Why am I not losing weight? Any suggestions?

Question

I presently weigh about 11 and half stone (about 73 kgs). I'm 26 and 5 foot 4 inches. For the past three months, I have been going to the gym five days a week, initially doing three days of 45 mins cardio workout and then two days of toning exercises and now I'm doing two days of 45 mins cardio and three days of 15 mins cardio and 30 mins toning/weights. I've been eating 1800 calories a day (including 5 portions of fruit and veg). AND I have lost the grand total of 2 pounds! Does anyone have any suggestions as I'm starting to lose my will power!?

I'm drinking 6 pints of water a day as well

Answer 1

My suggestion, "Stay the course!" How long have you been working out? According to most experts a healthy weight loss plan is only 1-2 pounds per week. Your routine has to become a life style change. You will need to continue working out. As we get older our metabolism slows down, since we are not growing but we are maintaining our bodies. Plus as we get older we exert ourselves less. So we need less and less calories to sustain ourselves each year. So unless you are not burning calories through regular exercise (which you are beginning to), (cardiovascular exercise) and eating less calories you will not burn fat. As others on here have said, weight is not the best way to judge sucess. Your fat is melting away, but your muscles are becoming stronger. As they gain in mass, which is a slow process as muscle is very dense compared to fat, you will gain weight. So "fat burned" + "muscle gained" = total new weight.

Also just because you are doing cardio doesn't mean you are doing enough. Many people start cardio work outs and then never increase the resistance as they get stronger! So in effect their bodies adapt to the stress put on it, it becomes easier, and the exercise is no longer effective. You will have to either run faster, run longer, or run more often.

This is referred to as the F.I.T. principle. Frequency, Intensity, and Time. You will always have to increase one or more of these variables over time because you will get stronger and your body will work less hard.

The other key component to cardio work is your heart rate. You need to get your heart rate high enough that you are burning fat, but not to high as it places undo stress on your heart. Because people are not the same the formula is generic. It works like this. 220 "beats per minute" is the theoretical human heart max limit. Subtract your age. For me, I am 30, so 220 - 30 = 190. So 190 is my max bpm. Now I need to figure a 60% target and an 80% target. You will want to keep your heart beat between these two numbers. For me 190 * .6 = 114bpm. Also 190 * .8 = 152. If your heart rate is below the 60% number you are not doing enough! This is the Intensity principle in action.

For the Time principle you need at least 30 mins of cardio per session. Your initial work out plan is good to start with, but you will have to continue and increase either Frequency (number of dedicated cardio sessionsper week) or Intensity (resistance, effort as shown by heart rate or "feel") or Time to STAY ON THE EDGE OF PEAK FAT BURNING.

Unfortunately, losing weight is not easy. It takes time, perserverance and dedication. If it were easy, a lot less people would get fat. Interestingly with severely overweight people, their bodies problem begins to compound. As they get bigger, they can do less work, so there bodies adapts to lesser physical exertion by slowing the metabolism, which means that a greater quantity of food is stored as fat at a greater rate. For you, you are slowly increasing your metabolism and when it gets to a certain rate, you will really start to see gains. Your body feels an increased work load and will initial try to save fat for an upcoming struggle. Initialy it will work against you. Once your body realizes that the appropriate amount of food is there, and it does not need to store fat it will begin to stop and you will see your accomplishments. This is why it is so helpful to eat multiple meals (4-6) throughout the day. Your body always has a ready supply of food to digest rather than eating 2-3 meals a day where your body has to store food for up to 6 hours at a time till the next meal. Plus as food is digested calories are consumed during the act of digestion!

Also do not eat any later than two hours before bed time. Because your metabolism slows at night and signifigantly slows during sleep, you will have ingested too many calories during a period where they are used for repair but not at as great a rate. But the results WILL come over time. Look in the mirror, TAKE PICTURES, and in time, months you will see the difference.

You will also be very proud of the work you have done and you will feel great!

Answer 2

Have patience, it takes alot of time espically since you seem to have a low matabolisim.

And work out.

Drinking water is good but NOT during food. 1 hour before food and atleast 3 hour after food. Little sips don't count.

SLeep ALOT! Atleast 9 hours! One of the bodies's main functions during sleep is digesting.

And when you eat, don't eat untill you are full. This is really important.

Another hint is not to stop eating what you really like. If you feel an urge to eat choclote cheese cake, eat some but only a little bit. If you dont eat it you will only want it more.

Answer 3

Are you male or female?

1,800 calories is a lot if you are trying to lose weight. Ideally, if you are female try reducing it down to 1,200 cals a day or male 1,400.

Either that or you could try another diet, there are countless ones out there and all of them will work if followed properly.

Weight watchers
Atkins
South Beach
Rosemary Connely
+ loads more

Its all about finding something that you can follow.

HTH

Answer 4

Exercise! Believe me, it's the only way to have a fit body. Along with regular exercise, you may also control your food intake with Weight Loss/Hoodia sample. These will help develop firmer muscles, while you burn fats and shed off those extra pounds. Check out this site http://www.upkb.com/weightloss.php for more info.

Answer 5

As you are attanding the gym you are turning your "fat" into muscle" - and as muscle is more dense then fat (i.e muscle weighs more then fat) and therefore you body will be changing but you weight will prob stay around the same.

Have you noticed a change in your apperance (i.e smaller waistline etc)

also to be fair 11 1/2 stone isnt that bad...

Answer 6

at your height, your ideal weight is 115 lbs. that makes you about 46 lbs overweight.



uhm, do you still want to lose your will power?


hang in there. and monitor your weight, daily. it'll keep your spirits up better when you're into the roll..

Answer 7

Weight loss theory is simple. If you eat less calories food and burn more calories, you will lose weight. Why don't you try swimming?

Answer 8

the fat in your body is turning into muscle. and muscle wights more, your just toning up. it's perfectly healthy.

Measure your wight loss by how your clothes now fit you rather than than the scales.

Take a picture of your self now with your just your under-ware on and then do the same in two months time and i promise you'll see the true difference. Don't forget you won't notice small changes in your body shape daily but compare them over a period of time and you'll see a massive difference.

Answer 9

If u r loosing inches and not weight it is ok. U r adding muscle mass and loosing fat. For weight loss, a better course is to eat sensibly and exercise sensibly. The weight will become normal by itself.

Answer 10

Yup, your fat is turning to muscle

Keep less of an eye on your weight, and start to pay more attention to how you look in the mirror. Keep it up, your diet sounds wonderfully healthy!