Need Help

Tanitam
Tanitam Posts: 15
in Introduce Yourself
Hi All,

I joined a while ago but I have only just recently started to really record my calorie intake and exercise.

I have a bit of a problem and I hope that someone can help me.

I have completed the slim in 6 series and have not lost any weight or centimeters. (Sorry, I am South African)

I am 22 years old and currently at 81 kgs and 1.58cm tall which translates to 178 pounds and 5.18 tall. I currently eat, according to myfitness pal and what I have entered, about 1000 calories a day, however I know I am eating a little bit more than that. My BMR is 1600 for a sedentary lifestyle. I am doing the slim in six series which is about 400 - 550 calories burned according the people who created it. (I do not have a heart rate monitor)

(Slim in six is a combination of cardio and strength and lasts an hour)

I usually add exercise that only adds up to about 450 calories burnt because I do not know what the true number is.

I eat fruits and veggies daily and only have pasta once a week. I do not eat rice or bread and maybe only have a roll on the weekend for hot-dogs. I think I eat fairly well and I feel like I eat a lot but I think I am eating too little for the amount of exercise I am doing.

I need some help in understanding all these calorie considerations and exercise.

I do not want to eat more because I feel that would not be conducive to losing weight.

If you can help that would be much appreciated as it has been 6 weeks and nothing.

Replies

  • Tanitam
    Tanitam Posts: 15
    Anybody?
  • Bub1971
    Bub1971 Posts: 106 Member
    Feel free to add me we can discuss this further.
  • HelenDootson
    HelenDootson Posts: 443 Member
    Sounds like your body has gone into stavation mode - Eat more!
    Does not feel right, but it is!
  • Niccij221074
    Niccij221074 Posts: 1
    Hi

    I saw the nurse at my local Doctors practise as I'd stalled a bit on the weight loss and she said to watch how much sugar I was eating - I'd only really been concentrating on the number of calories and ate alot of fruit and veg, and like you, not very much bread or pasta. She basically said stop eating banana's every day (limit them to 3 small ones a week) and only have mango once a week as they are full of sugar!!!! I was gutted as they're my favourites, she also said beetroot was full of sugar and that when I check the labels on food to try an avoid anything that has more than 6g sugar per 100g. (Basically threw all my salad dressing out and all the "fat free" stuff cos they load it with sugar to make up for the low-fatness of it! However, 1 lost 4lbs that week so she was right! Also I've upped the amount of exercise I'm doing to roughly 2 hours a day and when I weigh myself and haven't lost any I have to try and remember that muscle weighs more and as I seem to be shrinking all over guess I can't complain about the scales staying the same (reckon they lie anyway!). Its really hard to stay motivated though when you don't seem to be getting anywhere fast, does your Doctor have weight loss clinics or someone who can offer advice? I always seem to lose most just when I've had a splurge on nice things after being good for ages! Good luck with it all xx
  • Tanitam
    Tanitam Posts: 15
    Hi All,

    Thanks for the advice.

    I am going to try eat a little more and I wont exercise as intensely as I have been.

    Hopefully I will see some change!

    Have a great day!
  • Prahasaurus
    Prahasaurus Posts: 1,381 Member
    Your diary is closed. Please open your diary and make sure it is accurate so we can make informed suggestions.

    I think the phrase "starvation mode" is way overused at this site. The research I've seen implies it is incredibly hard to get your body into "starvation mode."

    Also, your body is like a tanker at sea. You turn the wheel, but nothing happens for some time. It doesn't mean the tanker won't turn, in fact is almost certainly will. But not immediately, and that's why people can fall prey more easily to spurious dieting tips.

    To summarize: please open your diary.

    Thanks.

    --P
  • Tanitam
    Tanitam Posts: 15
    I have opened my diary now. Just excuse the one day where I had cheese and tomato sandwiches, I think the nutrients are wrong which I will check when I get home today and that is the first sandwich I have had in a very very long time!

    If looking at what I eat will help then it is much appreciated.

    Thanks!
  • Tanitam
    Tanitam Posts: 15
    I have now cut down my exercise to 40 mins 3-5 times a week which consists of half cardio and half strength.

    I now have a snack or two extra a day reaching about 1400 calories eaten a day compared to the 1100-1200.

    I have gained weight now.

    I don't know what to do and this gain is not helping me stay motivated.
  • speediejane
    speediejane Posts: 496 Member
    http://exercise.about.com/cs/weightloss/a/howtoloseweight.htm
    :happy:
  • Lesley2901
    Lesley2901 Posts: 372 Member
    Had a look at your diary and agree that you were eating too little, however there were quite a few days with no food logging - from my own experience this often means you are eating more calories than you estimate. The same with your exercise, I go to various exercise classes and the calorie burn advised on their posters at the gym is more than the calories I would expect to be burning so perhaps you are overestimating there. It is also difficult to estimate a calorie burn for strength training. I'm sure there will be others more knowledgable than me who will make further suggestions but I have found that mixing up my exercise routine and zigzagging my calories has help me shed a few more pounds. Hope this helps
  • HolmesIV
    HolmesIV Posts: 1
    I echo Lesley's comments. Although I'm new here, I have been working with reasonable success (about 12% down from peak weight) at weight loss for some months. I would urge you to do your best to update your food diary each day, doing it during the day if you can. Indeed, I came here primarily for that, though I am also (to my pleasant surprise) finding the community interesting.

    I'm hesitant to give advice, simply because things tend to work differently for different people. That said, your food diary looks a lot like mine did early on when I was having a lot of difficulty. (And maintaining a food diary manually, ugh).

    From my own experience (I started with a nutritionist's advice, and found it mostly quite unhelpful) after minimal losses for a while, I decided to start experimenting with a variety of dietary approaches, each for about a week. In each case my main criteria were that it had to be reasonably healthy, and something I could follow for the rest of my life cheerfully if need be. (And let me lose weight of course).

    So far, I have found a lower carb diet to work very well for me; calorie restriction and following the North American food pyramid did not work for me. I aim for about 1900 cal a day, and no more than 75g of net carbs. (I'm male, and quite tall; I would not advise 1900 cal/day for you). I don't much care if something is fatty; I do care if it has net carbs and sugars.

    I have no idea if this would work for you or not. I simply note that it has worked well for me for several months, and I'm actually really enjoying it.

    So what would I do differently from you on a specific day? Take your Thursday Jul 5.
    The big things I'd cut out are the sweet fruits, the pasta, the prepared sauces, prepared foods, breaded foods.

    I'd probably ditch the raisins (pretty sweet, lots of carbs), apple is soso as well and go with blackberries, blueberries, a lower carb berry and maybe an egg or two. Or bacon. Or an avocado.

    Lunch, no way on spaghetti. Take your beef, and the bacon, add some cheese, make a cheeseburger, no bun, but wrapped in lettuce, no ketchup, no relish, but onions, peppers, tomatoes, mustard. Have a big salad for roughage and fibre.

    Dinner, looks like a nice greek salad. I'd either make it a lot bigger (including much more cheese) and have just that, or I'd have the chicken as well, but ditch the breading and definitely ditch the specialty sauce. Make your own nice sauce/dressings. I'm a guy and not really big on cooking, but it's amazing how good something pretty simple can taste, and how much healthier it can be for you.

    Snacks? Vegetables, broccoli, anything as long as it's not sweet/carbs/starch. I have black coffee (or with 10-18% cream, but never sugar). I'd ditch the potato chips.

    If you do try a lower carb road, work hard to get lots of green leafy veg, lots of fibre since you will no longer be getting it from lots of grain and sweet fruit.

    Exercise? I cycle about 10km a week, lift weights a bit, walk a bit, and try to use stairs rather than elevators, even if it's to the 10th or 20th floor. In other words, not much, nothing formal. I did try more exercise, and found I had to eat a lot more or my metabolism would get quite messed up, and I tended at best to lose weight very slowly.

    I want to stress again that this is merely noting what worked for me, based on trial and error experimentation. I'm not arguing it will work for you, or even be good for you; merely that your food diary looks a lot like what mine did before I tried the more effective (for me) lower carb approach.

    I wish you luck. Feel free to message me if you want to comment or ask questions on what I've said here.
  • Tanitam
    Tanitam Posts: 15
    Hi,

    Thanks for the input from both of you.

    I know my diary is a little empty but what I eat there is basically what I eat every single day no change except for the chips.

    I rarely eat any sweets and that was just a day i felt like i needed a little something and had them. As for spaghetti, that is the only pasta I have a week otherwise i eat no other pasta so surely pasta once a week inst the problem. the only bread I eat is with a hamburger for dinner sometimes and its a small roll, i might have the garlic roll once a week with a dinner and 1 small hotdog on the weekend.

    That is the only bread i eat, i don't eat rice and rarely eat any other starch besides what i mentioned above. I also don't have sugar, i use sweeteners that are aspartame free. I drink tea with a little milk no sweeteners and drink ice tea when I am home and water at work.

    If my calories are too low then not eating the raisins and the apple would just cause my calorie count to be even less. So if i take your suggestions on how to make my meals healthier i will be way too low on my calories.

    Also I am fussy with food, I don't eat blueberries, blackberries, avocado, mustard, fussy with tomatoes, don't do salad dressings, funny cheese. none of that funny stuff. :-)

    I do eat raw baby carrots as a snack if I am feeling hungry and I love raw veggies.

    I don't have time to prepare anything in the morning to take to work but i have wanted to try taking boiled eggs for breakfast instead.

    As for my exercise I underestimate all the time, I make the duration less so that the calories burned is less so that it is a more accurate account of what I have burned.

    I really appreciate all the points you have made, and will look into them to see if it will help. I will also try to regularly update my diary. ;-)

    Thanks!

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