Newbie needing help - muscle soreness, sleep, etc

Let me start by saying that I understand that you have quite a lot of weight you want to lose, and that (from a health risk standpoint) you can probably afford to lose a bit faster than someone with less to lose.

Even so, I'd encourage you to think about how to make your path relatively easy, rather than ultra-fast. (I'm not going to try to be specific about numbers, just suggesting a cognitive orientation to you, to individualize with your own metrics.) Losing any meaningful total amount of weight is going to take quite a bit of time for anyone: Weeks, months, maybe even a small number of years. IMO, that puts a priority on finding sustainability, manageable strategies and tactics. You may be a very special person - certainly are, in many ways - but most of us would find it difficult to sustain motivation and willpower for an extended time period, alongside a normal busy and challenging daily life.

OK, enough preaching about generalities. On to a few point by point comments.

thestoryofangelina wrote: »

Hi there! I am sorry this may be long but don't want to leave any details out. I am needing help with muscle soreness, sleep, what to do with your daily calories when you sleep in, etc...

I am 37, started at 370 lbs and the big goal is to lose 200 lbs. For a girl, I do have a lot of strength (farm kid) but also, a lot of fat obviously. I recently went from couch potato, no activity except one PT session a week and alcohol intake 15+ alcohol drinks a week, 4-5 times eating out a week, averaging 5-6 hours of sleep per day to starting a HITT program (3x 30 min per week), trying to hit 5000 steps a day, 1 time eating out per week, 2-3 alcohol drinks per week and 7-8 hours of sleep per night.

In 5 weeks I am down 13 lbs and while my brain is saying that isn't good enough I know it is great progress (of course we expect to lose it overnight right?)

Losing more than 2 pounds a week, on average, is very fast loss. One common (not universal) scenario is to lose a little faster on the scale in the first week or two, just from changes in eating patterns (i.e., partly water weight and lower average digestive contents). Still, that's pretty fast, and not surprising giving the very significant changes in your habits.

Yes, it's good progress, very good. Don't be influenced by stupid things that happen on reality TV, headlines on tabloids in the grocery checkout line, or that sort of thing. You're doing exceedingly well.

My questions...
1. Muscle soreness question - As I have started ramping up trying to get more cardio and walking in during the past 2 weeks, my calves are killing me! I have done foam rolling and stretching, putting on icy gel and I've gone for a massage but can't do that everyday... They are fine until at night when I got to bed and then they ache something fierce and I cannot sleep. There is some relief from all of what I am doing but they are still keeping me awake. I aslo want to caveat that I do have good shoes with my orthotics. Any pointers?

Honestly, if you can't get to comfortable sleep via stretching, self-massage, OTC creams . . . I'd suggest backing off the exercise routine a bit, and going for a more gradual ramp up of exercise. You'll get where you want to be in a surprisingly short time still, I think . . . without the misery along the way.

Misery is optional. Misery can be counter-productive.

2. Sleep - so with this new routine by the time Friday and Saturday come I am beat. I am sleeping for like 12 hours and missing breakfast. Should I try and force awake after 8? What do I do with those missed breakfast calories? Try and eat them still? Or eat them?

Exhaustion is also counter-productive. When we're fatigued, we not only sleep more (as you're discovering), but also tend to reduce daily life movement in various ways, some of them subtle. That reduces our calorie expenditure, and can foster less-active habits that carry over into our long term habits.

Here again, I'm going to encourage you to consider a slower ramp-up in activity level, even if that means you lose a little bit slower. Your fitness will increase with exercise and daily life activity that's just a manageable bit of a challenge, and you'll gradually be able to do more without the exhaustion effect.

If you're exhausted to the point of needing that much sleep, it seems like that's a symptom of fairly high physical stress. I would not increase that stress by cutting even more calories out of the day. Whether you eat breakfast, have more snacks, eat more at dinner, eat some more calorie-dense foods instead of "diet foods", I'd suggest you try to get close to your calorie goal most days, one way or another.

4. Speaking of calories... I have MFP set up for the 1.5lb weight loss (not adding back in exercise calories and set at sedentary lifestyle) but because of my current weight that is a LOT of calories. Do I need to eat them all? I find I am some days 200-300 calories short. (usually eating 1800-1900 with suggested 2120)

You're set at 1.5 pounds and sedentary. You're currently losing faster than 1.5 pounds a week. You're set at sedentary, but not eating back any calories to fuel your significantly increased exercise. Stress. That is stress.

Eat your sedentary calorie goal. Eat at least a fair fraction of your exercise calories, too. I suspect that you were eating more than 2120 calories before starting down this particular weight loss path. Why is it hard to eat 2120 (plus exercise) now? Have you ruled out large groups of calorie dense foods? Maybe don't do that.

Calories and nutrition are important. Getting too few calories, too little nutrition (totals, not percentages) is increasing the stress on your body.

If you're strongly wanting to stick to so-called "healthy" foods, eat some calorie dense but also nutrition dense foods, to reach reasonable total calories. Examples: Full-fat dairy foods, if you eat dairy. Fatty cold water fish (for Omega-3 fats). Avocados, if you like them. Nuts, nut butters, seeds. Starchy vegetables. Sweet fruits. Grains. It's also fine to include some less nutrient-dense treat foods, in moderation, if you can moderate them.

5. Rest days - I know I have put my body through a shock; so how many of these should I be aiming for? Right now I have the 3 times a week HITT (did that for 3 weeks, then started to increase walking on alternate days to 2 times per week) so are the 2 rest days enough? With being so tired I wonder if I am running myself ragged but also don't want to be lax with such a big goal.

It's hard for me to say. The rest days part of it doesn't sound terrible to me, honestly. I'd encourage you to consider limiting the HIIT, and instead doing some more moderate-pace cardio and standard rep/set strength training, maybe some flexibility/mobility work - something less intense or taxing, during your exercise time, at first.

Intense exercise has its place in fitness, but (speaking from my coaching education), usually the best route to fitness starts with a base of moderate pace cardiovascular fitness and strength as a foundation, then adds intensity as one's endurance and cardiovascular fitness evolve - weeks to even months into a progressive program.

People use the term HIIT to cover a lot of exercise types these days, so I'm not sure what you're doing specifically, but even as an experienced (20+ years, 6 days most weeks) exerciser, I wouldn't do anything I'd call real HIIT 3 days a week, every week. Even elite athletes don't do all high intensity workouts all the time. Why would us regular people do that?

6. Pre-workout - So before my workout I have a protein shake (almond milk, protein powder, tbsp peanut butter) but I find I need a little extra oomph. My trainer said to get some carbs - any tips of good carbs before a workout (I typically go to the gym between 5-6pm)

Thanks in advance for any insight. This has been a very trying 5 weeks but I have better energy when I am not dead tired and am feeling a lot better!

Any carbs can be good carbs, when you need carbs, even something like honey or maple syrup. Other options would be things like banana, other sweet fruit you like, oatmeal, cooked sweet potatoes, applesauce, dried fruit.

You're working really hard, and that's admirable. I'd just encourage you to think about whether this routine is going to be sustainable for you going forward (for how long?). If you're losing even 2.5 pounds a week (which would be too fast part way through, of course), you'd be looking at keeping up a weight loss lifestyle for 80+ weeks, which is 20+ months.

I'm not trying to be discouraging, truly. Try to think of me as a concerned internet granny (I'm old enough!) who'd really like to see you succeed, long term. Long term success is about finding sustainable habits that can happen alongside a balanced, happy, productive life in other respects - enough time and energy for family, job, social connections, home chores, etc.

Wishing you complete success, sincerely!