instructor question

[Karatemom]

Cathe,
If you could answer this I would appreciate it. I am an AFAA certified instructor. I teach 3 classes a week as follows: Monday a.m. is a one hour body sculpt class, and Monday p.m. is a one hour cardio kickboxing class. Wed. a.m. is a one hour body sculpt class. I am fully participating in all these classes. My question is as an instructor are your classes counted as part of your weekly workout, or as an additional "bonus". Since I've been teaching (June of 2002). I've noticed that even though my diet is exactly the same if not cleaner, that I have put on 6 pounds, and my thighs are 1" bigger, but I am at 18% body fat. I am 41.5 years old and am in great health. My additional activities besides my normal cardio and weight workouts are Yoga 1x/week, and a Pilates (reformer) session and a Pilates mat class each week. I also teach Karate 2x a week. What do I need to do to bring my weight back down to 116 (where I started). HELP!!

 

[wutherhi]

I'm not Cathe, nor am I an instructor, but could your additional workouts be causing your body to go into fat storage (starvation) mode? I know I actually gained weight while on WW, eating approx. 1100 calories a day, riding my bike 2-3 hours a day, and lifting weights 3 times a week. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't started LOSING weight at 2,840 calories a day on a program called physiquetransformation.com. You might think about it.

Shari

 

[Karatemom]

Shari,
Thanks for answering my post. You know, that idea crossed my mind, but growing up thinking less is better is tough to break. I'm taking in 18-23 points a day and can barely keep up with that because I am so busy, I don't know if I could eat any more. How do you do it?
I'll check out the web site you mention.....here's hoping.
Thanks again.

 

[wutherhi]

Honestly, I didn't believe it was possible to eat too little. That just sounded too good to be true. And you know what they say, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is." I had tried eating a little more (very little), for a short time (a few days at a time), but that didn't work. I needed to eat--can you believe this!--more than twice as much as I was eating!

The only way I manage to get 5-6 meals a day in is by planning ahead, cooking lots of chicken at one time, and filling in the mini-meals with meal-replacement protein shakes.

Here's a link to another discussion on this same topic in another Cathe forum:

http://69.0.137.118/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=4&topic_id=51454&mesg_id=51718&page=

You may like the PT program, or you may not. The important thing, though, is that you get some information and consider the possibility that you might need to eat more to lose weight or even to maintain your weight.

Good luck,
Shari

 

[Karatemom]

Shari,
I've gone onto the PT site and have registered for the 5 day free trial to see if I like it. It's seems to be a bit of work right now, but it's keeping me very AWARE of my food intake, both good and bad. Once it give me the analysis after the 3 day food journaling I'll decide whether to stick with it (I think I will). Thanks for the great adivce and I'll also check out the other thread you mentioned.

Elizabeth

 

[wutherhi]

Oh, I do hope this works for you! No matter what happens, you'll learn a lot about nutrition. I thought I was pretty well-informed. Ha! But I'm learning every day, not only from this program but from other sources I'm led to because of something interesting I read there. One of the most valuable things I've learned, other than that I need to eat more (yippee!) is that I really needed to monitor my salt intake. I never really believed it was that important, nor did I realize how much sodium I was consuming. I didn't connect that (duh!) to the fact that I've always been up and down on the scale--to a frustrating degree. At TTOM, I sometimes gained 8-10 pounds! Now, it's 1-2. And the rest of the time, I stay very stable. Good luck! I hope you learn as much as I have.

Shari