can always raise your calories 100 per week and monitor your weight. I would love to be friends and support each other.
  • luluinca
    luluinca Posts: 2,899 Member
    Thanks for the response Heybales.

    What would be a good indicator of my calorie burn? Since I don't really do step type work I doubt a fitbit would give me much accuracy? And as far as I know strength training doesn't actually burn a lot of calories correct?

    During the first half or more of my weight loss I had a trainer who gave me more of a circuit type workout with not a lot of weight lifting so I'm used to that kind of workout. She measured my BF vs LM once a month and I retained muscle mass fairly well so we thought my diet was pretty good.

    How do you do resistance type training one day hard, followed by circuit type workouts the next day?

    On day 1 I'll do something similar to leg press (up to 400# but I can go higher), RDL's (w/KB's 90#, I haven't graduated to barbells yet on a regular basis), single arm rows w/35#), lunge shoulder press w/20#, some sort of squat w/KB, and generally a variety of pushups. I'll rest at least 60 sec in between.

    On day 2 I'll do something like a series of various planks, single leg elevated bridges, balance pad bicep curls w/low weight, swiss ball crunches w/plate, side crunches w/plate, jumping jacks, walking lunges, some high rep lower weightt tricep/bicep or deltoid extensions or curls (not all in the same day :) ), lat pulldowns, that sort of thing with very little rest in between. And then a swim.

    Then a rest day. But sometimes I actually go three days in a row so I can get 5 days in.

    Regarding the diet, I guess the conclusion is I probably need to eat more. I lost another pound this morning over last week and I can feel it so I suspect you're right. I'll work up to 1700 for now.

    One of the things that throws me is when I see other MFPers with these huge calorie burns of 800-1000 per day and I figure I'm not burning as much so need to eat less than most of those athletes. My trainer says I'm very strong and so we're going to be adding weight. I had a little hip flexor injury which slowed me down a little so it complicated that plan as it hurt doing dl's and squats for a few weeks. Back to the progression now though.

    Thanks for the evaluation.............I needed it!
  • luluinca
    luluinca Posts: 2,899 Member
    I'm still figuring this out but it seems like if you use the scooby calculator you are still under eating. You can always raise your calories 100 per week and monitor your weight. I would love to be friends and support each other.

    Sending a friend request now. Thanks for the advice. I suspect you're right.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    For day 1 lifting, if you do sets and rests of 1-3 min, and weight that is heavy for you to almost failure on last reps (so not circuit training with cardio aspect), the MFP entry of Strength Training is actually very good estimate. Indeed, much lower than equal time cardio, but it still counts.
    For your other day 2 stuff, Calisthenics would be correct it sounds like, since even circuit training is not that high rep, and does have some rest time.
    The nice thing with TDEE method if you guess the TDEE right, is it doesn't matter what individual workout was.

    Many can get high burns because they weight more, or more intense. Or they are dishonest with themselves regarding intensity or time. I've seen many say 60 min spin bike session. But first 5-10 min is easy warmup, last 10-15 min is easy cooldown and stretching. That whole time was not the vigorous spin bike class, and shouldn't be counted as such.
    Same with lifting, start time with first lift, end with last lift, rests are expected for Strength Training entry. But not cardio before and after, not extra standing around time talking or waiting for equipment, ect.
    What I did to simplify was take typical workout, and when gym was pretty empty and I had no problems with waiting for stuff, timed it. That was the time I used for that workout going forward, so even if I talked or waited, didn't matter, I knew how long it really took.
    I could easily burn more than 1000 cal/hr in cardio, because very aerobically fit. But that was with just 10 lbs more. After losing that, my fitness didn't have the ability to increase enough to compensate to go harder, so now that is the rare short workout to burn that much per hr. Or like race I just did, which could never be done in training that often.

    Swimming is good entry too, if honest about your pace. I swim badly, so though slow, I burn at the higher speed entry. Some benefit to being inefficient, though I'd rather be faster.

    When you increase calories, increase by 100 daily for a week or 2 at a time.
    That's a great way to know how depleted in carb stores you are, which store with water.
    If eating a mere 100 extra daily causes 1-2 lb gain in 1-2 weeks, you know you are in extreme diet, and just gained water weight.
    Because for that to be fat gain, you'd have to be eating 100 over maintenance for 35 days to slowly gain 1 lb, if your body didn't even speed up. And with lifting, not even all fat.

    And I think you'd be shocked how much your performance goes up if you recalc your TDEE for more honest Very Active, no deficit, and slowly make your way up there.
    Let your body unstress, then take that 15% deficit for the last 30-35 lbs.
  • luluinca
    luluinca Posts: 2,899 Member
    edited November 2014
    Wow, just recalculated TDEE with the higher activity level, another thing my trainer suggested and it went up to 2300 to 2500 depending on which calculator I used. I've still been sticking to the 20% deficit but will change that to 15% (somewhere around 2000 cals to still lose weight, if I get there) and work my way up slowly. It'll be interesting to see what happens. I did originally gain a couple of pounds when I first started increasing my calories so I know what you're saying is true. I started losing again pretty quickly though at 1600. I'm not afraid to try what you're suggesting and I know my trainer will be happy about it. ;)

    Thanks as well for the hints on calorie burns. I think that will help too. I know it doesn't really matter that much as I'm doing TDEE and deficit, based on activity level, which is somewhat guess work anyway, but the calorie burns are interesting to me. I like to keep challenging myself when I feel as though my burns are slowing down doing the same exercises due to lower weight and better fitness and tracking calories is a fun way to do that.

    Swimming is my sport so I'm pretty good at it and probably don't burn a ton of calories in a half hour but that's my chosen cardio and I love it. I lost the first 20 pounds swimming 5 days a week and only doing circuit or as you call it, calisthenics, 2 days a week.

    Anyway, thanks for all the valuable insight, I really appreciate it!
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    The nice thing with improved fitness, otherwise qualified as VO2max, is that can go up, which means your HR will go down for same level of effort if you weigh the same, and you burn the same calories.

    Normally, even if weight stays the same, you get more fit and can go harder with same HR, and actually burn more calories.
    But that is where some HRM's will fail you, they see same weight stat, same avgHR reached, not aware the VO2max or effort or intensity went up, and assign the same calorie burn. And that's not true at all.

    You aren't at that point anymore, because your fitness improvements will be harder to come by now, and more related to moving less weight around.
    But normally you can improve fitness level much faster than you can lose weight, in fact increased weight makes it easier.
  • luluinca
    luluinca Posts: 2,899 Member
    edited November 2014
    Yes, one thing I like about wearing a HR monitor is tracking a lower heart rate for the same exercise as my fitness improves. Sometimes I wonder if I should add in more cardio, something I'm not as good at, to speed up the weight loss process.

    It sounds like, from what you're saying though, I'm still burning the same calories with less effort. I hadn't thought of that.

    And then again, everyone says do what you enjoy to make it sustainable, and that's swimming for me. I've even cut back on that because I'm enjoying strength training so much.

    Thanks again for the help and all the valuable information.
  • luluinca
    luluinca Posts: 2,899 Member
    Heybales, don't know if you'll see this or not but I tried out your suggestions for tracking my exercise calories this morning, and even adjusting downward, but separating out the different workouts I did in one day (about 90 minutes), calisthenics, elliptical, strength training and swimming, it totaled almost 500 calories.................so I guess I really have been under eating and under estimating my burns.

    Thanks for setting me straight.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    Glad it made sense.

    To your thought about burning same calories with less effort. It's less effort for your heart and cardio system only, moving the same amount of oxygen around for burning the same calories for the same level of effort for the exercise.
    Like if you swam certain pace just starting out again (meaning swim form is great already), avgHR up at 160, and you burned say 700 cal/hr at that pace.
    Then 3 months later you got much fitter and same pace avgHR was at 140. That would be the same 700 cal/hr to achieve, but you bump and handle more oxygen now.

    So strictly from the point of view of the heart as a muscle, yes, it's getting less of a workout than it once did. And actually fitness would decline eventually because it's an easier effort now. Would take many months to a year or more of not speeding up though, and keeping the lower HR at same pace. Past the point of getting maximum aerobic function out of the muscles.

    But normally, you do speed up, so the HR does go up, and you keep a challenge for the HR.
    Now, just like running, there's something to be said for getting in aerobic base every year, getting that max return on existing muscle.
  • luluinca
    luluinca Posts: 2,899 Member
    I know with swimming my pace is much faster than it was a year ago when I got back in the pool after many, many years. It's also more difficult to get my HR up where I'd like it to be. At least I thought that's what I wanted. I have to keep challenging myself in the pool, not a bad thing of course.

    Just in general though I'm much more comfortable now working at 80% to 85% of what I can only guess is my max HR, than I certainly was a year ago, or even six months ago. I've enjoyed watching that progress.

    Hah, the first time I got on the Elliptical I thought I was going to die after about two minutes. Now, I feel like I could go forever, if I had that much time and didn't worry about wearing myself out for strength training or even have to eat a ton of calories to make up for it.............. :p
This discussion has been closed.