I'm at a loss and I need your HELP!

[lov2bfit]

I am at a complete loss. To give you a little background, I have been doing Cathe for about 5 years now. I tend to be somewhat of a yo yo eater though. I go through periods of really clean eating, really serious workout schedules and I get really lean and fit. Then something like a vacation hits or a Holiday comes and I completely stop with the healthy eating and working out and gain weight back (a horrible pattern, I know).

Two summers ago I was in the best shape of my life, eatin around 1700 calories a day, giving myself 1 cheat day a week, doing P90X and my resutls were fantastic. I ended up having surgery and of course that stopped my workouts and my eating went down hill and I gained 20 lbs!!!

Now I am trying to get back in that shape I was in 2 years ago.
I have for the last 4 weeks been eating healthy (somewhere arond 1400-1700) calories a day, doing Cathe 6 days a week for an hour to an hour and a half. I think that my body looks a bit leaner (nothing drastic, but my clothes fit a little better) but the scale has not budged 1 pound in 4 weeks!!!! Neither has the body fat % on my scale!!! How is that possible??? In the past I have usually been able to drop at least 1-2 pounds a week. I have never had such a lack of results before and I'm doing exaclty the same thing I was before.

I know that I'm older now (I'm 34) but I just don't know what I need to change to get any results. Is there anyone out there that may have some advice? I tend to do more cardio because I have that mental thing where I want to see high calorie burns on my HRM by the end of my workout (I usually burn around 500-600 cal per workout). Could that possibly be why? Any adivce or ideas would be greatly appreciated. I'm starting to get discouraged.

 

[Gayle]

I have never had such a lack of results before and I'm doing exaclty the same thing I was before.

Maybe this is the problem? You mentioned that you saw good results with P90X, which is not a high cardio program. If the cardio isn't producing the results you want, maybe you should start doing more strength work...not all strength, but sub a current cardio day or two for strength.

How about a hybrid P90X/Cathe rotation? Just throwing out ideas...

Also, I wouldn't get hung up on the calorie outputs of your HRM. I really question the accuracy of those, as well as the body fat % put out by the scales. Go by how your clothes fit.

Hope this helps.

 

[lov2bfit]

I think that where my confusion is that they say if you want to lose weight you need to burn more calories than you consume, which to me the easiest way to burn calories is by doing cardio. I also know that you can do too much cardio and it can hinder rather than help. I guess I just don't know where that line is from doing enough and doing too much. Can you drop fat and lose weight on a higher strength less cardio program?

 

[Gayle]

Can you drop fat and lose weight on a higher strength less cardio program?

YES!

Rachel Cosgrove wrote an article that's been posted here before about her experience with weight gain and endurance training (Triathlon, specifically). After competing for that she went back to a schedule where she lifted 3 days a week and did short intervals on the other days. Here's the article:

http://figureathlete.tmuscle.com/fr...ining/the_final_nail_in_the_cardio_coffin&cr=

I know there has been other stuff written on the topic, but this one comes to mind immediately.

 

[catr]

I found this yesterday when I was poking around on the Web trying to figure out the best thing to do for my own fat loss: http://figureathlete.tmuscle.com/free_online_article/training/the_hierarchy_of_fat_loss_1

Rachel's Cosgrove's experience in the previous post supports the points made in "The Hierarcay of Fat Loss" article.