i can't stop gaining weight. can someone please help?

Question

i lift weights 4-5 days a week,entire body, and i do cardio for more than 30 mins. my diet isn't bad, cause i eat 5 meals a day, meals that include mostly protein. i really need help. write your email to contact you and give you any details that may need to be known. thank you.

Answer 1

Eat less and exercise more

Answer 2

1. Change your diet. Americans eat way too much protein and eating mostly protein isn't good for you. Eating 5 small meals a day is a good thing, as long as they are 5 SMALL meals. You need to have a lot of veggies in your diet. If you're thinking Atkins with the protein--bad doggy! Eat veggies with every meal possible. You don't like them, you will eventually. Try different things. Keep that good old side salad with each meal, you can toss veggies in an omlette in the morning, steamed veggies are wonderful. Don't add too much salt and try to refrain from butter--try a spray butter so you don't over butter.
Also, whole grains--don't eat enriched flour white breads or even wheat. Enriched is just white flour which is a not so good for you starch. (I know wheat and whole grains aren't appealing unless you were raised on them but they're not bad and you get used to change.)
Keep fruit in the diet as a treat. It has a simple sugar so you don't get as much from it--fructrose is a simple sugar. (The carbs/sugars in veggies are complex, you burn more caolories burning complex sugars than the simple sugars--fructose and processed sugars. Fruits are ok because they have a lot of nutrients and vitamens in them.)
Dairy--If you're drinking whole milke, switch to skim if possible or 1-2%.
If you feel adventurous, try Tofu, soy milk and other soy products. Do keep protein in the diet, just not so much--lean proteins like chicken, fish, etc...

2. Don't weight train that much. You should really only weight train 2-3/3-4 days a week perferably 2-3 days a week. By the way, building muscle will add on pounds--of muscle, not fat. So the weight you're gaining may partially be muscle weight. (Although protein can leave you kind of heavy, too.)

3. Cardio is best for fat burning. Your best bet is to do weight training 2-3 days a week and cardio the other days. Cardio is great, 30 minutes is desired but hey, if you can do more than do it. There are also a ton of things you can do for cardio. Aerobics, swimming (my favorite), running, walking your dog or a neighbors dog, playing a sport--cardio is pretty easy. Just remember to keep that heart rate up for at least 30 minutes a day.

Remember to stay within your target heart rate while working out. Here's a website that can help you calculate it--
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/target-heart-rate/SM00083
or
http://www.webmd.com/content/tools/1/calc_heart_rate.htm

You can use those to compare the two results. There is a formula and if I could find my health journal I'd give it to you but I can't so I can't give that to you. These seem about right, though.


Along with a diet change, drink water--not fruit drinks or sodas, energy drinks or what have you. Gatorade is alright, but water is the best. Plus, whenever you're thirsty, reaching for a glass of water is much better than reaching for anything else. (Gatorade or Powerade is alright during or after working out, but water any other time. Reminds me, keep yourself hydrated while working out.)

So diet change, a little change in how you're working out should help. You don't want to over do it with the weight training--your muscles need 24 hours to heal between workouts. Pain is not always gain. You may even want to work out 6 days a week and give your whole body a day of rest. You don't want to over do it or you can just get worse.

See your doctor if things aren't working. If you don't notice your weight going down, have your doctor calculate your bodies fat content--like I said, muscle does add pounds but muscle weight is better than fat weight so there is always a way to check that out.

Good luck and feel free to contact me if you have any questions. I have plenty of recipes and little workouts that help me.

Good luck.

Answer 3

Maybe you shouldnt eat 5 meals a day. Just a thought. Also, some of the weight could be muscle, not fat since you lift on a regular basis.

Answer 4

Just based on what you have written, if you are putting on muscle, it weighs much more than fat does. Therefore, you should gain weight if you are lifting and eating a lot of protein. Why don't you have your body fat measured, that is an accurate assessment of your fitness level. Forget the BMI, it is not designed for people who work out and build muscle.

Answer 5

i got a new info on weight gaining yesterday. it says that most people gain weight coz they eat at night. at night our body releases a type of protein called BMAL1 which causes all the food we eat to be stored as adipose in our body. this is due to the "body clock" effect whereby our body says that were actually a sleep even though were wide awake.

so i suggest u to eat like usual, but, try not to eat at night.

tho the weight gain could possibly be consequent to the weight lifting and high protein diets. hey what the heck. just dont eat at night, it will really help. their experiments showed drastic results.

Answer 6

most of that weight is probably muscle, since you lift 4-5 days a week. Or, it could be because of your families history. Everyone has different bodies, and some bodies pack on weight and some don't. Just don't starve yourself, being overweight is better than way underweight.

Answer 7

Hey Danny, First, stop lifting weight, that will force your body to lean up muscle wise and you will become heavier. Focus on the cardio end of your work out. I know you know about eating sensible foods that feeds your body and not your waste line..you have the power to change your life and YOU can do this!

Answer 8

Eatting 6 small meals a day and exercise will help.

Answer 9

More than likely your turning that fat into muscle which explains the weight gain. Keep eating healthy and try a different exercise plan. One that focus on burning fat rather than building muscle.

Answer 10

it's the protein that's doing you in. their is a lot of fat in protein. so cut down on the meats. skip a couple of those meals and have veggies/fruits instead.

Answer 11

There's nothing mysterious about weight gain. If you put more calories into you body than you are burning, you gain weight. If you put in less than you are using, you lose weight.