LONG RANT... but please, i need advice.
NotGuiltylawyer
Posts: 39 Member
Greetings, i have been using this app for over 2 years now. I have had great success for the first year or so loosing over 30 pounds. About a year ago, i started to loosen up the diet a bit while still maintaining regular exercise as i had reached my goal weight. I have gained 15+ pounds within the last year. I am very discouraged. I still workout 4-5 times per week.
In the past year I was doing 30 mins cardio ( running or elliptical), 45 min of weights 3-4 times per week and the scale was not moving, actually, it was going up. I continued, not giving up thinking, it will be worth it eventually. Well, NO it was not working. For those who say, "your gaining muscle" ... not true, i have been measuring and i am not loosing inches, i am actually gaining fat. My clothes are tight and i have been taking photos every week, and no improvement.
So about 3 weeks ago, i upped my cardio adding 15 minutes. A also incorporated hot yoga 1-2 per week. Still not seeing results. I AM WORKING OUT 5 TIMES PER WEEK.
My diet is not bad, not great... but i treat myself a couple of times per week for my own sanity. I make my own lunches for work... upped my water intake. However, my portions are quite large, i will have a humongous salad and a big chicken breast smothered in pesto and low fat mozzarella for supper, for example.
My guilty pleasure is natural popcorn with sea salt, honey nut cherrios and a bowl of pasta once every 2 weeks.
I am 5"10 and weighing 202 pounds.
I AM SO DISCOURAGED. Any guidance, tips, would be very much appreciated.
In the past year I was doing 30 mins cardio ( running or elliptical), 45 min of weights 3-4 times per week and the scale was not moving, actually, it was going up. I continued, not giving up thinking, it will be worth it eventually. Well, NO it was not working. For those who say, "your gaining muscle" ... not true, i have been measuring and i am not loosing inches, i am actually gaining fat. My clothes are tight and i have been taking photos every week, and no improvement.
So about 3 weeks ago, i upped my cardio adding 15 minutes. A also incorporated hot yoga 1-2 per week. Still not seeing results. I AM WORKING OUT 5 TIMES PER WEEK.
My diet is not bad, not great... but i treat myself a couple of times per week for my own sanity. I make my own lunches for work... upped my water intake. However, my portions are quite large, i will have a humongous salad and a big chicken breast smothered in pesto and low fat mozzarella for supper, for example.
My guilty pleasure is natural popcorn with sea salt, honey nut cherrios and a bowl of pasta once every 2 weeks.
I am 5"10 and weighing 202 pounds.
I AM SO DISCOURAGED. Any guidance, tips, would be very much appreciated.
1
Replies
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Have you been logging your food once you reached maintenance? If not, start doing it again. If so, then you know you need to get your portions under control.35
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Agree with Malibu. Logging is so important. You are a couple inches taller than me. I am having the same issue with not losing, but I continue to log. I am envious of your running and doing the elliptical. My knees keep me from running, and when I do the elliptical, my hips hurt so bad after about 5 minutes. Start logging again, keep up with the exercise, and you may be surprised!! Good luck!!
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This is going to sound blunt, but you're eating too much.
Get back to accurate logging. It will show you where you are wasting calories. Exercise can make you a little hungrier, and also make you subconsciously feel like you have a little extra wiggle room to eat a little more.
Gaining 15 lbs in a year is less than 1.5 lbs per month. That's @ an extra 5000 cals per month, or an extra 150-200 cals per day, which is pretty easy to eat if you aren't logging. Luckily, it's also pretty easy to correct
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Agree with Malibu. Logging is so important. You are a couple inches taller than me. I am having the same issue with not losing, but I continue to log. I am envious of your running and doing the elliptical. My knees keep me from running, and when I do the elliptical, my hips hurt so bad after about 5 minutes. Start logging again, keep up with the exercise, and you may be surprised!! Good luck!!
have you ever tried yoga or hot yoga? i have serious knees and lower back issues and hot yoga has done wonders.
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Upping your exercise won’t do much of anything if you are still eating too many calories.
You need to go back to tracking, accurately and consistently. I think you already know this, as you mentioned you eat large portions and high-calorie foods (pesto).
So, plug in your stats into MFP and set it to lose 1 or 1.5 lb/week. (2+ lbs is a little aggressive and you may not be able to keep up with it.) Eat back 50-75% of your exercise calories. Invest in a food scale, and use it.17 -
It’s all food.6
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have you ever tried yoga or hot yoga? i have serious knees and lower back issues and hot yoga has done wonders.
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I have done yoga, and i did like it. I may need to look around for a place with hot yoga. I did go for a massage this past week, heavenly!!
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Eat less. Reduce calorie intake by 500-700 from current daily intake.5
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Yea...no way to sugar coat it, you want to eat the calories you want to eat, but then expect to not gain weight. That dog don't hunt! Also, and extra 15 min of cardio is great, but how intense is it? You're not sharing your diary, so can't see what you're doing (exercise or food wise), but did notice you said you quit smoking TWICE! I quit once, about 16 years ago, and after I quit I put on 10 lbs in a just few months.
I am not a diet Nazi, and while I shoot for 1500 calories a day to get to my target weight, I go way over at least once a week (2600 on my last binge). BUT, that usually satisfies me for the week, and I train hard (triathlon sprint) and watch my calories for the next week or two, until I get the urge again. I agree keeping positive and motivated is key #1, but sounds like you need to be more disciplined about logging your food, cut down portion sizes, and perhaps even switching up your exercises (cardio and strength). If you run, then maybe add swim. If you do elliptical, then maybe rowing machine. Not saying drop either, just add a different type of cardio, and be sure to stay in your heart rate range, but maybe increase the intensity if you can.6 -
You can't outexercise a bad diet. Track and log your calories and be in a calorie deficit. While increasing your exercise will burn a few more, diet is the key and you don't seem focused on that.31
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If you go back and read your post, it's very clear that your diet is the problem. Even upping your exercise probably only gave you and extra 200 calories on to your day. While you are probably eating "better" than you did in the past, I'm betting your portions sizes are too high. Go back to measuring and logging everyday at whatever your maintenance calories are.7
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"Smothered in pesto". That right there is one of the reasons you need to log. Pesto is pretty much just oil. Delicious yes but a calorie bomb, you can't go to town with it.
Your exercise means diddly if you don't have your calories in check. If you do lose what you've regained you need a better exit strategy for maintenance because as yet, you haven't got the skills to maintain your losses.21 -
NotGuiltylawyer wrote: »About a year ago, i started to loosen up the diet a bit...
My diet is not bad, not great... but i treat myself a couple of times per week for my own sanity. I make my own lunches for work... upped my water intake. However, my portions are quite large, i will have a humongous salad and a big chicken breast smothered in pesto and low fat mozzarella for supper, for example.
Get your diet in check.10 -
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Another voice adding to those recommending to get your diet in check. You are simply eating to much. Any time you gain fat, that's the culprit.
Time to start logging your food again, it seems.6 -
This is just my personal opinion, but when a person needs to lose a lot of weight they need to find something they can live with forever. No loosing up. Treats make life enjoyable for many of us and if you are watching your portion size and have no medical problems, go for it. But you have to gauge what your portion size is not the product makers. And count every single calorie. I had lost 60+ pounds when I first started here 4 years ago. I quit counting because I told myself "I got this!". I didn't have it and now I'm right back to where I started from.
Stay focused and learn to live within your caloric means. You can do this, girl!4 -
Eff_You_Fat wrote: »Its easy to not realize what we are eating can be biting us in the *kitten*.
Just yesterday i had a friend tell me every morning she has a carrot muffin from tims filled with cream cheese for breakfast. She thought she was making a healthier choice cause it was carrot. That muffin really isn't any different then her going to mcdonalds for a burger tho.
Commercially sold muffins aren't much better than cupcakes. Add the cream cheese and your friend may as well be having a cupcake!
To address the question at hand: OP, you need to start logging accurately. I'm not saying this in a mean way, either, since innacurate logging is what hinders me ("I'm sure that was a serving of almonds. Yeah...definitely") You'll also have to steer more towards what your body needs (more greens, blander chicken) and not what it wants (mmm...pesto).
Good luck!2 -
I was able to maintain for over a year without logging. However, slowly but surely the portions grew, the choices got worse, the martinis more frequent and the result is 7 lbs. back on. I strength train twice a week & do a core & abs class once a week, but that won't make up for the extra 500-700 calories a day I was consuming. I just started logging again and I can see light at the end of the tunnel. I'd like to add that when I was at my lowest weight the number of calories I could eat & maintain was a lot lower than when I weighed 30 lbs. more. It was a depressing discovery and I almost threw in the towel when I found out! When I get there this time I'll be sure to keep the eating in check except for very special occasions, or make up with a little extra walking.10
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It's astoundingly easy to eat many more calories than you realize if you're not meticulously logging. That's where I would start.7
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From what I can tell the amount of exercise you are doing isn't much ... maybe 300 cal per day?
And it sounds like you're not paying close attention to what you're eating.
Under those circumstances it is very easy to gain weight.1 -
Some people can do without logging, others can't. Portions creep up. Food gets forgotten. You think you've moved enough to deserve a larger portion when you haven't. Many things happen when you stop logging. Go back to logging faithfully and you will see that everything will change over time. In the meantime, you can work on other ways to maintain if you wish to loosen your logging at some point during maintenance. You can try IF, if that doesn't work well for you, you can compile a list of meals with known calorie counts to cycle through and eat most of the time, you can set certain rules for yourself (like less snacking if you snack a lot), try things out and see which strategies naturally result in lower calories while logging so you still have something to lean on if you wish to wean yourself out of logging at some point. Basically, you need a maintenance plan, what that plan is depends on what works for you. Develop it while losing so you have it ready for maintenance.13
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VintageFeline wrote: »"Smothered in pesto". That right there is one of the reasons you need to log. Pesto is pretty much just oil. Delicious yes but a calorie bomb, you can't go to town with it.
Your exercise means diddly if you don't have your calories in check. If you do lose what you've regained you need a better exit strategy for maintenance because as yet, you haven't got the skills to maintain your losses.
Just checked pesto sauce and a half cup came in between 460 and 620 calories, depending on the source and recipe.
That's would be a huge portion of my daily diet and wouldn't leave me much room to eat anything else.7 -
BTW yes you should weigh it to get an accurate number ... here I just wanted to see a rough estimate.1
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Get a kitchen scale an weigh food for accurate recording. And do some weight training in addition to the cardio. But also consider investing in a scale that measures muscle mass, body fat, and estimated base metabolic rate. I was gaining weight on 1200 calories a day, and started losing when I upped my intake to 1800 after getting a BMR test that indicated I had a base rate or 2200 calories.10
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You've got all the fundamentals: you work out and you make your own food. It's just a matter of tweaking them which is way easier. I used to be "fit-fat"; I would work out several times a week, but probably only burn ~200-300 calories a session and count it as 500-600 plus way over-eat my portions. It was only through accurate logging that I really got my portions in check. "Effort" counts for little if it's not deliberate; in fact it's easier to give up on ever losing weight if you *think* you're doing everything right. BUT, it builds the foundation for you to move in the right direction.
If I may make an observation (in addition to the pesto one above): you say that you treat yourself a couple times a week for your sanity. What is a couple times a week? Is it 500 calories each time or is it 1000? It's helpful to track your treats so you know how much they're contributing to your intake: don't get rid of them, but maybe cut them in half, or have them half as often, or find alternative ways to destress.
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You are eating too much but consider this. Try intermittent fasting as a way to control your caloric intake. Fast tell lunch or even a little later like 1 or 2 pm. You will get to eat tell full not splitting your calories up between a lot of meals.
I've lost 57-lbs doing a 20:4 IF diet eating ad libitum in the evenings. I'm at my lowest weight right now but I did gain back 10-lbs twice while I was doing a maintenance routine of a 16:8 diet and eating ad libitum. I found that if I made my lunch low carb (which did help with calorie reduction) I could still eat ad libitum in the evenings and maintain weight. With my eating habits, I need to do a 20:4 to have a small enough calorie consumption to lose weight but I can maintain as I described.
If I was trying to lose or maintain, I would rather shorten my eating window and not count anything until it works out so that I'm accomplishing my goal. If a person gobbles down 4000 kcal in an hour, this won't work obviously but it does work for a lot of people.5 -
Op , every time I get off the wagon and gain weight it's because I stopped logging. At the time, I swear I am not eating enough to gain weight. I'm so convinced it's something wrong with the scale, or me, medically...lol
I blame everything except my eating habits. I am active, I work out.... how can I still gain weight?
I swear, the minute I start to log my food the pounds comes off. I'm not 100% accurate when I log, but I log everything. Even a bite of pizza.
Please, buy a scale and start doing this. You will be amazed!7 -
Get a kitchen scale an weigh food for accurate recording. And do some weight training in addition to the cardio. But also consider investing in a scale that measures muscle mass, body fat, and estimated base metabolic rate. I was gaining weight on 1200 calories a day, and started losing when I upped my intake to 1800 after getting a BMR test that indicated I had a base rate or 2200 calories.
Im so confused. How did you gain weight on 1200 calories ?? I will never get this. I thought you only gained weight by eating more than you burned...:(1 -
There are ways to control your calories without logging,, the stoplight system is one IF is another, the smaller plates, 1/4 protein 1/4 carbs and the rest veggies is another. But if you want to eat whatever you like whenever you want you need to weigh to control portion size and log to make sure you don't go over maintenance3
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Thank you all for the reality check. I have been logging my food since I made this post. Now, lets hope I see results!
I have carefully read all your comments and will be applying the tips you all gave me!40
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