Struggling need professional advice

Are you in a calorie deficit to lose weight? How are you measuring your intake? Use a food scale to weigh intake?

It's most likely not the exercise, or not doing enough in the gym or the amount of time (you are doing 40 minutes that plenty), its about how you are dealing with your food intake.

cushman5279 wrote: »

How long have you been exercising and how long since you've changed your diet? Cardio targets weight loss but will also target muscle mass. HIIT is best. Lifting weights to build muscle will burn more calories in the long run. If your goal is only weight loss I'd focus on HIIT cardio for now, lose the weight and then add in weight training and more body strength training.

No. Weight training is great during weight loss because it helps retain lean mass and we want plenty of that. Cardio is good for cardiovascular health and more calories to eat.

OP, as others have said, your calorie intake is what is important for weight loss, not what you do in the gym.

Hey girl hey! I am in the same boat is you girl! I do mostly cardio but I had only lost 6lbs in a month and my job is full body labor. I eat super well. Not a lot of meat and no dairy. But the scale won't move! I am 5'6" at 222lbs. And I am at the gym and home gym one hour to 2 a day. Nothing changed. So strength training it is to start turning the tables. I use to be in bootcamp so strength training (with no equipment in my case) was how I lost 15lbs in 3 weeks. We can do it.

There is no best exercise that "targets weight loss". Weight loss is a function of diet.

Here is the deal - all exercise burns calories and builds muscle. Period. How much you burn and build is determined by the intensity and duration of the exercise. It doesn't matter if you walk, do HIIT, strength, a mix, whatever else you can think of, exercise won't make you lose weight, it will help you build/retain muscle and increase physical performance. You can get into a huge debate about what is best, but people are just going to defend (fiercely) their exercise of choice.

The best exercise is whatever you like doing, that you can stick with, and you can do it at a duration and intensity that you are meeting your goals.

So why exercise? You exercise during weight loss ONLY for the simple goal of retaining muscle mass. The more muscle mass you have, the easier it is to lose weight and you will look better at your goal weight. You won't have substantial increases in performance or strength while on a caloric deficit, so the only other reason is muscle retention. A side effect of exercising is it burns calories, so it is easier to create a caloric deficit.

If you aren't losing weight (are you sure you aren't), then you have a diet problem, not an exercise problem.

OP, to elaborate on exercise... exercise during weight loss is not ONLY for retaining muscle. Exercise no matter the form can make you strong, fit and provide you cardiovascular health, etc..and it can help you with your calorie deficit. I would hope that when you exercise this is NOT for weight loss only, but added to your regime for maintain weight long after weight loss.

If you are able to perform exercise such as strength training along side your cardio, you can build minimal muscle in the form of newbie gainz in a deficit, this will also give you a tick upward in your metabolism.

I will go back to the posts above, are you confident that you are adhering to calorie deficit? To be confident about this, you would need to be weighing your food intake using a food scale and be confident about all of your entries you are logging are chosen properly.

And if you eat back exercise calories, make sure your % or portion is not to many as eating too many can keep you out of a calorie deficit as well (i.e. follow the flow chart above)...

Are you eyeballing your portions? Tracking calories has to be accurate, on 1500 per day with your exercise you should be losing. Invest in a food scale and use it would be my recommendation. You are very likely eating a lot more than you think, throw in weekends where you let loose and you have no idea what your intake really is.

What you eat, purely from a weight loss point of view, doesn't matter, it's how much. Keep the rice, keep the Kitkat but make sure you weigh that rice and log that Kitkat to make sure it fits within your calorie goals.

for weight loss calories are king.

you can eat too much asparagus and wipe out your deficit just like you can with chocolate or rice (although it will take longer)

my advice would be to get a food scale and weigh everything without making dietary changes for a few days. Once you know what you are consuming then you can see where it may be easy to cut back. so if you're snacking on a handful of nuts and it's not that satisfying for the amount of calories, you could substitute something else there that may work better and give you more calories to work with.

for exercise the most important thing is that you find something you like and can stick with. For strength training there are a lot of great programs that will help you progress. Many have free apps too to help you track and time sets, etc.

kayleighfearn7476 wrote: »

Hi I'm currently very overweight, 5ft7 and 217lb and 22. I've got a desk job so sat on my *kitten* all day really! Go to the gym every morning for 6.45 and have changed my diet. The trouble is although I feel a bit better, I don't look it. I don't think I'm doing enough/the right things at the gym. As I can only cram in 40 minutes on a morning I usually do 15 mins HIIT on the treadmill alternating the speeds and the remaining I do strength training and using the weights. Can anybody please help me and suggest a good thorough workout I can do in 40 minutes that will target weight loss!!! Thanks im advance

If you want professional help you should hire someone, you'll get allot of goggle experts here. (Don't take it personally people it's the truth) Speak to a nutritionist, meet with your doctor and discuss with them what's going on maybe have some blood tests done... Then review thoses tests with your doctor as they're a professional ... and can see your medical history.

You'll get 1000 responses that read like this

- eat less
- you're not tracking right
- you're not working out hard enough
- you need a workout program
- you should do hiit cardio
- you should do steady state cardio
- Don't do cardio
- Powerlifting is where it's at
- Bodybuilding is #1
- Bro science for life
- Hi I'm an expert, I'll quote examine.com and ask for scientific evidence for every one of your comments but supply you with none, and all your studies aren't good enough for me, no double blind? PFFT GTFO of here

So yeah, my advice is go see your doctor and get some tests done and then go with their advice from there.

Best,
Brad

kayleighfearn7476 wrote: »

Ive just bought a food scale on eBay for £8.99 (digital) so let's see if that makes a difference! And I shall take your advice brad and go see my doctor as I think they can refer you to a nutritionalist? I'll get to my goal one day I'm sure!

Please do go see a nutritionist, though if you are going that route. Preferably one that is into fitness. At least in the US, general practitioners tend to give pretty horrific dietary advice.

Dietician, not a nutritionist. Anyone can call themselves a nutritionist.