Need help with adjusting my current diet and fitness routine

mysslopez
mysslopez Posts: 6 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
So I have started my journey on June 16th. I have currently lost 28 pounds. I just recently started recording my fat and muscle mass. I have records for the past two months. Now my diet mom thru Friday is healthy and mostly under my calorie goal but usually meets my macros. I’ve noticed I’ve come to a plateau and need to figure out what to change. I currently do 30 min of cardio and 45 min of weights then finish with 10 min burnout cardio. Twice a week. Once a week incorporate if I can a home workout that uses mostly body weight and also focuses on legs and flutes. About 30 to 40 min. Now I know for a fact my weekends are effecting my progress. Usually by Friday I will have a healthy breakfast and lunch. However by dinner me and my husband eat out. And this can last until Sunday. It didn’t seem to effect my progress until now. Should I just adjust my diet and eat healthy all week and have only one cheat meal a week? Or should I change my workout routine to shock my body? And it may have adjusted to the workout. Which do you think will be more beneficial towards loosing fat and not muscle? Should I just do both? I’ll include the records of the last two months. Thanks for the help!

Replies

  • corysmithsmail
    corysmithsmail Posts: 166 Member
    Diet is more important than exercise for weight loss. Exercise is for health, diet/nutrition is for weight loss. As long as your calories out are greater than calories in, you can eat whatever you want to lose weight. I don't know what your cheat weekends consist of but that's probably what is doing you in. That is if you are eating high caloric restaurant food for 3 days (Friday evening/Saturday/Sunday) and still have regular portioned breakfast and lunches.

    I'd suggest just allowing for whatever you're planning on "cheating with." Just fit it into your daily calorie allowance.
  • NovusDies
    NovusDies Posts: 8,940 Member
    edited September 2018
    The only way to shock your body involves electricity. If you are using a scale to measure fat and muscle you are most likely wasting your time. Those things are seldom accurate.

    Are you logging all your meals? Even if you go out to eat you need to log what you think is a good guess. You can't make an informed decision about changing how you eat without logging.

    How long have you been at the same weight? If you have not already you should read:

    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10155495/just-another-plateau-and-weigh-in-thread

    You should reconsider the term cheat meal because it implies anything goes and that you are doing something wrong. I plan in advance for larger calorie events and meals so that it all fits or mostly fits into my week. It is never cheating.
  • mysslopez
    mysslopez Posts: 6 Member
    Thank you! I was thinking the same. It’s a bit difficult because my husband eats whatever he likes and weekends are usually our quality time and he loves taking me out. Thank you for the reply!
  • mysslopez
    mysslopez Posts: 6 Member
    I usually log my meals Monday through Friday. Usually when Friday afternoon hits I don’t even consciously consider what I’m eating. I know this is where the issue lies I just was not sure if I needed to adjust my workout or not. Or if I needed to include more days of being active. And cheat meals for me are just whatever I’m craving. Ex. Fast food etc.. I know this is what is slowing the process. Although I’m happy with my progress I still have almost 35 pounds to loose. I usually track and weight myself every Friday morning. Then by the end of the month I record my progress and you can see it’s very minor changes recently.
  • mysslopez
    mysslopez Posts: 6 Member
    This is a day when I do not go to the gym
  • mysslopez
    mysslopez Posts: 6 Member
    This is a day when I do go to the gym. My workouts are recorded by my Fitbit versa so I input the data
  • NovusDies
    NovusDies Posts: 8,940 Member
    If you don't want to log the weekends you may have to use other tricks for portion control like eating half of your meals, drinking more water before and during, eating an apple before going to a restaurant, etc.

    I wouldn't trust myself to eat intuitively 2 1/2 days a week. There would be weeks I might still lose but there would also be weeks I gain weight back. While I have no problem with my plan I still would not want to undo most of a week's deficit over the weekend on a regular basis.

    All of the food I crave I can make fit into my plan. I am eating pizza today and quite a bit of it. I am also attending a family get together on Sunday where I will eat higher calorie food too. I will lose weight this week anyway and it will be the same as I lose each week (within the normal minor differences).
  • slossia
    slossia Posts: 138 Member
    Stop recording what you eat and you’ll start gaining weight. Even if you overeat a small amount of food over 52 weekends and that will add up to a weight gain !
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    mysslopez wrote: »
    Thank you! I was thinking the same. It’s a bit difficult because my husband eats whatever he likes and weekends are usually our quality time and he loves taking me out. Thank you for the reply!

    You can still go out, just eat less. I always plan to bring half the entree home, and when that isn't possible, get something smaller like an appetizer instead. I've also cut back on the number of drinks I have. And I exercise more earlier in the day on days I plan to go out.

    Another thing to keep in mind is that men can generally eat a lot more than women, and we shouldn't be trying to match them. For example, my OH and I used to split pizza before it dawned on me that he needs a lot more calories than I do. Now he gets 5 pieces and me 3.

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