For those of you who have lost weight, did you find the last 20-25 pounds to be the hardest to lose?
Asked by
tedibear (
19399
)
February 1st, 2011
I’ve been stuck between 137 and 133 for a year. I will admit right now that I’ve not made a huge effort, but I have been trying. I will get to 132 and bam! back comes a couple of pounds.
I track my calories, I’m getting back to exercise (both aerobic and weight bearing), I participate in a support group, I have healthy eating habits (with a lapse or two here and there, nothing extreme). In short, I know the right things to do.
The only thing I can come up with is that I’m not consistent enough with exercise. At this point, while I want the scale to go down, I really want the numbers on the tape measure to go down too. Do I need to focus more on building the muscle underneath the fat? I know I can’t spot reduce and that the fat only goes away with aerobic exercise. My thought is to build/sculpt the muscle under the fat along with aerobic movement to burn the fat.
Has anybody else gone through this? What got you past this point?
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10 Answers
My sister has been on Jenny Craig since August and now that she is getting closer to her target weight she has noticed that it is becoming more difficult to lose weight. She’s still counting calories and making sure she takes in the specified amount, but she does this thing where she’ll lose like three pounds one week and then gain two the next. Basically the Jenny Craig people have said that she needs to exercise as well as eat right at this point. I’m guessing the problem is a lack of consistent exercise. I would definitely try something like aerobics or Zumba because they burn calories and build a toned body.
Pilates, yoga, or something that’s been working for a friend of mine, Insanity (which is a glorified High Intensity Interval Training program).
Very much so.
When you hit midway, you look at the results and think “hey, well, not too shabby”, and allow for a break in discipline. I’d say that, if it’s “controlled” (i.e., you stop losing weight without gaining it back), it’s perfectly fine.
If you want to do the second half, you’ll need what you had for the first half: pure, raw, sheer willpower.
I would say that the last 10 lbs. is especially hard to lose. You can definitely plateau. Exercise becomes more important. I found that if I watch my calories I just need to continue what I’m doing and not backslide out of discouragement. Simply adding an extra hour of walking per day, and it doesn’t have to be all at one time, makes an enormous difference. Good luck!
I have lost 5 pounds in the last month and since I am not really overweight, I would have to say those last 5–10 pounds are incredibly hard to keep off. If it was easy everyone would be thinner!
Cruiser Yeah, incredibly hard to lose, but so easy to come back!!!
I would also ask, are you limiting calories by drinking only zero calorie beverages? Try to stick with zero calorie beverages just to get those final stubborn pounds off. Try to drink mostly tea and water. Stay away from Aspartame in diet drinks and look for Splenda (sucrolose) and Stevia as sweeteners. Drinking lots of sweet drinks is like adding another entire meal to your diet. It fills up your calorie quota without giving you good nutritional value. And try to eat complex carbohydrates only. The more refined flour products you eat, like white flour bread and pasta, the more your insulin resistance goes up and it makes your body store fat.
You sound like you’ve got a lot of knowledge already and are doing alot of really great things.
I have a couple of suggestions: the first one is to add some variation into your exercise.
As far as overall weight loss goes- cardio exercises are very important. You can add variation by doing a couple of things. You can switch out running for the eliptical every other work out. You can Increase the pace at which you run/do other cardio. If it an eliptical you can very the resistance. On most machines you can change the incline.
Switching which types of exercises you do, the intensity, and the length that you do that exercise….. also the order in which you do your work out routine are all small little changes you can incorporate that keep your body guessing, and ultimately working at 100% all the time vs. getting used to a routine and being less efficient.
Its certainly good to read labels and know whats in your food, and its great that you watch your caloric intake. Something you could do while checking out the calories is checking out what else is in your food. How much sugar, how many carbs, how many saturated fats? all of these types of things should also be taken into consideration- not just the calorie count
hope this helps a little !
@Earthgirl – I only drink water, coffee and the occasional glass of wine. I find artificial sweeteners to be disgusting. And I don’t like the taste of Stevia. As well, I avoid HFCS like the plague. You’re right on with the complex carbs. I do try – all of the pasta I cook is whole grain. But there is definitely room for improvement
@All – Many thanks for the guidance! I appreciate it!
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