Am I doing this right,. Short girl, short problems.
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teresaasears
Posts: 1 Member
Hello,
Looking for help on weight loss tips. I'm petite. 117.4lbs, 5' tall, female, 33 years old. I'm not overweight just looking to get rid of the thin layer of cushion I seem to have over everything. I'm freakishly strong for my stature and have a decent amount of muscle. Two years ago when I got married I was 112lbs, and doing more cardio than anything else. I feel like around then though my more maintainable weight was 114lbs, I was happy there. In any case, my measurements haven't changed much, they've only grown by about 1/2", at most, in some places, since then.
My current regime is Mon, Wed, Fri weight training (right now I'm doing p90x) and Tues, Thurs I do cardio (right now Im doing Insanity Max 30). I do 10-15 min of abs 2 or 3 times a week as well. Mon-Friday I strictly eat 1200 calories a day, drink only water and coffee, and have a vegan diet. My dinners are most vegetables and a protein substitute. I try to get around 50-75g of protein a day. No sweets or empty calories. Clean good.
On weekends however, I eat whatever I want and don't count calories. I keep a vegetarian diet, and consume alcohol (not much, maybe a couple beers or glasses of wine, usually only one of the days). I also will indulge in sweets if the opportunity arises.
I've always done this type of calorie cycling.It's always worked for me, now it seems to not be as I'm slowly gaining weight. Could this weight be muscle? Since my measurements haven't changed really and I'm doing a lot more lifting? Or am I just getting older and the cycling diet isn't doing the trick anymore? I have to admit I used to restrict my calories a lot more when I was lighter, about 800-1000 per day so I could eat what I wanted on the weekends. But that didn't seem healthy so I upped it to 1200 (which for me and my activity level is a 500 calorie deficit)
But I don't know, I would just think working out 5 days a week, only eating clean meals and limited calories, the weekend shouldn't make much difference. I know being petite throws a wrench in everything but my maintainable calorie intake is about 1700. So I'm already in a 500 deficit. So unless I'm eating back all those calories on the weekend (which would be A LOT) I don't know why I wouldn't see some form of weight loss
Anyone have any insight on this? Am I doing this all wrong, should I lower my calories below 1200? I've also starting 16:8 intermittent fasting 3 days a week. But I only started a week ago. Not sure if that will help. Any tips would be greatly appreciated!
Looking for help on weight loss tips. I'm petite. 117.4lbs, 5' tall, female, 33 years old. I'm not overweight just looking to get rid of the thin layer of cushion I seem to have over everything. I'm freakishly strong for my stature and have a decent amount of muscle. Two years ago when I got married I was 112lbs, and doing more cardio than anything else. I feel like around then though my more maintainable weight was 114lbs, I was happy there. In any case, my measurements haven't changed much, they've only grown by about 1/2", at most, in some places, since then.
My current regime is Mon, Wed, Fri weight training (right now I'm doing p90x) and Tues, Thurs I do cardio (right now Im doing Insanity Max 30). I do 10-15 min of abs 2 or 3 times a week as well. Mon-Friday I strictly eat 1200 calories a day, drink only water and coffee, and have a vegan diet. My dinners are most vegetables and a protein substitute. I try to get around 50-75g of protein a day. No sweets or empty calories. Clean good.
On weekends however, I eat whatever I want and don't count calories. I keep a vegetarian diet, and consume alcohol (not much, maybe a couple beers or glasses of wine, usually only one of the days). I also will indulge in sweets if the opportunity arises.
I've always done this type of calorie cycling.It's always worked for me, now it seems to not be as I'm slowly gaining weight. Could this weight be muscle? Since my measurements haven't changed really and I'm doing a lot more lifting? Or am I just getting older and the cycling diet isn't doing the trick anymore? I have to admit I used to restrict my calories a lot more when I was lighter, about 800-1000 per day so I could eat what I wanted on the weekends. But that didn't seem healthy so I upped it to 1200 (which for me and my activity level is a 500 calorie deficit)
But I don't know, I would just think working out 5 days a week, only eating clean meals and limited calories, the weekend shouldn't make much difference. I know being petite throws a wrench in everything but my maintainable calorie intake is about 1700. So I'm already in a 500 deficit. So unless I'm eating back all those calories on the weekend (which would be A LOT) I don't know why I wouldn't see some form of weight loss
Anyone have any insight on this? Am I doing this all wrong, should I lower my calories below 1200? I've also starting 16:8 intermittent fasting 3 days a week. But I only started a week ago. Not sure if that will help. Any tips would be greatly appreciated!
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Replies
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are you weighing everything you eat? it is very unlikely you are putting on muscle mass eating 1200 calories per day and not on a progressive lifting program.2
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Since you are already mid-range in your healthy BMI, and you know your total daily energy expenditure (roughly) then the answer is, "You're eating more than you think."
Since you are not sure how much exactly you are eating, that's where you'll need to start.
With very little weight to lose, there is a slim margin of error, calorie-wise. You can't eat too little and you can't eat too much. Losing weight at your current BMI is going to be a practice in patience and nuance.4 -
The above are correct (logging accurately to know what's what, and a progressive lifting program** if mass gain is in your goal set). Beyond that, don't forget to think about variations in your daily life activity, which can account for a surprisingly large amount of daily calorie expenditure.
Exaggerating: A lot of us in our 20s have super-active lives, with jobs like waiting tables, then we walk or bike all over a college campus, then playing pick up intermural sports or going out dancing for fun. Others have a 20s with lots of chasing toddlers, working on getting a house/yard remodeled/decorated to our taste, and that sort of thing. Later on, we can be phasing into more sedentary jobs, having older kids who don't need so much physical chasing (maybe need to be driven around
), enjoying our nice homes/yards, and inclined to socializing with movies and meals rather than sports and dancing.
Even something as simple as moving from an office job where you're on the ground floor to one where you climb a flight or two of stairs multiple times a day can make a surprising difference, or moving your home from somewhere that involves lots of walking/stairs to someplace without that.
Keep in mind that you can intentionally work on your daily life activity level to burn more calories. They're hard to estimate, but the results will show on the scale (or in ability to eat a bit more while maintaining). There's a thread about that here:
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10610953/neat-improvement-strategies-to-improve-weight-loss/p1
You didn't ask, but if I were you, I'd try to get protein in the 68-90g range, if part of your goal is muscle gain. (I'm vegetarian too, by the way . . . for 45+ years now. ).
** There's a thread about progressive strength programs at the link below. Despite the title, it includes some bodyweight programs that can be done at home with minimal/no equipment.
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10332083/which-lifting-program-is-the-best-for-you/p12 -
Why do you believe your maintenance calories are 1700? Where did you get this number from, if you aren’t logging consistently to track the effects of your intake?
4 -
It’s super easy to erase a deficit on the weekends. Since you are tracking everything else I would look there first. Don’t necessarily stop indulging, just start logging everything.
If you are slowly gaining, you are no longer in an overall deficit and you are going to have to eat less or move more to lose weight. There is no other possible solution, it’s simple math. Are you gaining muscle instead of fat? Maybe? You are the only one in a position to look at your body and see that. But gaining weight whether muscle or fat has to come from a surplus. It can’t come from air, by magic. If you are gaining muscle and losing fat, you should see your “layer of cushion” decrease, and you may decide you are happier at a higher weight. But to get your weight down, you have to eat less. That means banking more calories for weekends, which is starting to be iffy health wise due to your petite size, or restricting on weekends.
Eating clean has no impact on whether or not you gain or lose weight. It has some effect on whether you gain fat or muscle, but scale gain or loss is about calories. Those calories can be zucchini or pizza and beer, the math is the same.7 -
It's simple. You're eating more than you think. You may not want to track weekend food, but it results in mysteriously slow fat gain.6
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I agree that your loose weekend logging and overindulging is probably to blame. Metabolism definitely slows down a little with age, and a few hundred calories (or more) of over-eating on a few days of the weekend can easily stall your progress,
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