Why, oh why, can't I lose weight?

Triathlon/cardio training isn't really the best way to lose fat IMO. A better way would be to do a Body for Life type program that mixes high intensity cardio with weight training. There is, IMO, simply no subsitute for training hard with weights when it comes to fat loss. It's hard to get it in though when you are new to exercising (like me too) and trying to get in shape for your first tri.

How often and long are you exercising?

Are you actually measuring food portions or estimating?

I looked at your fitday site and while I am no nutritionist or dietician, your protein intake seems low to me. You should try to eat more protein and less fat I think.

Oh, and do as I say, not as I do, I have been very bad with nutrition the last few months but that will change in a few weeks. Can't do everything at once!

I was having similar problems to you a few months ago and I found a few things helped me:
1) measure portions with scale measuring cup and spoons
2) Longer bike rides-these are massive calorie burners
3) logging everything
4) I have just started weight training seriously, but at least for me it is a bit of a bear with all the cardio tri training requires. 2 full body workouts a week even would be a good start I think.

I'd suggest you increase your protein intake to at least 150g per day and reduce your fats some.  Nuts are generally good fats but 4-500cal of nuts at once is a bit much.  I can't tell from your diet journal, but make sure that you aren't eating much more than ~500cal at any single sitting and spread these meals out 2-3 hours apart.  Add meat to your dinner (chicken, tuna, salmion, lean beef) and some protein source to breakfast (protein shake, cheese, or egg whites maybe) and reduce your carb intake after 4pm.  I like to focus my carb intake on breakfast and immediately after workouts, along with fruits through the day.  I'm sure I don't need to tell you this, but that 600+ calorie, 33g fat, 47g carb (probably on white breat) cheese burger I see frequenting your diet log isn't doing you any favors Replace the white rice with brown rice.  If you've got a sweet tooth at night try sugar free jello and sugar free, fat free pudding with lite Cool Whip.

Adding some weight training (2 30-45min sessoins per week) would likely help significantly.  Focus on compound moves with little rest between sets...do a simple 4-6 exercise circuit 3x.

If you haven't already, I'd suggest reading through my diet philosophy thread at the top of the forum.

Edited by TH3_FRB 2005-07-26 12:13 PM

Thanks guys.. some good things to think about. The protein comment is good.. I will do my best to raise my intake of protein and lower my fat a bit.

That said, I am still concerned as to whether or not I'm eating too many (or too few) calories. If I raise the amount I exercise, do I also have to raise the amount I eat? My dietician has told me that if I am not eating enough in comparison to my activity level, my body won't want to let me lose weight. Stupid, protective fat cells

"I'm sure I don't need to tell you this, but that 600+ calorie, 33g fat, 47g carb (probably on white breat) cheese burger I see frequenting your diet log isn't doing you any favors "

Dang! I knew I was gonna get caught on that one. It was actually a homemade lean ground beef patty on a whole wheat bun with mozza cheese.. so I kinda doubt it was that bad, but I just didn't have time to figure out the calories for it - I just picked that off the FitDay site. That said, that's about the only thing I guestimated on with Fitday.. so everything else is pretty indicative of what I eat.

"Adding some weight training (2 30-45min sessoins per week) would likely help significantly.  Focus on compound moves with little rest between sets...do a simple 4-6 exercise circuit 3x."

I already do some weight training.. usually 2 sets of 15-20 reps on back, chest, biceps, triceps, shoulders, quads, hams, glutes, calves.. I do them continuously (ie., back, quads, back, quads) so I tend to work up a good sweat. I have been doing this twice a week for the last 6 months.. though right now, I'm down to once a week as I have upped my cardio and don't want to overtrain right before my race.

"If you haven't already, I'd suggest reading through my diet philosophy thread at the top of the forum."

I have read it (as I said, I've been lurking for quite a while) - it is an excellent resource, and pretty much mirrors everything my dietician has said. Thanks for posting it.

Edited by Vaiza 2005-07-26 12:59 PM

Thanks so much, TH3 FRB.. that is exactly what I was looking for. I definitely haven't been compensating on the days I train, so I suspect that's the problem. Thanks again!

The addition of my recovery drink (Endurox) and maybe some extra brown rice at dinner typically gives me the extra calories I need on hard training days...the rest of my diet is just like any other day.  If it's a long ride (2-4 hours) I'll also take along Accelerade and maybe a gel.

i agree with a lot of what has been said. i only lost about 10 lbs last season (185 down to 175, then gained 5 back over the holidays!), despite working out 5 days a week, with double workouts some days. still, i know i gained muscle and lost fat. i didn't bother to figure out my bf percentage when i first started training (i was in blissful denial). at the end of the year, i finally did my measurements at mybodycomp.com. this spring, when i started training again, i also started counting calories, replacing only 30-50% of what i burned in a workout, bought a tanita bf scale, and continued tracking my progress on mybodycomp. according to mybodycomp, i went from 30% to about 20% body fat. you might not loose a lot this season, but keep at it. you are building muscle and eventually the fat will be less, even if the scale doesn't budge. i add in weight training at home with 8 and 10 lb dbs, a resistence cord, and things like crunches and pushups. it really does help.

About the calorie thing: I don't think that is a concern for most people unless they are eating starvation level calories. Just make sure you run a deficit of around 1000 cals per week and you should be fine.

As far as the weights go: I would say do fewer reps(8 or so per set) with more weight. The reason for this is that your goal here is to gain muscles so that your resting metabolic rate is higher than it is now.

This is not advice for elite level triathletes, but if you are like me and do not have even a remote chance of placing and just want to get fit and healthy, building muscle is the way to go. I do compound exercises using free weights when possible. This is what body builders do, and while I am not body builder nor do I want to be, they are in the know when it comes to fat loss. Make sure you get the holy trinity in if you can: Squats, deadlifts,Bench. These are the best all around mass building exercises from what I have read. Then I also do: pullups (rather poorly since I've got a jiggle belly), military press, dips, seated and upright rows, Stiff legged deadlifts and ab exercises.

I'm no expert but I think that this is pretty sound advice on the weight side of things. There is a lot of bickering about this and that out there on the web, but the commonality I see is: compound exercises with 6-8 reps for mass gain.

The Fr33B is a good role model, but for those of us that are food-addicts perfection is sometimes har din our diets. I say try to make 'better" choice rather than perfect ones. Have a turkey burger (get 98% lean ground turkey the reg stufff is just as bad as beef) instead of a cheeseburger. Eat oatmeal in the morning. I like it uncooked, straight from the box-tube thingie with skim milk and raisins or bananas and occasionally walnuts.

I understand how tough it can be. I am down to 200.9 from 217 in January, and I have dropped from a 40 waist to a 36. I am loaded up with school right now, but plan on getting back on the nutrition bus after the 15th of August.

Oh, and make sure you are measuring your portions. As I have written elsewhere. What I thought was 2 tablespoons of Peanut Butter before I started measuring was closer to 4. I really belive that the biggest problem for a lot of us overweights is portion control. Learn portion sizes and eat accordinly and you will lose it!-the weight I mean. Good luck!

Hey, congrats on both the fat loss and the weight loss! I know my body fat has gone down.. I can see the difference. Fortunately, I did get my body fat measured by calipers before I started, but I only have the measurements, not the actual percentage. I look forward to getting them done again to see the difference in the measurements. How do you find the tanita scale?




I actually switched from machine based leg weights to squats and deadlifts a month ago.. and I found that my running began to suffer. Legs were just hurting too much, so I eased off. I'll get back into those after my race!



Congrats to you! I can't imagine how you'll feel once you break that magical 200 mark and beyond.. good luck!

Portion control isn't much of a problem for me.. it was all the compulsive overeating for several years that did me in. Fortunately, I've been on the mend for three years now.. just waiting for the weight to fall off. Waiting.. waiting.. waiting... still waiting... anytime now..

Hi Vaiza - I'm right there next to you.

June of last year I weighted 275. Now I weigh 218 and am still going. SLOWLY. Keep in mind that your body adapts to what you give it and do with it, so you have to change things up all the time. If you are doing any weight training already you could well have lost some fat, gained some muscle, and have the scale not budge. (Mine is only starting to move again after a 3 month plateau, but during that time I lost 2 inches off my hips, half an inch of my upper arms, and an inch of my thighs. I try to think of it as moving things around....I certainly look better and am down half a size....)

Anyway, my point is that if you have been doing lots of reps of light weights, do heavy weights for fewer reps. If you have been doing long endurance bike/swim/runs, start doing some sprints in your training. (For example instead of swimming 1000M go out and swim 25 or 50M as fast as you can then rest then do it again.) Interval training can shake your body out of its routine and will make it work harder, thus causing weight loss.

Finally the calorie thing is an ongoing struggle for me as well. When I first started I was eating 1800 calories a day and exercising 3-4 times a week with little purpose. I lost weight, but I have come to realize that that is too little to haul this body through the workouts I'm doing now that I'm actually training for something. I'm still experimenting and trying to find the right level. Getting enough protein is definitely a challenge. I work on that at the same time I work on calcium; with low-fat dairy products. You can always try playing with your calorie levels to see how your body responds, but I wouldn't go more than 1000 calories per day below your maintenance requirements.

Good luck!
Ru

This is a good point.. I'm new to Tri training but have done more than my share of strength training while trying to drop weight.. It is a very narrow path and easy to mess up.. The best results I had was just from eating solid balanced meals while trying to intake just below, or exactly at, my daily calorie expension rate.. This takes forever to shed weight, but you don't lose much, if any muscle in the process..

-Jeremy

This may be a slow way to lose weight but it also the healthy way and will give you the most sustainable weight loss over time.  Crash diets may drop weight quickly but it will come right back after to stop the diet.  A healthy lifestyle change (food choice and activity) is the only way to take the weight off and keep it off IMHO. 

Crash diets, diet pills... been there done that. Many of my friends lost weight because they drastically cut back on how much they eat. But their arms are still flabby. They ended up smoking cigarettes to maintain their weight. Always amazes me how easy it is for the human body get accustomed to eating healthy food and even craves for healthy food. Perhaps we don't need all the fat, preservatives, flavor enhancers to begin with.

Healthy food can still taste great.  I love everything I eat...although I love the taste of a Big Mac too   I guess I've just become accustomed to the type of foods I eat and enjoy them very much.

When I went on a so called "diet" earlier this year I did a lot of research. I am a firm believer that it is all about the calories in/calories out forumla. Very simple on paper (but maybe not in real life ). Anyway, I lost 20 pounds in 18 weeks, reached my goal weight and have now been steady for the past 3 1/2 months. So far so good.

I'll give a brief description of what I did. Maybe it will help or maybe not. To lose 1 pound per week, you need to cut 500 calories per day or 3500 calories per week from your diet. I am a 44 year old woman and based on my research found that my base level of calories I need is 1800 cal/day. So then I subtracted the 500 calories and came up with the starting point of 1300 cal/day. I counted every calorie I put in my mouth. Here is a web site that was really helpful to me: http://www.nutritiondata.com/index.html. I am probably a little more active in my job than someone totally sendatary so I found that I could actually eat between 1400-1500 cal/day.

The next step was very important to me. I decided I could not deny myself the food I loved especially desserts and chocolate. So those calories came from rewarding myself for exercising. There are quite a few websites out there that give figures for calories burned during all sorts of activities. So for example, if I burned 300 calories workingout on a particular day, I would reward myself with 300 calories of dessert. Since I was working out 5-6 days/week, I was eating dessert 5-6 days a week.

I drank water with almost every meal. Cutting out a twelve ounce coke at lunch and a glass of milk/wine/pop etc. at dinnertime cut nearly 300 calories per day from my diet right off the bat.

Burning more calories than I was eating put me in a deficit so I came to the realization that yes, I would be hungry some times. So I changed my mindset that hunger was not fatal. Millions of people on this planet walk around hungry every day of their lives. Certainly I could cope with a little hunger. Yep, it's not that bad with the proper attitude. If I got really hungry, I would pop in a breathmint (5 calories) or drink a big glass of water. That usually would help for about 60 minutes. A couple times of doing that and I was at my next meal.

Hope some of that might be helpful. I am proof that you can eat right, not deny yourself the foods you love and still lose weight. Good luck on your plan!

Diane

I am stuck too.. About 188 now (was 209 when I started this Triathlon nonsense in May) and I am TIRED of the slowness of the weight loss, blah, blah, blah. I should be losing. I have been accused of cheating because I am not losing.. I am TIRED OF IT!

It just may creep off slowly for some of us. I konw I am older now (41) and had a couple of babies in the past two years so I guess I am where I am and will get where I get... but I really want to be a size 14 again.

I get 2000 calories a day, which is about right for me. I cannot really go below that without jepardizing my training. I train for 1 - 3 hours a day, 7 days a week. So I am burning those calories.

Edited by nliedel 2005-08-20 6:56 AM

Hi,

Yeah, losing weight is oh so hard. Of course there is the energy in - energy out formula, but really (as we know) it is not that simple.

I just came back from seeing my endo and a lecture on gaining 4 lbs since he saw me last (and that is with an increase in my thyroid meds)..... and with one olympic distance tri (successfully completed in <3 hrs) and currently training for 1/2 IM distance in Oct ....

Am feeling really down at the moment - about weight amongst other things (work is blah!). But I do know:-

1. It is better to be fit and have energy than to be slim.
2. Weight loss of the proper kind is gonna be slow. Really really slow. As in years and years slow.
3. Sometimes in order to eat weight you need to increase what you eat, rather than reduce it.
(doing intensive exercise should use about 500 - 600 cals an hour: therefore, if I exercise 4 hours - long bike that is about 2400 calories, and then am only eating 2000 cals a day, there is something wrong and my body is gonna want to conserve energy... and no weight loss)....
4. Years of crash dieting really does stuff up metabolism (so be patient).

Today is rest day. I hate rest days when am feeling down (no endorphin fix) though I know I have to take them.

Massage tonight. And I am actually am one of those weird people who don't like getting massage either.... another thing I have to do (coach's orders).

Oh well, tomorrow is another day and it WILL be beter.

Sally

Sally,

Enjoy every moment of that massage. You deserve it.

Thanks.

Years of yo-yo weight change make weight loss harder too. I am experiencing it right now.

Edited by Denise2003 2005-08-23 1:55 PM

Sally,
I'm just jumping back on the Horse. Lost 25 last year and have not trained for 5, gained it all back. JOB stuff sucks,
Keep Smiling, Go for that endorphin rush!!!
bigfish

Hey guys, at least you're out there, doing it.. don't beat yourself up because the weight isn't coming off. Your history plays a big part into your weight loss.. I know that 9 years of yo-yo dieting did a doozy on my metabolism.

A few weeks ago, I was kicking myself for taking a couple of days off of training. My friend gently reminded me about all of the changes I've made: I now exercise 5-6 days a week, I eat great, my attitude is leaps and bounds better than a year ago.. oh, and yeah, I'm not practically bedridden with a chronic pain condition anymore.

Its nice to have friends who put it into perspective for you.