Problems with losing weight?
- Thread starter heza77
- Start date
materialsgirl
Cathlete
Can you give us more information? What is a typical day's diet for you? What is a typical week of exercise for you?
Last year I gained 20 pounds due to a profession where I was working over 60 hours a week and a very unpredictable schedule where eating was concerned. I quit that job in January, and have found another that allows time for me to exercise and enjoy a life!
I'm lacto-ovo vegetarian, and try to eat between 1500-1700 calories a day. I normally eat every several hours due to low blood sugar, and try to stay away from processed foods and sugars. I always make sure that I eat at least 5 fruits and vegetable servings a day, and try to make sure that I eat enough protein while limiting high-fat foods. I typically work out aerobically 4-5 days a week, at least 60 minutes at a time (step aerobics or running), and do weights about 2-3 times. I even utilize an online food and exericse log to track the intake and calorie burn.
3 months ago I signed up for a 1/2 marathon in September thinking that the increased activity would jump-start the loss, and it hasn't. I have definitely seen the increase in muscle tone, but the weight won't drop, and I'm becoming excessively frustrated. I've never had a problem like this before, and have no idea where to turn!
I'm lacto-ovo vegetarian, and try to eat between 1500-1700 calories a day. I normally eat every several hours due to low blood sugar, and try to stay away from processed foods and sugars. I always make sure that I eat at least 5 fruits and vegetable servings a day, and try to make sure that I eat enough protein while limiting high-fat foods. I typically work out aerobically 4-5 days a week, at least 60 minutes at a time (step aerobics or running), and do weights about 2-3 times. I even utilize an online food and exericse log to track the intake and calorie burn.
3 months ago I signed up for a 1/2 marathon in September thinking that the increased activity would jump-start the loss, and it hasn't. I have definitely seen the increase in muscle tone, but the weight won't drop, and I'm becoming excessively frustrated. I've never had a problem like this before, and have no idea where to turn!
kathryn
Cathlete
Instead of focusing on weight, I suggest you use other measures of health and fitness, since the scale doesn't show what your body composition is (and a "chunk" of muscle weighs more than the same-size "chunk" of fat because muscle is more dense). You could actually have lost fat, but gained muscle, so there is no change on the scale, but your "increase in muscle tone" is an indication of that.
Just an experiment: try giviing up dairy for 3 weeks and see if that helps.
Just an experiment: try giviing up dairy for 3 weeks and see if that helps.
materialsgirl
Cathlete
Kathryn's right - you need to throw out your scale and forget about how much you weigh. Weight is a meaningless number if you don't know your body composition. If you are seeing results in the mirror and in the way your clothes fit, then that is really all that matters. 
dani21496
Cathlete
I agree with Emily and Kathryn.
Check this out
"Why the Scale Lies" by Renee Cloe, ACE Certified Personal Trainer
http://www.primusweb.com/fitnesspartner/graphics/scale.gif
http://www.primusweb.com/fitnesspartner/library/weight/scale.htm
"We’ve been told over an over again that daily weighing is unnecessary, yet many of us can’t resist peeking at that number every morning. If you just can’t bring yourself to toss the scale in the trash, you should definitely familiarize yourself with the factors that influence it’s readings. From water retention to glycogen storage and changes in lean body mass, daily weight fluctuations are normal. They are not indicators of your success or failure. Once you understand how these mechanisms work, you can free yourself from the daily battle with the bathroom scale.
Water makes up about 60% of total body mass. Normal fluctuations in the body’s water content can send scale-watchers into a tailspin if they don’t understand what’s happening. Two factors influencing water retention are water consumption and salt intake. Strange as it sounds, the less water you drink, the more of it your body retains. If you are even slightly dehydrated your body will hang onto it’s water supplies with a vengeance, possibly causing the number on the scale to inch upward. The solution is to drink plenty of water.
Excess salt (sodium) can also play a big role in water retention. A single teaspoon of salt contains over 2,000 mg of sodium. Generally, we should only eat between 1,000 and 3,000 mg of sodium a day, so it’s easy to go overboard. Sodium is a sneaky substance. You would expect it to be most highly concentrated in salty chips, nuts, and crackers. However, a food doesn’t have to taste salty to be loaded with sodium. A half cup of instant pudding actually contains nearly four times as much sodium as an ounce of salted nuts, 460 mg in the pudding versus 123 mg in the nuts. The more highly processed a food is, the more likely it is to have a high sodium content. That’s why, when it comes to eating, it’s wise to stick mainly to the basics: fruits, vegetables, lean meat, beans, and whole grains. Be sure to read the labels on canned foods, boxed mixes, and frozen dinners.
Women may also retain several pounds of water prior to menstruation. This is very common and the weight will likely disappear as quickly as it arrives. Pre-menstrual water-weight gain can be minimized by drinking plenty of water, maintaining an exercise program, and keeping high-sodium processed foods to a minimum.
Another factor that can influence the scale is glycogen. Think of glycogen as a fuel tank full of stored carbohydrate. Some glycogen is stored in the liver and some is stored the muscles themselves. This energy reserve weighs more than a pound and it’s packaged with 3-4 pounds of water when it’s stored. Your glycogen supply will shrink during the day if you fail to take in enough carbohydrates. As the glycogen supply shrinks you will experience a small imperceptible increase in appetite and your body will restore this fuel reserve along with it’s associated water. It’s normal to experience glycogen and water weight shifts of up to 2 pounds per day even with no changes in your calorie intake or activity level. These fluctuations have nothing to do with fat loss, although they can make for some unnecessarily dramatic weigh-ins if you’re prone to obsessing over the number on the scale.
Otherwise rational people also tend to forget about the actual weight of the food they eat. For this reason, it’s wise to weigh yourself first thing in the morning before you’ve had anything to eat or drink. Swallowing a bunch of food before you step on the scale is no different than putting a bunch of rocks in your pocket. The 5 pounds that you gain right after a huge dinner is not fat. It’s the actual weight of everything you’ve had to eat and drink. The added weight of the meal will be gone several hours later when you’ve finished digesting it.
Exercise physiologists tell us that in order to store one pound of fat, you need to eat 3,500 calories more than your body is able to burn. In other words, to actually store the above dinner as 5 pounds of fat, it would have to contain a whopping 17,500 calories. This is not likely, in fact it’s not humanly possible. So when the scale goes up 3 or 4 pounds overnight, rest easy, it’s likely to be water, glycogen, and the weight of your dinner. Keep in mind that the 3,500 calorie rule works in reverse also. In order to lose one pound of fat you need to burn 3,500 calories more than you take in. Generally, it’s only possible to lose 1-2 pounds of fat per week. When you follow a very low calorie diet that causes your weight to drop 10 pounds in 7 days, it’s physically impossible for all of that to be fat. What you’re really losing is water, glycogen, and muscle.
This brings us to the scale’s sneakiest attribute. It doesn’t just weigh fat. It weighs muscle, bone, water, internal organs and all. When you lose "weight," that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve lost fat. In fact, the scale has no way of telling you what you’ve lost (or gained). Losing muscle is nothing to celebrate. Muscle is a metabolically active tissue. The more muscle you have the more calories your body burns, even when you’re just sitting around. That’s one reason why a fit, active person is able to eat considerably more food than the dieter who is unwittingly destroying muscle tissue.
Robin Landis, author of "Body Fueling," compares fat and muscles to feathers and gold. One pound of fat is like a big fluffy, lumpy bunch of feathers, and one pound of muscle is small and valuable like a piece of gold. Obviously, you want to lose the dumpy, bulky feathers and keep the sleek beautiful gold. The problem with the scale is that it doesn’t differentiate between the two. It can’t tell you how much of your total body weight is lean tissue and how much is fat. There are several other measuring techniques that can accomplish this, although they vary in convenience, accuracy, and cost. Skin-fold calipers pinch and measure fat folds at various locations on the body, hydrostatic (or underwater) weighing involves exhaling all of the air from your lungs before being lowered into a tank of water, and bioelectrical impedance measures the degree to which your body fat impedes a mild electrical current.
If the thought of being pinched, dunked, or gently zapped just doesn’t appeal to you, don’t worry. The best measurement tool of all turns out to be your very own eyes. How do you look? How do you feel? How do your clothes fit? Are your rings looser? Do your muscles feel firmer? These are the true measurements of success. If you are exercising and eating right, don’t be discouraged by a small gain on the scale. Fluctuations are perfectly normal. Expect them to happen and take them in stride. It’s a matter of mind over scale."
Check this out
"Why the Scale Lies" by Renee Cloe, ACE Certified Personal Trainer
http://www.primusweb.com/fitnesspartner/graphics/scale.gif
http://www.primusweb.com/fitnesspartner/library/weight/scale.htm
"We’ve been told over an over again that daily weighing is unnecessary, yet many of us can’t resist peeking at that number every morning. If you just can’t bring yourself to toss the scale in the trash, you should definitely familiarize yourself with the factors that influence it’s readings. From water retention to glycogen storage and changes in lean body mass, daily weight fluctuations are normal. They are not indicators of your success or failure. Once you understand how these mechanisms work, you can free yourself from the daily battle with the bathroom scale.
Water makes up about 60% of total body mass. Normal fluctuations in the body’s water content can send scale-watchers into a tailspin if they don’t understand what’s happening. Two factors influencing water retention are water consumption and salt intake. Strange as it sounds, the less water you drink, the more of it your body retains. If you are even slightly dehydrated your body will hang onto it’s water supplies with a vengeance, possibly causing the number on the scale to inch upward. The solution is to drink plenty of water.
Excess salt (sodium) can also play a big role in water retention. A single teaspoon of salt contains over 2,000 mg of sodium. Generally, we should only eat between 1,000 and 3,000 mg of sodium a day, so it’s easy to go overboard. Sodium is a sneaky substance. You would expect it to be most highly concentrated in salty chips, nuts, and crackers. However, a food doesn’t have to taste salty to be loaded with sodium. A half cup of instant pudding actually contains nearly four times as much sodium as an ounce of salted nuts, 460 mg in the pudding versus 123 mg in the nuts. The more highly processed a food is, the more likely it is to have a high sodium content. That’s why, when it comes to eating, it’s wise to stick mainly to the basics: fruits, vegetables, lean meat, beans, and whole grains. Be sure to read the labels on canned foods, boxed mixes, and frozen dinners.
Women may also retain several pounds of water prior to menstruation. This is very common and the weight will likely disappear as quickly as it arrives. Pre-menstrual water-weight gain can be minimized by drinking plenty of water, maintaining an exercise program, and keeping high-sodium processed foods to a minimum.
Another factor that can influence the scale is glycogen. Think of glycogen as a fuel tank full of stored carbohydrate. Some glycogen is stored in the liver and some is stored the muscles themselves. This energy reserve weighs more than a pound and it’s packaged with 3-4 pounds of water when it’s stored. Your glycogen supply will shrink during the day if you fail to take in enough carbohydrates. As the glycogen supply shrinks you will experience a small imperceptible increase in appetite and your body will restore this fuel reserve along with it’s associated water. It’s normal to experience glycogen and water weight shifts of up to 2 pounds per day even with no changes in your calorie intake or activity level. These fluctuations have nothing to do with fat loss, although they can make for some unnecessarily dramatic weigh-ins if you’re prone to obsessing over the number on the scale.
Otherwise rational people also tend to forget about the actual weight of the food they eat. For this reason, it’s wise to weigh yourself first thing in the morning before you’ve had anything to eat or drink. Swallowing a bunch of food before you step on the scale is no different than putting a bunch of rocks in your pocket. The 5 pounds that you gain right after a huge dinner is not fat. It’s the actual weight of everything you’ve had to eat and drink. The added weight of the meal will be gone several hours later when you’ve finished digesting it.
Exercise physiologists tell us that in order to store one pound of fat, you need to eat 3,500 calories more than your body is able to burn. In other words, to actually store the above dinner as 5 pounds of fat, it would have to contain a whopping 17,500 calories. This is not likely, in fact it’s not humanly possible. So when the scale goes up 3 or 4 pounds overnight, rest easy, it’s likely to be water, glycogen, and the weight of your dinner. Keep in mind that the 3,500 calorie rule works in reverse also. In order to lose one pound of fat you need to burn 3,500 calories more than you take in. Generally, it’s only possible to lose 1-2 pounds of fat per week. When you follow a very low calorie diet that causes your weight to drop 10 pounds in 7 days, it’s physically impossible for all of that to be fat. What you’re really losing is water, glycogen, and muscle.
This brings us to the scale’s sneakiest attribute. It doesn’t just weigh fat. It weighs muscle, bone, water, internal organs and all. When you lose "weight," that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve lost fat. In fact, the scale has no way of telling you what you’ve lost (or gained). Losing muscle is nothing to celebrate. Muscle is a metabolically active tissue. The more muscle you have the more calories your body burns, even when you’re just sitting around. That’s one reason why a fit, active person is able to eat considerably more food than the dieter who is unwittingly destroying muscle tissue.
Robin Landis, author of "Body Fueling," compares fat and muscles to feathers and gold. One pound of fat is like a big fluffy, lumpy bunch of feathers, and one pound of muscle is small and valuable like a piece of gold. Obviously, you want to lose the dumpy, bulky feathers and keep the sleek beautiful gold. The problem with the scale is that it doesn’t differentiate between the two. It can’t tell you how much of your total body weight is lean tissue and how much is fat. There are several other measuring techniques that can accomplish this, although they vary in convenience, accuracy, and cost. Skin-fold calipers pinch and measure fat folds at various locations on the body, hydrostatic (or underwater) weighing involves exhaling all of the air from your lungs before being lowered into a tank of water, and bioelectrical impedance measures the degree to which your body fat impedes a mild electrical current.
If the thought of being pinched, dunked, or gently zapped just doesn’t appeal to you, don’t worry. The best measurement tool of all turns out to be your very own eyes. How do you look? How do you feel? How do your clothes fit? Are your rings looser? Do your muscles feel firmer? These are the true measurements of success. If you are exercising and eating right, don’t be discouraged by a small gain on the scale. Fluctuations are perfectly normal. Expect them to happen and take them in stride. It’s a matter of mind over scale."
Granny Sue
Cathlete
Here's a strange thought - you may be taking in too FEW calories for your activity level, in which case your body is going into a starvation mode & therefore won't lose weight. Both my daughter & a close friend experienced this. When they added calories, they lost weight! The body is such a strange animal... Try experimenting & see what happens... Good luck!
materialsgirl
Cathlete
Granny Sue also has an excellent point! Taking in too few calories will cause your body to hold onto its fat stores for dear life, because it thinks it's starving.
However, I think 1500-1700 calories per day seems reasonable, especially if you are eating a nutrient-rich vegetarian diet. It depends on your weight and your basal metabolic rate, but I don't think I'd go any lower than 1500 calories per day. You are doing quite a bit of exercise and need fuel to sustain that kind of activity.
However, I think 1500-1700 calories per day seems reasonable, especially if you are eating a nutrient-rich vegetarian diet. It depends on your weight and your basal metabolic rate, but I don't think I'd go any lower than 1500 calories per day. You are doing quite a bit of exercise and need fuel to sustain that kind of activity.
kathryn
Cathlete
Daily weighing? That would drive me nuts! I fluctuate from week to week (especially at TTOM) as it is. I can't imagine people weighing daily: it could lead to manic/depressive-type behavior. "1/2 pound less than yesterday...yay! whoopeed" "1/2 pound more than yesterday? What? How could this happen? I hate myself!"
It is interesting to do an experiment and weigh yourself several times on the same day. It's surprising how much weight can fluctuate even in a 24-hour time period.
It is interesting to do an experiment and weigh yourself several times on the same day. It's surprising how much weight can fluctuate even in a 24-hour time period.
Imafitnessfreak
Cathlete
It doesn't matter if your calories are within a healthy and acceptable range or not. Anytime you have a calorie deficit, even if it is only 100 calorie deficit, your body will catch on, realize what you are doing and enter into "startvation mode". The term alone makes it sound like this only happens when you are consuming 1200 calories or something nutty like that, but the reality is, 1500-1700 calories over a long period is enough for your body to say "She's on a diet, I need to hold onto everything she consumes and turn it into fat for storage".
Something to try...figure out how many calories you need to maintain your current weight with your activity level. Eat 1500-1700 a day for 3 days, then on day four, eat the number of calories you need to maintain. 3 days low, 1 day mainatanence level, repeat, repeat, repeat.
Just an idea.
Something to try...figure out how many calories you need to maintain your current weight with your activity level. Eat 1500-1700 a day for 3 days, then on day four, eat the number of calories you need to maintain. 3 days low, 1 day mainatanence level, repeat, repeat, repeat.
Just an idea.