Theres a lot I don't know
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katharine1229
Posts: 51
A lot. I'm making this post in hoping maybe some general consensus will happen but that probably will not be the case.
I'll start with the little I do know. In order to loose weight, you need to exercise, and eat right. Refined sugars are bad for you. Fast food, in general, has a lot of calories.
Honestly, at this point, that is all I really know about weight loss. I keep seeing people around me, in real life, on television, and on MFP, all doing something different, and all having their own successes or failures. Its all become really confusing as to what is the best way to do things when it comes to successful weight loss and staying healthy at the same time.
My trainer at my gym, tells me to cut dairy, and possibly gluten. Not to cut carbs completely, but to go low carb when it comes to things like wraps, or brown rice, and not to eat carbs after 4pm. She tells me to take my body weight x 10, and subtract 500 calories from that number without going below 1200 calories a day for weight loss. The thing is, I have no idea if this accounts for the working out I do every day or not, and here in MFP, I have seen various opinions of weather you are supposed to eat the calories back you burn a day, eat half of them back, or eat none of them back. I surely don't want to send my body into starvation mode and end up plateauing.
Now, I say this, and then I think of television, like the biggest loser for example. Somewhere during one show I remember a trainer saying to a woman who is about my size to be sure to eat 1500 calories a day, and I'm sure they burn at least close to 2000 calories a day. I know, I know, its a TV show. I know they have medical personal around and all that. I'm not trying to loose weight that quickly either. At the rate I am going in order to reach my goal, 5 pounds a month is fine by me.
Back to food though, I saw a nutritionist back before I even joined my gym. I was handed the food pyramid, and went over portion control. But now I see things everywhere about cutting out grains completely. Sticking to meat and veggies. Whats difficult for me is that both sides of the eat rice/bread/pasta vs don't eat any carbs but veggies and fruit once and a while...make sense to be. I was always taught that you fuel your body with carbs for working out.
And...what exactly classifies over working out? I have people who tell me its great that I work out every day, for an hour. Others, who tell me its too much. Others who tell me its only too much if its cardio every single day, and you are not including weight training.
Ok, so I know, I'm going on and on and on, I'm sorry about that. I just am the sort of person who likes things written out, I like a plan to follow. I like numbers, and goals. I have lost 92 pounds since I had my son at the end of April, 2010. I have 34 pounds more to get my goal, a very reasonable 130 pounds, for me being 5'3. The more weight I loose, the harder it is to loose, and I don't want to be starving my body. I wear a heart rate monitor, and for the most part my weight lifting, and cardio, comes from fitness classes at my gym. I burn about 550 - 600 calories during each cardio class, but keep my heart rate moniter on until my heart rate goes below 95 to get my workout calories for the day. Pilates/weight training classes is about 350-400 calories, but I add another 200 calories for weight training as I was told that you still continue to burn calories after for longer even when your heart rate is down.
I hope maybe with this information, someone somewhere can help me come up with what I really need to be doing, to be good to my body, and consistent with my weight loss. If you read this whole thing thank you haha
I'll start with the little I do know. In order to loose weight, you need to exercise, and eat right. Refined sugars are bad for you. Fast food, in general, has a lot of calories.
Honestly, at this point, that is all I really know about weight loss. I keep seeing people around me, in real life, on television, and on MFP, all doing something different, and all having their own successes or failures. Its all become really confusing as to what is the best way to do things when it comes to successful weight loss and staying healthy at the same time.
My trainer at my gym, tells me to cut dairy, and possibly gluten. Not to cut carbs completely, but to go low carb when it comes to things like wraps, or brown rice, and not to eat carbs after 4pm. She tells me to take my body weight x 10, and subtract 500 calories from that number without going below 1200 calories a day for weight loss. The thing is, I have no idea if this accounts for the working out I do every day or not, and here in MFP, I have seen various opinions of weather you are supposed to eat the calories back you burn a day, eat half of them back, or eat none of them back. I surely don't want to send my body into starvation mode and end up plateauing.
Now, I say this, and then I think of television, like the biggest loser for example. Somewhere during one show I remember a trainer saying to a woman who is about my size to be sure to eat 1500 calories a day, and I'm sure they burn at least close to 2000 calories a day. I know, I know, its a TV show. I know they have medical personal around and all that. I'm not trying to loose weight that quickly either. At the rate I am going in order to reach my goal, 5 pounds a month is fine by me.
Back to food though, I saw a nutritionist back before I even joined my gym. I was handed the food pyramid, and went over portion control. But now I see things everywhere about cutting out grains completely. Sticking to meat and veggies. Whats difficult for me is that both sides of the eat rice/bread/pasta vs don't eat any carbs but veggies and fruit once and a while...make sense to be. I was always taught that you fuel your body with carbs for working out.
And...what exactly classifies over working out? I have people who tell me its great that I work out every day, for an hour. Others, who tell me its too much. Others who tell me its only too much if its cardio every single day, and you are not including weight training.
Ok, so I know, I'm going on and on and on, I'm sorry about that. I just am the sort of person who likes things written out, I like a plan to follow. I like numbers, and goals. I have lost 92 pounds since I had my son at the end of April, 2010. I have 34 pounds more to get my goal, a very reasonable 130 pounds, for me being 5'3. The more weight I loose, the harder it is to loose, and I don't want to be starving my body. I wear a heart rate monitor, and for the most part my weight lifting, and cardio, comes from fitness classes at my gym. I burn about 550 - 600 calories during each cardio class, but keep my heart rate moniter on until my heart rate goes below 95 to get my workout calories for the day. Pilates/weight training classes is about 350-400 calories, but I add another 200 calories for weight training as I was told that you still continue to burn calories after for longer even when your heart rate is down.
I hope maybe with this information, someone somewhere can help me come up with what I really need to be doing, to be good to my body, and consistent with my weight loss. If you read this whole thing thank you haha
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Replies
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An hour a day? That's not overexercising.
You have an HRM so you have a pretty good handle on the calories you burn. However I would not add that estimated afterburn IMO, you could be setting yourself up to overeat. I would just eat a nice 200-calorie or so protein shake/yogurt or something with protein and carbs post workout (but count it as part of your regular calorie intake).
And yes, especially if you are working out an hour a day, I would eat 1500 a day at least.0 -
How have you lost so much weight? That is really great! Congratulations.0
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Thank you both for your replies.
kdiamond, its not really an estimated afterburn...its me keeping my heart rate monitor on, which says I am still burning calories until my heart rate comes out of the 'fat burning zone', for the most part, but yes I can definitely stop counting the estimated weight training calories.
Honestly, I'm more worried about undereating than overeating. I have been sticking with 1200-1300 calories a day. By 1500 calories, do you mean, that i should possibly stick to my 1200 calories a day that MFP recommends, and eat back half of the calories I burn every day?
olsonspring, the first chunk came from breastfeeding my son to be honest, and cutting back on what I ate, being aware. When that stopped being enough I had already lost about 30 pounds. I then joined a gym, and started in slowly. I push myself and make goals, just kind of lost right now as to what my next step should be0 -
anyone else have anything to add?0
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Fire your trainer. Serious.
Dairy and gluten are fine unless you have an interolerance to them. No carbs after 4 pm? Is that a joke? Starvation mode in the common sense that people intend for it to mean is a complete myth. Seriously, this person has no idea what he/she is talking about. At all.
I'm going to make this easy for you:
-Multiply your body weight by 10 - 12, and eat that many calories per day. If you really want to be thorough, go to this site and use the calculator on the right hand side (need body fat percentage): http://www.cordianet.com/calculator.htm
-Eat 1g protein per pound lean body mass. That is, body weight minute your body fat.
-Lift weights 3x per week - compound, heavy lifts with 6-8 reps per set, aiming for 3 sets per lift.
-Cardio wherever you can, maybe 2-4 hours if possible. If you can't do cardio, you can still lose weight by making sure your diet is at a proper caloric deficit. No problem.
Do not worry about anything else as long as these criteria are met. Do not worry about meal timing, meal frequency, carb intake, etc. Nothing.0 -
Gluten and dairy is inflammatory to many people, not just those who are completely intolerant. Your trainer sounds right on the money. I would even take it a bit further with the carbs. It is absolutely true that starvation mode is generally a bad myth, although there is something to be said for overeating after a long fast between meals or days, due to hormone imbalances.
I don't buy the old theory of no carbs after 4, in fact, I would say, the only time you should be eating carbs is after a tough weight workout.
Yes - compound lifts are the answer (Bench Press, Shoulder Press, Barbell Squats, Deadlifts, - all free weights, not silly machines. Go heavy and make sure your form is spot on.) Cardio - well, that's a bit of another matter. 1-2x a week is good for hard, intense cardio (HIIT) type stuff. This is for the cardiovasular system, not for weight loss! Cardio for weight loss is not shown to have a long lasting effect in study after study after study.
The key to losing fat really boils down to insulin control. You want to produce it for as small a period of the day as possible. Insulin gets a bit of a bad rap - it's extremely valuable and we would die with out it - however, too much, and our resistance goes up, thus we make more, and more, and get more resistant, and make more... etc. rough cycle.
When you are producing insulin, your body is cleaning out your blood due to excess sugar (glucose) in the blood. It cleans it out by sucking the glucose into fat cells and forming fatty triglycerides. When there is no insulin being secreted, a counter hormone called glucogon is secreted, which signals the fat cells to break apart the triglycerides (3 glucose strung together) and allow the release into the blood to be used as energy. That's a good thing.
Here's what it breaks down to.
Spend as little time secreting insulin during the day as possible, spend as much time secreting glucogon as possible.
Fat never promotes the secretion of insulin. Some proteins do - but not nearly as much as carbs.
This is the short end of why avoiding carbs is a great idea when trying to shed fat. Fat doesn't make you fat - carbohydrates do.0 -
Gluten and dairy is inflammatory to many people, not just those who are completely intolerant. Your trainer sounds right on the money. I would even take it a bit further with the carbs. It is absolutely true that starvation mode is generally a bad myth, although there is something to be said for overeating after a long fast between meals or days, due to hormone imbalances.
I don't buy the old theory of no carbs after 4, in fact, I would say, the only time you should be eating carbs is after a tough weight workout.
Yes - compound lifts are the answer (Bench Press, Shoulder Press, Barbell Squats, Deadlifts, - all free weights, not silly machines. Go heavy and make sure your form is spot on.) Cardio - well, that's a bit of another matter. 1-2x a week is good for hard, intense cardio (HIIT) type stuff. This is for the cardiovasular system, not for weight loss! Cardio for weight loss is not shown to have a long lasting effect in study after study after study.
The key to losing fat really boils down to insulin control. You want to produce it for as small a period of the day as possible. Insulin gets a bit of a bad rap - it's extremely valuable and we would die with out it - however, too much, and our resistance goes up, thus we make more, and more, and get more resistant, and make more... etc. rough cycle.
When you are producing insulin, your body is cleaning out your blood due to excess sugar (glucose) in the blood. It cleans it out by sucking the glucose into fat cells and forming fatty triglycerides. When there is no insulin being secreted, a counter hormone called glucogon is secreted, which signals the fat cells to break apart the triglycerides (3 glucose strung together) and allow the release into the blood to be used as energy. That's a good thing.
Here's what it breaks down to.
Spend as little time secreting insulin during the day as possible, spend as much time secreting glucogon as possible.
Fat never promotes the secretion of insulin. Some proteins do - but not nearly as much as carbs.
This is the short end of why avoiding carbs is a great idea when trying to shed fat. Fat doesn't make you fat - carbohydrates do.
Thank you for this Steve, I have a question though....and I know you are not a medical professional but you seem to know your stuff...hehe. Would you recommend kind of 'weaning' yourself into a whole lot less carbs/sugars? I'm hypoglycemic, and when I have tried to go meals skipping carbs all together, I always then wind up finding myself in a bad low blood sugar place and reaching for the fruit or the OJ. I mean, I went from being hypoglycemic AND pre diabetic before losing all of this weight, to the pre diabetic part being gone, and I assume it must be somewhat possible, hopefully, to kind of refine my blood sugar/insulin levels some more, just don't know how to jump in there
(and as for my cardio, about 2 - 3 hours a week are HIIT....the others are mental therapy lol)0 -
I had to cut myself off cold turkey - the problem with sugar is, once those hormones kick in and start raging just from a bite of bread/pie/cake/pasta/doughnuts - whatever, it's very difficult for many of us to only have that one bite and stop.
It's not willpower - it's a biochemical reaction that is brought on by hormones. I'm much better off drawing a line in the sand and having no junk at all, rather than trying to just have a little bit.
If portion control truly worked - we wouldn't be getting fatter. It's just not that easy for most of us.0 -
ps. When I first cut out the bulk of my carbs, I was extremely tired for a few days until I finally reached ketosis. I took a bunch of naps that week!0
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I understand your confusion, there's a lot of information being thrown at us all the time about food. Even here at mfp. I've found it overwhelming, especially when people simply disregard or call false what my nutritionist told me.
So, I eat what she suggests, and I'm stick to the calorie limit mfp has given me.
I've only been here for two weeks and lost just ounces, but plan to stick to this because right now I don't need any more pressure.
Good luck to you, and congrats on your amazing loss!0
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