I feel like giving up!

Here's the deal. I gave birth by c-section June 1, 08. I didn't exercise or limit calories (but ate healthily due to breastfeeding) for the 1st 3 months. At my 6 week check up I weighed 140 lb (I'm 5ft 2"). I did very little exercise until about October and just ate healthily and to appetite.

In Nov, 08 I joined a gym and started going 4 per week, doing a mix of cardio and weights. In December after xmas I weighed 143lb. I started to carefully eat and NYE began doing much more and intense exercise. I started "gyming" 6 times a week. At the end of January I'd lost no weight, so I hired a Personal Trainer from February. So I've been working out with a Trainer 1-2 per week, and he plans my week of 3 x weights and 3 x cardio. I still weigh 140lb!!!!! I stopped breastfeeding a couple of weeks ago as that may be halting the weight loss but still no loss, not even one measly pound.

My trainer has me eating 5 x per day and around 1,800 cal per day. For the last week or so I've been netting 1,200 or less and still NOT EVEN ONE POUND. And I'm sore from working out.

Now I know that muscle weighs more than fat and I'm definitely firmer and more energetic, but I still can't fit into my old "fat" clothes, in fact I'm still wearing maternity pants and even split some! My belly still protrudes like Im pregnant, yet I do loads of transverse abdominal work, crunches etc.

I used to weigh 110, I'd be happy with 120.

Any ideas, apart from asking my OB if she left a brick in my uterus!


Depressed chubbymom

If your net is consistently less than 1200, maybe you're not eating enough??? I know that sounds weird, but sometimes it has happened. Your net should be over 1200, for most people. Maybe Boss will chime in here with some helpful hints. Hang in there - don't give up!! At least if you hang in there, you are getting in better physical condition and your heart, lungs, etc., are functioning better. If you give up, you'll go the opposite way and have more of a problem then you have now!

I understand your frustration.

There are a couple of things that come to mind. No doubt that breast feeding may have impacted your weight loss. I think you need to give your body some time to adjust to that, to be honest. If you just stopped a couple of weeks ago, your homones could still be in a strange state. I would suggest talking to your doctor about this for a more thorough explanation. In fact, you might just want to have some blood work done to make sure everything (including your thyroid) is where it should be.

Regarding eating 1800 calories....at your weight/height/age, I would argue that is too many calories to lose weight. I'm 5'2" and a five years older, and there is no way that I could eat 1800 calories, even with working out, and lose weight. If you dropped to 1200 just a week ago, it could be that your body hasn't really had time to respond. A more gradual drop may be better as well, especially since you weren't gaining at the 1800 mark. Perhaps try eating about 1500 for a a couple of weeks and see how your body responds. And then if you want to, drop to the 1200-1300 range to see how your body responds there. I had great luck losing weight eating about 1300 calories a day.

As I'm sure you are aware, there is a huge debate on this site about exercise calories. I will argue to you, because of your height, to be somewhat cautious in eating exercise calories. I say this for two reasons. I don't know your daily activity level (without exercise), but it could be that, in order to maintain your weight, you may only need to be eating something like 1500-1600 calories a day (again, without considering your exercise) as it is. So to create a 500 calorie deficit from that without falling below 1200 calories means exercising to create the deficit.

I think that is important for you to know what your numbers are (your Active Metabolic Rate being of prime importance) to understand if you need to eat back your exercise calories. One quick way of finding out what your AMR may be is to figure out how many calories a day MFP would suggest you eat to maintain your weight, and then figure out your 500 calorie deficit (for losing one pound a week) from there. If MFP indicates your maintainance calories are 1600 (as an example), then even eating 1200 (and you don't want to go below 1200) isn't going to create a 500 calorie deficit. Then you would know that you need to burn at least 100 calories through exercise to create that deficit, and what you eat back beyond that 100 calories is at your discretion.

However, another reason I strongly caution you about eating the exercise calories as projected from this site is that, again, for your height/weight/etc., the number of calories projected by MFP as burned may be WAY too high. I know they are for me...and I'm talking double in some areas like cardio. So if I were eating back the 600 calories it says I burned, when I only burned 300, I could actually be gaining weight. So if you are going to eat back some of your exercise calories, I would suggest a more accurate counting of those calories than what is listed in MFP (like buying a HRM).

So, in short, if you are concerned that you have more going on with you regarding your homones/blood work, I would talk to your doctor. But, aside from that, I would suggest figuring out what your body needs to maintain your weight and then cutting the calories down to a comfortable range for you and sticking with it for a few weeks to see how your body responds.

And one final note....make sure you are drinking plenty of water. That can't be said enough, especially given that you are working out hard. Strength training always makes me retain water, and my weight loss really took off when I doubled my water intake.

Best of luck to you!

DO NOT give up.
Even though it's bascially my 1st day on this, i still care.
Just keep doing what you're doing.
Results can go on a pausing stage, our bodies are like that.

Just remember though, it took a while to gain weight.
So it'll take a while to lose it.

Never give up!