Frustrated with weight training - considering cutting back

JoAnna4731 wrote: »

SpyLuna wrote: »

I get ravenous when I lift weights too. This was my cycle, Start dieting lose 15 pounds with diet. Add in cardio lose more weight. Start lifting, gain a few pounds in a couple weeks with no change to the diet at this point, then the increased hunger begins and I turn ravenous. I fall off the diet, get discouraged and stop working out. it happened a few times to me. What I did was stop the long cardio and get a Max trainer and do the HIIT cardio work out on that in between full body work out weight days. I noticed the HIIT workouts curb my appetite for up to 24 hours, sometimes longer, and I still get in 2 full body weight days a week. I've been following it for three weeks and although, like always I gained a couple pounds for some reason, I at least control my hunger and don't fall off diet because diet is key!

YES. This is very much what has happened to me. I think I need a break to recalibrate. My hunger has subsided in the last week since I have switched back to cardio. I’m feeling more energized and am having more fun with my workouts. I’m just going to take it easy through Thanksgiving and then adjust my strategy. I’m thinking I was much happier with two full body, weight sessions per week and the rest cardio and yoga. I will probably go back to that for a while and work on increasing protein in my diet so that if I decide to increase my focus on weights, at least my diet will be on point. Thanks everyone for sharing your input and experiences.

Doing a split made me ravenous too. I am much happier doing a 2-3x weekly full body program + cardio.

And more protein most definitely helps with the hungries!

Have been doing strength training consistently for about 3 months now and am ravenous too. I did some research on diet during strength training and discovered I was highly underestimating how much protein I should be eating daily. There is a lot of info out there, but here is one website's take on it: https://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/calpro.htm

That being said, so far I have not been able to shed my excess weight, but I have done a body analysis at GoodLife Fitness and it shows my muscle mass has gone up, so my lean muscle mass to fat ratio has improved, even though my scale shows the same number. That is an improvement, but still, I would love to lose my belly fat. I can feel the muscle underneath. There's a sexy body under there somewhere. Lol.

If you decide to continue with the weights, you could try getting some protein powder. They make great shakes and can be added to some foods. It's the easiest way to boost protein intake if you're not fond of eating loads of meat every day.

Good luck!

It seems like you've got a lot of great input already, but I don't think anyone has mentioned this yet so I'm just throwing this out there as a possible factor....how well are you staying hydrated? I've noticed that a lot of days your diary shows you are consuming an additional 1,000-2,000 mg of sodium a day. If you're eating excessive amounts of sodium and not drinking enough fluids, perhaps your lack of energy for weight training had been due to dehydration. Sometimes people get confused between hunger and thirst, so maybe a lot of those days you felt the desire to eat more and didn't have it in you to do lifting, what you really needed was to drink more water?

Glad it's not just me who has turned ravenous with strength training! I went from 200cals less a day target and doing cardio to maintaining weight target and eating extra 200cals a day and since then I'm always thinking of food! When does it subside?! My body looks great but think I was happier before when I wasn't thinking of food all the time! Maybe it's easier to track cardio calories than strength training cals and I'm not eating enough to make up for the calories lost during training 🤔

I'm very similar and would prefer to underestimate than over estimate, but long term that won't do our bodies any favours! We should be logging something because even if cardio does not burn as much as weight training, we know it still burns something! And to recover properly and have enough energy for the next session we need fuel. But yes I'm in the same boat and don't want to overestimate either! I've added 100cals a day to my calorie intake and then I'm going to see how I feel at the end of the week or two. I'm ignoring the scales as I feel it only shows one piece of the puzzle 😊