HITTING THE WALL ALREADY....comments please!!

S

Stacy

Cathlete
I'm 38 and already feel like I'm hitting the wall!! Over the past few years I've slowly put on 20 lbs with 6 lbs being just since the first of the year. I'm currently doing STS, doing each week twice and havent changed my diet. My diet isnt great I'll admit but it definitely hasnt been 6 lbs worse. I didnt even gain this much around the holidays!! It seems like all my weight is going to my middle and my thighs whereas it used to only goto my thighs, and everytime I look in the mirror I see a new gray hair and wait...are those jowels?? Tell me life gets better. Sorry for the sob story but I was close to tears when I got on the scale this morning and saw a number I've never in my life seen before :(

Any commiseration, advice, words of encouragement welcome.

P.S. I have a doctor's appt to get my thryoid checked and a gyn appt to make sure all my horomones are doing what they're supposed to be doing.
 
Please keep a food journal

Stacy said:
I'm 38 and already feel like I'm hitting the wall!! Over the past few years I've slowly put on 20 lbs with 6 lbs being just since the first of the year. I'm currently doing STS, doing each week twice and havent changed my diet. My diet isnt great I'll admit but it definitely hasnt been 6 lbs worse. I didnt even gain this much around the holidays!! It seems like all my weight is going to my middle and my thighs whereas it used to only goto my thighs, and everytime I look in the mirror I see a new gray hair and wait...are those jowels?? Tell me life gets better. Sorry for the sob story but I was close to tears when I got on the scale this morning and saw a number I've never in my life seen before :(

Any commiseration, advice, words of encouragement welcome.

P.S. I have a doctor's appt to get my thryoid checked and a gyn appt to make sure all my horomones are doing what they're supposed to be doing.
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Here's what stuck out that your wrote: "My diet isnt great I'll admit." You MUST get a handle on your eating - please start keeping a food journal & get real honest with yourself about your food intake. Life gets better if you take the old bull by the horns and get real about your weight situation. You DON'T have to starve, or give up all your favorite foods to lose weight, I promise you. I've been raving about the "Eat This, Not That" books, which promise that you can make small changes to your food habits and lose weight painlessly. Spend less that $40.00 and get the one with the yellow cover and the supermarket guide.
 
I second the previous poster

She is right about the eating. I've had good weeks on the scale even when I wasn't exercising because I was watching what I eat. And its not about completely giving up treats. Its about not having the treats be a regular thing in your diet. Its about substitutions. Its about switching from white pasta to whole grain pasta. Its about the whole wheat tortillas and using a little honey in plain yogurt. I really understand about the hormones though, I have a hormonal disorder which has aged my body. I really hope that things get cleared up for you.
 
Ditto! And it's also important to *know* what you are eating. There's so much out there that isn't healthy/clean that is marketed as such. We all know Cheez-its aren't healthy <pauses to dream of Cheez-its being healthy> so we can incorporate those into our diets as a treat. But the stuff we think is healthy that isn't can really sink a clean eating plan.
 
Diet is everything!! Not that 38 is old, but as we age, we simply cannot eat like when we were younger. Every calorie counts, and it's not just the amount, it's the quality as well. I highly recommned Tosca Reno's Eat Clean Diet book. (It's not really a diet, so don't let the title scare you off.) I honestly think things will get worse for you if you don't start to take control of your diet. Pounds tend to creep up on us when we're not paying attention.
 
Hey you can do it! Look you've already committed yourself to the excersize. STS ain't no walk in the park you know. You've taken your first step towards a healthy lifestyle but it doesn't stop there. You'll soon hear that a healthy lifestyle is 30% excersize, 60% diet, and 10% genetics, . . or something like that. Point is that diet is a huge part of your sucess and is by far the hardest to change. With excersize you commit your hour and then your done but with eating, . . heck you gotta eat all day and bad eating habits are really hard to break. Start small. Rome wasn't built in a day and going cold turkey doesn't always work. Try to adapt the concept of clean eating. Cut out 1 junky food eating habit at a time and educate yourself with healthy eating habits. Replace the beef with chicken, snack on nuts and veggie, . .they will fill you up and they are good for you. Make the commitment to yourself and trust me little by little you will notice your energy level change and you'll be able to really kick up your workouts. Hey we've all been there. I promise you you can do it. Hang in there.
 
I agree with the previous posters -JOURNAL! Also, weigh yourself every day for a week or two and when the scale goes up, see what you ate the day before and start looking for patterns. I never seriously journaled until the beginning of the year because my weight had been steadily going up (I'm 42 BTW). I started journaling, weighing myself every morning and tracking my calories.....I found out there are some foods (and combinations of certain foods) that my body simply does not react well to. I learned how many calories I need per day and what foods to scale back on (for the most part, I don't believe in depriving myself completely because that makes me binge) and I've lost 12 lbs since the beginning of the year.

Good luck.
 
I'm going to add my voice to the chorus. Bodybuilders (the one's not tanked-up on steroids) insist that diet is 80-90% of the body you get (besides genetics and your workout). And these are people who spend A LOT of time in the gym. Bottom line is you spend the most time eating and you can't work out a bad diet.

As for me, I feel I wasted nearly two years busting my butt weight training and doing tons of cardio while refusing to deal with my diet in any meaningful way. I only started playing with clean eating about four months ago and, after six months of stagnated progress, finally got the ball rolling again. Then I started REALLY tightening up (double servings of vegetables and 4-6oz. lean protein every 2.5-3 hours, carbs only after workouts, LOTS of water) about 3 weeks ago and things are really moving fast now. I can't believe how much really cleaning up my diet has done for my body in such a short time. I also can't believe it took me about 21 (wasted) months to figure out what I had to do.

Clean up your diet and you'll get out of your rutt amazingly fast - a lot faster than me.
 
I agree with everyone else...diet, diet, diet. When I was 37 I seriously decided to get healthy. The first thing I did was clean up my diet. I lost 40 pounds in a year. You can do this but you must clean up the diet. I tried to exercise and eat whatever I wanted and it just didn't work.

Life does get better!! I'm 47 and have never felt better. I'm doing things I never thought I would do. I'm stronger and fitter than I was at 27.

Stay strong!
 
Thanks for all of your encouragement. In know in my heart that it's all about the eating. I'm an emotional eater/self-proclaimed food addict and man, the clean eating is just tough but I am committed to making changes b/c looking puffy and having tight pants is just not worth it!

As I tighten up my diet, should I continue STS with cardio twice a week or change things up with more circuits??
 
Stacy said:
Thanks for all of your encouragement. In know in my heart that it's all about the eating. I'm an emotional eater/self-proclaimed food addict and man, the clean eating is just tough but I am committed to making changes b/c looking puffy and having tight pants is just not worth it!

As I tighten up my diet, should I continue STS with cardio twice a week or change things up with more circuits??
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I know about the emotional eating but, believe me, when the fat starts coming off fast and you see convex and concave places on your body (like really hot women have) you never had before it will be motivation enough to eat your vegetables, get your good fats and protein, and limit your carbs!

About the exercise, I mix it up A LOT and what I've found is that if your diet is tidier you can do just about any kind of exercise. As long as you're REGULARLY doing some form of serious weight training, you're golden. With both diet and exercise consistency rules - but DIET is the biggest slice of the fitness pie. Like I said, I'm never hungry, which helps plenty.
 
Stacy said:
I'm 38 and already feel like I'm hitting the wall!! Over the past few years I've slowly put on 20 lbs with 6 lbs being just since the first of the year. I'm currently doing STS, doing each week twice and havent changed my diet. My diet isnt great I'll admit but it definitely hasnt been 6 lbs worse. I didnt even gain this much around the holidays!! It seems like all my weight is going to my middle and my thighs whereas it used to only goto my thighs, and everytime I look in the mirror I see a new gray hair and wait...are those jowels?? Tell me life gets better. Sorry for the sob story but I was close to tears when I got on the scale this morning and saw a number I've never in my life seen before :(

Any commiseration, advice, words of encouragement welcome.

P.S. I have a doctor's appt to get my thryoid checked and a gyn appt to make sure all my horomones are doing what they're supposed to be doing.
Click to expand...

Stacy,

I'm glad you are going to see your doctor. Not to worry, the best is yet to come, seriously. Once you know what is going on with your body, you can take the necessary changes and apply them to your life. A new beginning as you will.

I agree with the many posters, eating clean is key, but see your doctor anyway just to be sure.

Let us know how things go, OK?

Janie
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weight loss

Hi,

My son, who is 21, on his own lost about 50 pounds 2-3 years ago, then another 20 in the past year. He's commented to me multiple times that losing the 70 was all about diet. He did not workout, but he changed what he ate and how much of it. He's now trying to lose the last 15 and has decided that these are the most stubborn 15 and it will be diet and exercise to get the last few off. Losing weight is not rocket science. It takes self control and a real desire to change.

My husband who had been working out for almost 2 years and couldn't lose 20 pounds finally listened to me. He just dropped the 20 pounds between Nov and Jan by quitting eating sugar and adding in more complex carbs. Ironically, I think he eats more food since he quit eating sugar. He has been able to keep the weight off and has not touched anything with white sugar in it since. Again, for him it wasn't rocket science either, it was diet.

Tracy
 
Havingfun said:
Hi,

My son, who is 21, on his own lost about 50 pounds 2-3 years ago, then another 20 in the past year. He's commented to me multiple times that losing the 70 was all about diet. He did not workout, but he changed what he ate and how much of it. He's now trying to lose the last 15 and has decided that these are the most stubborn 15 and it will be diet and exercise to get the last few off. Losing weight is not rocket science. It takes self control and a real desire to change.

My husband who had been working out for almost 2 years and couldn't lose 20 pounds finally listened to me. He just dropped the 20 pounds between Nov and Jan by quitting eating sugar and adding in more complex carbs. Ironically, I think he eats more food since he quit eating sugar. He has been able to keep the weight off and has not touched anything with white sugar in it since. Again, for him it wasn't rocket science either, it was diet.

Tracy
Click to expand...

Rocket science or not, nobody wants to hear that they have to change their eating habits. Why can't they get it that they don't have to starve or give up goodies entirely??!! Just have some goodies once a week. Anybody can be "good" for 6 days.
 
In reply to your question about continuing your present workout, I would make sure you get at least 3 days per week of lifting (STS should take care of that). Also, cardio is equally important for you right now, so try and get a minimum of 3 days cardio in.
 
Stacy - ITA with others who suggested that you journal your food. Fitday.com is a great resource for this. It's a good way to get a reality check on what your daily food intake is. You may find that you can make some small changes to your daily eating habits that will initiate some results.

Hang in there.
 
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