Question on having a free day!

Hi there!

Losing so much weight, you should definitely be under advisement from a sports physician or at least sports-specializing dietitian.

Just my experience: I also used to weigh 240 and for a long time, even doing marathons, plateaued at around 180.  It can be very difficult to be training and consistently losing weight b/c at a point, no matter how carefully you eat, your body says, omigod I am having to expend so much effort, I better hang on to every calorie I get.  And it does!!!  This is why getting professional advice is so important.  In any case, it is very normal in all kinds of weight loss to hit a plateau where for several weeks or even a month or two you are not losing weight.

You MUST have a rest day (and as a beginner triathlete, maybe even two).  Especially if you are not at an optimal weight, not taking a day or two off a week is an invitation to injury and illness.

Good luck!  Hang in there.  Triathlon is wonderful and I commend you for your efforts. 

Congrats on all you have acccomplished.

Losing 50 pounds in 3 months is amazing. The recommendation of losing 1% of your body weight per week at a max I guess you have far exceeded.

Be patient. 2 weeks at the same weight is not that long, perhaps with all the success you have had it seems strange, but for most of us that have lost a lot of weight plateaus are often much longer than 2 weeks.I've lost 90 pounds and it has been 4 years and I still want to lose another 10-20. As you get closer to your goal weight, weight comes off slowly and sometimes your body just needs a break from always being in a deficit. For many of us once we upped our endurance training our weight loss has slowed. Seems counterintuitive but an observation I & others have made. I'm not sure exactly why. I agree talking to a dietitian/nutritionist can help but I have yet to find one that has helped me. Books are written how to lose weight most encourage you to exercise but they don't deal with when you work out 10-12 hours a week...you need more fuel. I couldn't workout and eat only 1200 calories a day.

You absolutely need a rest day. Lifting on a rest day makes it not a rest day.

I suggest eating healthy food not supplements to get the nutrition you need. Fruit is a great source of carbs. Bonking doesn't really happen when you workout for less than 90-120 minutes. Also how many carbs are you eating?

You have a good goal but don't put so much pressure at meeting that goal by a certain date. Getting to 175 will be awesome and you'll get there with hard work and smart training like you are doing. But come on, if you do your tri at 177 or 175, think 6 months ago would it have been possible. You have changed a lot.

Like Yanti said, don't cut out your free day.  It is when you are resting that your body is getting getting stronger.

The method that you have been using to loose weight has certainly worked up until recently - congrats on that!.  You said that your caloric intake is higher now than when you started - this is to be expected when your training but maybe just double check that you are not consuming too much.

Again, as Yanti said, you may have just reached a plateau. Stick at what you're doing and you may well start loosing weight again.

If you want to do more training you could always do two sessions on some days. Just make sure you don't do too much too soon.  Trust me, it is not worth it.

Good luck with your tri

Just to clarify.  By free day do you mean a day off from training or do you mean a day where you don't restrict yourself in terms of what you eat.

Sorry if I'm being dumb here, just a little confused

I'd skip the 300 carbs (that is 1200 calories, can that be right? maybe 300 calories from carbs or about 75 grams of carbs) from your recovery drink and have natural food...like hummus and pretzels, low fat chocolate milk, fat free yogurt all which have a good balance of carbs/protein.

It really depends how long you workout. I ride 2-4 hours and know how many calories I burn or very close with my power meter. I burn 7-8-9 calories per minutes depending on intenisty I ride at. So a long ride I may burn 1400+ calories, I don't need to eat all that in a recovery drink...as I take in calories when I ride and I'll eat real food soon. After I ride I eat carbs/protein within 30 minutes but less than 300 calories, then eat a real meal within 1-2 hours...sooner if it works.

Free day of eating may not be the best choice. A free meal maybe once a week, but all day whatever you want. I couldn't do it as it would get me making poor food choices for awhile. 

I thought the OP meant free day for eating whatever too.  Not a rest day.

Thanks for the clarification.  Don't laugh, but I loved the book _Slow Fat Triathlete_ (don't take it personally!).  It's a great and inspirational read, and she has some really good advice on weight loss stuff.  Her breakdown on having "free meals" or "free days" after training hard put a lot of things into perspective for me!!!

My big thing is refined sugar--but I do let myself have one treat a day.  But that's "one," not "one serving,"--so like, ONE Oreo cookie (not three), or a frozen yogurt (small), etc.  Otherwise I have a tendency to "I've been good all week now I can have a whole packet of cookies" syndrome.