What's going on with my weight?

removed by me

Hopefully Cak will stop by—she was part of a group that really helped me get my weight in shape for while.

@empress: I eat significantly less than 2000 a day. I’m trying to not be so specific, for unknown reasons (whatever that means). I eat about 5–6 small meals a day, and I’m never “hungry”, it just gets to be “that time to eat”. (If I had to guess, I’d say maybe I eat around 1500 cals a day. My nutritionist told me I need to eat more. But how can I eat more if I’m not hungry?)

@Les: I removed it because I read that you’d agreed with a nutritionist and at that point, didn’t really want to comment further. I figure s/he knows what s/he’s doing.

There are a few options.

One, muscle weighs more than fat, so if you gain muscle while losing weight, your weight will stay the same. If you are serious about losing fat, the best way is to measure around certain parts of you over time with a measuring tape.

Two, perhaps you are just not burning enough calories. I would say, after casually looking at your exercise routine, that the amount of exercise is not enough to significantly impact a 2,000kcal diet. What you’ve listed is a healthy routine and eating amount and unless your weight point was very high to begin with, your routine should maintain your weight.

Twenty minutes of weights isn’t really enough to get yourself going, I think. At least it’s not for me unless I’m doing intense weights or huge reps.

Another thing, it could be that your body is a bit shocked at the sudden decrease of food, and is in “hibernation mode” for a bit until it gets a grip on the new conditions.

On seeing your update: it could also be that you are eating too few calories, causing your body to go into hibernation mode because it thinks you are starving and is trying to ration off what precious energy you have left. If you find it hard to eat more calories, try consuming a milkshake or protein shake, protein would be better if you actually want to develop muscles, milkshake for consuming calories.

I would suggest raising your heart rate during workouts. With your light weight training, try and do the exercises back to back as that will keep your heart rate up. And in doing so, you will burn more calories.

@dynamicduo: Yeah, that about the “hibernation mode” and not eating enough cals is what my nutritionist told me. I have increased the cals to be closer to her goal of 2000 (and, I guess, to be healthier). As for the burning of 2000 cals, that is what I burn metabolically, just to keep the body going. It is pretty similar for everyone. According to the nutritionist, to maintain my weight, without any exercise, I would need 2000 cals. With the exercise, she said I’d need somewhere around 2500 cals. That just sounds so high to me.

Thanks for the ideas, though.

Dude, I am totally sympathetic to this problem. I eat pretty healthily and not too much, walk about 2 miles roundtrip to school every day, and run 3+ miles at least twice a week (usually more). My weight is totally static. I honestly think there is more to it than just diet and exercise.

@nikipedia: Thank-you. It sucks, but at least it isn’t just me. ;-)

weight train: you should be lifting heavy enough that finishing the 8th rep is nearly impossible. If you can do 10, increase the load. Compound (read: full body movements) like lunges, squats, pushups, pullups. If you can’t do pushups or pullups, do adaptations… but full-body workouts are a great place to start.

That should shake things up. Nothing made my metabolism skyrocket like being able to weight train heavy 3x a week. I miss it. Also, 20 min isn’t enough most times. I didn’t really reap the benefits until I was able to do about 45 minutes. 10 minutes of warmup cardio, then weights. Cardio on alternate days that I’m not lifting.

@3or4monsters : I’m not really doing the weight training to bulk up. I’m a girl, I don’t want to look freakish. I just do it to tone and because I like the way it feels. (And when I do it, the 8th rep is very hard to do. But I usually try to push to 10.)

Umm… I’m a girl, and all it did was cause me to lose weight, because I don’t produce enough testosterone, and I don’t eat an excess of calories. I am not bulky or freakish…

People only get “bulky and freakish” if those two factors are in play. You absolutely MUST eat ABOVE maintenance calories to bulk up. If you’re at maintenance or below, you will just firm up and shrink while you weight train. If you don’t, then it means you’re eating more than you think you are. I lost 70 lbs this way. I still have about 40 to go, but I am a very far cry from bulky and freakish! Then there’s the testosterone thing.. yeah, don’t have enough of that to put on muscle and keep it without using steroids.

Les; Maybe your body got used to eating 5000 calories/day when you were in Antarctica and needs to rethink things.

@Les: Weight training will not make you look freakish!!! It really truly saddens me to hear so many women say things like that! The truth is those women you see on the cover of “Muscles” magazine take steroids. Real women couldn’t look like that if they tried.

Like @3or4monsters I also do weight training and I don’t look freakish or even bulky at all—just toned.

I used to live with this professional volleyball player. She lifted weights twice a day almost every day, and she didn’t look bulky at all. She was about the size of my pinky finger, and had washboard abs and graceful lithe arms and legs.

Please please please don’t dismiss the suggestion to lift weights! It’s a really good one!

@La_chica_gomela thanks for the support on the suggestion—- I think the fitness industry is to blame for the incorrect ideas regarding women and weight lifting. If they convince women to exercise in a special way just for them, then they can sell more scams, potions, creams, pills, solutions, etc. There is so much misinformation out there it can be hard to know where to begin!

@La_chica and 3or4…: Lol. I know that “freakish” is not the norm for weight training. I was trying to be funny (sarcasm does not work on the internet). Sorry if I offended you.
Just to clarify, I love the weight training part of my workout. I save it for after my cardio as a reward. I just don’t know that I have enough time to devote 45 minutes a day to it (or even 3 days a week). I know its a lame excuse, but it just wouldn’t work for me.

But thanks for your tips.

@gailcalled: I think that’s exactly what happened. I wouldn’t say I quite ate 5000 kcals a day, but I definitely ate much more (and worse) than I do when I’m home. That’s the one bummer of two months of Antarctic life: weight gain.

@Les; I know..all that seal cheek pie and blubber mousse.

@Les : I wasn’t offended, it just made me sad that so many women think that.

If you want to shake off the extra weight, you need to shake up your routine somehow. I don’t know if adding extra weight training is right for you. But if you just cop out and think “oh, that wouldn’t work for me” and don’t change anythiing, then what we’re doing here probably isn’t going to be of much benefit to you.

@La_chica_gomela : OK. I guess what I’m saying (or trying to) is that I currently do about an hour and 45 minutes of working out a day as it is. So I’m not really looking to add any additional time to my workout, but I will make some changes. If the consensus is that weight training will boost my metabolism, and thereby make it easier for me to lose the fat, then I’ll switch it up and add more weight training. I just wish it wasn’t this complicated. But thanks for the ideas.

@Les: I’m not saying that’s the most likely thing to be able to help you. I’m saying it’s a strong possibility. It could be you need to switch up the mix of macronutrients (carbohydrate, protein, fat) in your diet, maybe you need to eat more calories. Maybe you need more sleep. Maybe it would help if you changed the type of cardio you do. I don’t know your full medical history, or even your age, weight, or fitness level, and I’m not a certified trainer or nutritionist, just a fitness expert who’s studied some physiology.

It sounds like you have been seeing a nutritionist, but it sounded like you didn’t really trust his/her advice. If that’s the case, have you thought about seeing someone else?

My best suggestion is to just mix it up. If your weight has been stagnant and you’ve been following your plan, throw the plan out and make a new one. Try it for two weeks, and see what happens.

EDIT: Re-reading the details section, actually, I would suggest instead of doing 20 minutes of light weight lifting every day, do 40 minutes of more intense weight training every other day. Doing weights every day is not a very effective way to train because you never give your muscles a chance to re-build. You can end up just wearing your body down.

You also want to take at least 2 days off a week to give your body a chance to really rest. After reading all the stuff you’re doing it really does start to sound like your body might be in famine mode.

@Les 1hr and 45 min a day is too long… if you can, I’d get a personal trainer’s opinion on how to get the most out of your workouts. I guess I am confused on exactly what you are doing.

For example, something like this might work better and mean less time in the gym:

Mon/Weds/Fri: 10 min warmup cardio, 40 min full-body weights, 20 min high/low interval cardio: 1hr 10 minutes
Tues, Sat: Cardio as you like it, 30–45 min at a challenging pace and no more… too much and you don’t get muscle recovery. Some might argue that it’s still too much.
Thursday, Sunday: REST!

If your nutrition is dialed in, and your intensity is high, that should do it. I’ve spent years trying to fix a poor diet with too much exercise, and I can tell ya it doesn’t work.

@3or4monsters : That time includes my walk to and from work. I’m not at the gym that whole time (I’m there for about an hour). But I like your plan there. I’ll have to give that a try for a while. Thanks!

@Les Let me know how that works! I have been trying to adopt that for a while, but I also play ice hockey and I have to work the random-scheduling of games and injury recovery time into my workout schedule, so it throws a huuuuge wrench into the gears! But I’ve found a schedule change (that I was able to stick to) helped break plateaus in the past.

It’s math. For guys use 13 calories per pound to maintain your weight. For girls use 11 calories per pound. To loose weight you either have to eat less or exercise more. If your female and you weigh 100 lbs, you only get 1100 calories a day to maintain. If you do 400 calories of exercise a day then you get to eat 1500 calories. per day. Do the math for your weight. Let me know how your 2000 calorie diet fits. I know that I would GAIN weight on 2000 calories a day.

But what I don’t get is this: Let’s say I ate 2000 kcals a day, and I didn’t exercise. I drove to work, and was lazy. So then I decide to make a change and begin to go to the gym, without making any other changes. So now I eat 2000 kcals a day, and I workout for an hour (mix of cardio and weights). It seems to me that just by increasing the activity, there should be a change in my body, right? Leaving all the other things as is, but simply adding an hour of exercise, there should be some weight loss, right? And then lets change that further and go into the reality that I have now: Eat less, work out more. So I workout for an hour a day, and eat fewer kcals. Seems to me there should be more weight loss. Right? Aren’t there any kinesiology majors on Fluther?
Maybe I really don’t know how this works.

Keep in mind too that if you cut your calories too drastically all at once (through reduced intake and increased activity), it can bring your metabolism to a screetching halt. Finding that “sweet spot” for weight loss is annoying and tricky, because it changes from time to time.

I’ve gone through cycles of far too little calories, and far too intense workouts, and stalled out… and the only thing that got the ball moving again with weight loss was taking an extra day off, sleeping more, and INCREASING my calories before the scale started showing losses again.

It’s trial and error sometimes, and it’s not completely intuitive. If you find the formula that works for you, you should aim to lose no more than 2lbs a week. Any more than that, and you may be setting yourself up for stalls and plateaus.

Thanks, 3or4monsters. I guess its like that “famine mode” deal. I don’t think I’m eating so few kcals, but as gailcalled mentioned above, I was in Antarctica for two months. I think the high kcal consumption there, plus the low activity level, plus the climate may have screwed me up. Although, I’d think by now (4 months later), my body would have fixed itself.

I would think you’d adjust by now, but it’s so hard to say. I just know that it’s an uphill battle all the way. Myself, I got the exercise thing down pat, now I just have to figure out the nutrition necc. to both lose the weight, AND fuel my activities, and sometimes they seem to contradict eachother. :(

@Les ; If you worked out 500 calories in that hour the math equation would drop you down to 1500 calories. It takes 3500 calories to make a pound so 7 days a week at 500 extra calories of exercise and you should loose 1 lb if you were maintaining at 2000 calories.

@Judi, where are you getting your numbers? “For guys use 13 calories per pound to maintain your weight. For girls use 11 calories per pound.”

There’s no blanket number of calories that all men or all women need to maintain their weight. It’s different for each individual. You said if you ate 2000 per day you would gain weight. That’s what I eat, and I don’t gain weight. Since we’re both women, we can see from that information alone, that clearly we have different caloric needs. I think it would be false to assume that Les has the exact same caloric needs as you or the same as me.

@lachica;
I know that there is no blanket number. This is just a good average. I lost my weight 3 years ago on the HMR diet who collect data from thousands of people all over the country and are statistics nazzis. My maintenance success is proof that they must have something right. It also explained to me why those last 10 pounds are so darned hard!!