Feels like I'm having some problems.

[ophix]

So one of my goals is weight loss. Looking to lose maybe 10-15lbs. As far as gaining strength and stamina, I'm doing great, it's just losing the weight which seems difficult.

My diet is good. I eat mainly fruits, veggies and nuts, pretty much vegan. I do eat a bit of meat though now and again. I eat maybe 3 meals worth of fruits/veggies a day, although I usually just snack whenever I get hungry so it's hard to quantify exactly, and drink mostly water and herbal tea with a bit of honey in it. Mainly water though. I know I'm eating ok. I don't feel hungry, and I don't stuff myself ever. I don't eat candy or junk food or anything. That's pretty good.

The problem is I'm not that fit to start with I guess. I can't consistently run for long amounts of time/distance. Maybe 10 minutes straight if I'm feeling good. I've been working on this so that I can get more exercise done before I need to stop, and that's been going well. But I still don't think I'm at a point of stamina where I can run long enough to make an impact on my weight.

I run for at least 20 minutes a day. 3 minutes walking warm-up, 3 minutes walking cool-down, 2x6 minute blocks of running with a 2 minute walking rest period in between. I try to do this on average 2-3 times a day, if I've been doing resistance training on my legs I'll only do this once. However since I'm trying to push my endurance higher, I'm frequently changing this up to get more time in my running blocks. The next step is to take 1 minute out of the resting walk and put it into the first block of running. After that I'm taking out the rest entirely, and I should be able to run 14 minutes straight comfortably. Then I guess I'll just keep pushing to add more and more time onto that running until I hit 20 minutes, etc, etc. I think if I could run for close to an hour straight, I'd be extremely happy with my progress.

I run 5-7 days a week. The only days I don't run are after a day of exceptionally hard exercise when my legs need the rest. I take advantage of these days to strength train my upper body a bit harder.

For strength training I aim for 2-4 days a week. I know my strength training isn't what it could be. I lack space to lie on the floor or really move or turn. I only have a set of 20lb weights and a set of 30lbs, so I do a lot of exercise with my own body-weight.

I can work my arms and shoulders no problem. It's my core muscles and legs which I can never really exhaust.

I'd estimate that my resistance training takes me about 20-30 minutes.

So can I get some input? I think I definitely need a way to get more/better resistance training done, but as I said, I can't lie or sit anywhere, so I'm limited to stationary standing exercises. There IS a gym around here, but I've really got no idea how to use the weights, and they don't offer anything for a beginner so I'm a little apprehensive of joining.

So how does it sound, am I on the right track? Just build my stamina until I can run long enough to start burning off the weight? Should I check out this gym despite having no idea what I'm doing in there? Is there anything else I could be doing for resistance at home with only 2 dumbbells? I was thinking about getting a weight vest, does this sound like something I could get good use out of in my situation? I think I just need ways of exercising which don't put so much demand on my legs and arms all the time so I can fully work EVERY muscle in my body, not just work the muscles until the arms and legs get tired from doing the exercise.

Doing some additional reading it seems that a lot of you are placing a lot of importance on strength training for losing weight. This seems to correlate with my situation and problems. The reason I've been focusing on endurance so is that I can sprint, I can high-jump, and I can lift, I just can't sprint for long, or play sports which require longer periods of activity. I've always been strong and fast but for only short periods of time. I can lift weights with the some of the regular lifters in my age group, I just couldn't come close to matching their stamina. So my logic was that endurance would be a good place to establish a basic level of fitness before I start really taking things on. So, if I could get some help working out more high-intensity exercises, it would be a big help. I've only been running at a comfortable pace (6mph), but I have been going for as long as I physically could, enough that the sweat can be rung out of my clothing and that I've gotta keep wiping sweat out of my eyes and having it drip off my face. I'm definitely pushing my limits. I'm just not pushing the limits for intensity, I've been going more for pushing the limits of how long I can carry myself. Which has its own respective intensity, but I assume you're referring more to pure strength intensity, not how intensely you can exhaust yourself with repetitive easy movement.

 

[~LV~]

So one of my goals is weight loss. Looking to lose maybe 10-15lbs. As far as gaining strength and stamina, I'm doing great, it's just losing the weight which seems difficult.

My diet is good. I eat mainly fruits, veggies and nuts, pretty much vegan.

I bet it's your diet that is holding you back. List exactly what you eat at the exact times of the day so we can get a better idea of where you stand, diet wise. Also, are you vegan or do you eat meat?

 

[ophix]

I said I was mostly vegan. My regular day in day out diet is pure vegan, no meat, no dairy, nothing made from anything derived from an animal in any way. But I don't fully claim a vegan label as I know I'm not a true vegan, it is a fairly accurate way of describing what I normally eat though. It's just easier to say "I'm mostly vegan except a bit of meat now and again" than it is to list everything I will and wont eat and under what circumstances.

However, I'm not morally convicted to follow this lifestyle, I'm not a bleeding heart for animals, that's not why I do it. I do it purely out of my own free will and choice, so I do still eat meat sometimes under the right circumstances. It's not a question of how much I care about the animals, it's just more a question of what I find my body feels better working with. Dairy and other animal products however are completely out of my diet (with the exception of honey). There are no exceptions to this rule under any circumstances for any occasions. Especially dairy. I avoid dairy like it's poison.

If I get a patch of good progress and know that I've really put some good effort into my exercises lately, I'll reward myself with some chicken, beef, or pork for dinner for that day, and maybe the next. Special occasions also call for meat. Birthdays, holidays, etc.

Just to give a rough estimate of what I'm eating and when...

I wake up, I'm usually not hungry at all. Down a glass of water, maybe 2, over the course of an hour or so before I start looking for food.

For breakfast I'll usually have fruit or a sandwich. A common breakfast for me would be about a cup full of mango, banana, some sort of berry perhaps, and maybe a bit of greenery like spinach. If I go with this as a breakfast choice I usually chew up a handful of flax seed, hemp seed, I usually eat some nuts as well. Almonds, walnuts, peanuts, I eat virtually everything you can buy so it's hard to say exactly how much of what. I usually consume between 1-2 handfulls of nuts a day, and a handfull of seeds.

If I go with the salad, it's always high in fruit. Lots of apple, pear, berries, I garnish it with my nuts and seeds, and sometimes throw some beans in there as well. I eat pretty much all beans, so I mix it up a lot. A handful of beans is usually enough for a salad. 2 if I'm feeling hungry.

For the greenery, again, I use whatever I can buy and mix it up. Spinach, parsely, lemon balm, sprouts, lettuce, cucumber. I'll usually put some onions on as well, maybe some cherry tomatoes. It's enough to fill a paper dinner plate, but not enough that anything's falling off the edges or anything. Just enough that the pile comes up above the rim of the plate.

For dressing I use squeezed lime juice, nothing more.

If I go for the sandwich it's always multi-grain bread. Full of the same sort of greenery I'd include with a salad. Generally more veggies and less of the fruit. Again, no dressing or sauces. I'll eat my seeds and nuts separately from the sandwich, I always get these in for the morning. I tend to stray away from this as my choice if I can though, I prefer starting my day on more fruit.

Between this time and lunch I will drink a couple more glasses of water, I may substitute a glass of water for a glass of peppermint tea lightly sweetened with honey. I always exercise after I've had time to digest my first meal. I may feel like snacking a bit during this time. I'll average 2-3 snacks. For me a "snack" would consist of less than a handful of berries (measured, this is less than 1/4 of a cup full each "snack"). 90% of the time these are cranberries. Other times it's likely to be blackberries or raspberries. However most of the time it's cranberries (been eating lots of them to help with some problems I've been having around the urinary tract).

At around noon, for "lunch" I'll generally go with the same choices I'd make for breakfast. I might be a bit more inclined to swing more towards the sandwich at this point in the day, if still hungry, I might add a few slices of pear or apple. I'll be more likely to add more vegetables to the blended fruit mix around this time, and more likely to add more beans and less seeds and nuts to any salad, if any seeds or nuts at all. It's sometimes nice to get some sweet potato in around this time.

Drink water, carry on my daily tasks, try to squeeze in another run for as long as I can if I can find the time. I'll probably snack on cranberries again 2-3 more times. I'll go for a banana instead if I know I'm going to be doing that second run soon. Bananas I usually save for the mornings, or when I know that I'm going to be running soon. I don't just eat because I'm going to be running though, only if I feel like the snack and know I'll be working it off. Plus I find them to give me a bit of extra energy for the runs. If I really feel that I need a larger snack, an apple or something similar is big enough, I don't throw more berries on top of this though.

I don't think I ever eat more than 2 bananas a day.

As "dinner" time comes around I usually start eating more veggies and beans. Dinner is usually a salad, all veggies, maybe a handful of berries, lime juice dressing. On the side I'll usually have some sort of mushed beans. Again, sweet potato is sometimes a nice option here, I'd eat about a fist-sized amount of sweet potato. The salad is about 3 fists. I can also take some broccoli, colliflower, carrots, whatever. It's hard to say EXACTLY what I'm eating because I need to throw so much variety into my diet, But my "dinner" meal is mostly made of 50-60% greens, the rest of the space is for my protein and to give me room for a broader variety of veggies, just to make sure I'm getting everything I need.

After this I'm usually pretty good. I may go back and eat a spoonful or two of my protein if I start getting hungry again.

Again, I may consume another 2 cranberry snacks as I try to get these in my system before going to sleep (remember, medical reason, it's not something I'd normally be doing).

It's my understanding that 1 cup of cranberries is only 44 calories, so these snacks shouldn't be much more than 15 calories a piece, at the very most.

Towards the end of the day at around this time I'll either do my second run, or try to squeeze in a third run if I'm still feeling energetic by then.

Things I notice about my eating habbits.

Before I lost weight, I'd eat anything until it ran out, and I'd still want more. However now, I can satisfy my hunger with extremely small portions. I often don't finish meals, not because I'm full, but because I'm no longer feeling hungry enough that I necessarily need to be eating. If I get hungry again, I can always finish the meal slowly throughout the day.

To accumulate everything in a day, that would make...

2-4 slices of bread, whole grain.
I can't honestly quantify the leafy greens, but I'd have to guess around 4-5 coffee mug sized portions a day
1/2 an onion
1 pepper
1.5 cups of cranberries
About 2-3 cups of fruits and other berries.
1 handfull of seeds, around a half cup of nuts?
1-2 apples
1-2 bananas. The banana counts into my 2-3 cups of fruit and berries.
I couldn't say how many beans I'm eating. I'd say 2-3 fists of mushed beans.

As I said though, a lot of this depends on what I feel like eating throughout the day. I may not have any bread, I may not have the apples. I may only have 1 banana, I structure what I chose to eat around what I've already eaten throughout the day trying to maintain as much variety as I can.

My general rules are...

- Fruit and/or breads mostly in the morning/noon hours. Pretty much ceasing consumption by 4pm.
- Nuts and seeds always in the morning. If I feel I didn't get enough in then, I may extend them into the noon.
- Protein such as beans can start as early as the morning, but if so, will be consumed lightly, most of the protein intake happens between 4-9pm. During this time, no fruit or berries are consumed, except the cranberries.
- veggies will usually be skipped at breakfast, but will be included by lunch time.
- Veggies which cannot be easily made into a salad or sandwich are consumed later in the day. This includes things like potatoes, squash, zuchinni, asparagus, and other veggies you'd commonly serve and eat whole and alone, and not necessarily mixed into anything else.

Again, this is just a rough guideline. I can try to write down exactly what I'm eating throughout the day if I can remember, but I think that's a pretty good place to start to get an idea of how much/often/what I'm eating.

I eat meat on average once every other week. Sometimes twice in that week, sometimes I'll only go a week before eating it, I don't deny myself the opportunity to eat it when it presents itself.

For these meals I substitute the beans with the meat, I'll usually eat it with a side of sweet potato (again, about a fist size), a salad (same size I'd normally eat), and some broccoli or something along those lines.

Since I fill quickly, I always eat the meat last since I know I'll want a snack later, and stick to snacking on my protein source for the evening. A fist of meat is roughly the portion I'd eat.

I have slightly smaller than normal fists for a guy btw. These aren't big lumberjack fist sizes I'm talking about.

So hopefully that's enough to give you a basic idea of what I eat.

All signs suggest that I'm at least getting enough to eat. I don't feel like I'm lagging behind by not eating meat or anything. My exercises are thorough and frequent. My recovery speed is predictable and allows me to continue my cardio on a daily basis, pushing my results constantly with speedy progress. I also know that if I lift weights one day, I'll be back to 100% after a single rest day.

My energy levels are great. I have no problems waking up in the morning. I tend to wake up quite well rested, well enough that I don't even consider going back to sleep. I never get fatigued throughout the day. If anything my problem is burning off enough energy through the day to feel tired enough to sleep by the end of it at a reasonable hour.

So as far as my body has responded to the diet. I feel great. Energetic, awake, lighter and easier to move. My hunger is completely satisfied, I don't find myself binging or craving. Junk food presents zero challenges to me. Once in awhile I'll stop and realize that I haven't touched junk food in several months and I might buy a bottle of Coke (571mL) while I'm out. Just so I know I'm still human enough to enjoy a guilty pleasure now and again, and so I can remember that I'm eating to stay healthy, not just to lose all this weight. I feel that it's fine to cheat once in a blue moon, it just reminds you that this isn't something you're forcing and that you can stray from it whenever you feel like. Just a good way of preventing the diet from feeling restrictive. Luckily though I'm very happy with my diet, so I only need to treat myself once every several months, like I said.

One point of interest does come to mind though.

When I started exercising, I could barely do it. Maybe 2 minutes running non-stop, 4 if I pushed. Afterwards my legs would be dying to slow down and rest. I was a couch potato. Today, I just ran 14 minutes straight. That's 7 times what I was able to do when I started. My legs have made SIGNIFICANT process in how much abuse they're able to withstand before the muscles start getting sore. There have been a few periods of time where my weight has gone up and down by as much as 2kg. Today I am 71.2kg. This my normal weight range. Every so often this weight seems to fluctuate quite rapidly. To give an example...

A couple weeks ago, I was quite excited to see that I had brought myself down into the 71.xkg mark. A friend even complimented me saying that it looked like I'd lost a bit of weight since they last saw me. I was feeling good about this. Over the next couple days, my weight jumped up to 74kg. That's a rough 8-9lbs in about 2 days. I didn't panic and jump on the treadmill or anything, I just made sure that I wasn't eating any more than I normally would and continued to do what I was doing. Within a day this began to drop, and eventually bottomed off at 69.8kg after about 3-4 days (woohoo, lighter than I was before). Within 2 days though I was back at around 71.2-71.5kg.

What's going on here? This has happened twice. Each time I THINK I've come out weighing slightly less than I did before. I'm suspecting that the toning of my leg muscles might be putting on some extra muscle weight, since they were pretty out of shape when I started. What else could be attributing to this roller-coaster effect though? I seem perfectly capable of maintaining a steady weight, it just seems that every now and again I'll stand on the scale and the number will have bounced, possibly right back to the weight I started at before doing anything. The weight seems to fluctuate and disappear quite rapidly. At first I suspected this was water weight. I'm not sure though, it seems a little odd.

I mean, I'm happy with my progress for my physical benchmarks, but the weight just feels like it's dragging. I think I'm losing SOME weight. At least I hope I am. It just seems to change so randomly and drastically that it's really hard to determine whether I've actually lost some body fat, or whether I'm just bottoming on a weight fluctuation. So far I've received 1 compliment that I wasn't looking as flabby as usual. I assume this is a sign that I'm doing something right. But I didn't think it would be possible to put on that sort of muscle weight through cardio exercise to cause a fluctuation like that. Even if the muscles were extremely out of shape when I started.

I've started a diary on this site though so I'll be able to track and monitor my weight more closely. I'll be sure to record these fluctuations very thoroughly. When I notice them I sometimes get on the scale as many as 10 times a day. I can sometimes get a different reading each time throughout the day, varying by as much as 1kg. Heaviest at night, with a big drop by morning wake up.

Here's how a fluctuation might work for me

 

[ophix]

Wake up a little heavier than you were the day before. By the end of the day this will be at least 1kg higher. Throughout the day I may notice a couple drops in my weight, but overall there's always a period of incline where I consistently weigh more than I did waking up. During the incline I may notice very slight drops in my weight by morning, however it's just as likely I'll weigh exactly what I weighed before falling asleep. The incline will last me for 1-2 days. It seems 74kg has been the weight I've peaked on both times. I'll spend a day hovering around 74, then I'll wake up one morning and I'll have dropped down to let's say 73.5kg would be a roughly accurate amount of what I'd drop to overnight. Through the day I may bounce up and down a little, by the end of the night I will either be the same 73.5kg, or slightly less. By the next morning again I will have dropped more weight. This "stair" pattern of weight loss will go on for 2-3 days until I'm back down to where I was before the incline of weight hit.

I've also noticed that both of these inclines started when I hadn't slept in about 24-48 hours. I do sleep regularly, and I do sleep undisturbed. I don't have to wake up to an alarm clock because I have nowhere to be in the mornings, so I'm always able to get as much sleep as I need undisturbed. I do however have some problems with my sleep, which do seem to suggest I may have some sleep disorder (seriously, sometimes it's impossible for me to get to sleep. When I say that I've been awake for 48 hours, the only clue is that I can't speak properly. I stutter, I mix up words, mash sounds of words together into one wrong word, or completely replace a word in a sentence with a similar sounding word. Otherwise, I seem completely awake. I'm up, I'm active, I can run, I have energy, I'm a little less motivated than normal, but I can function throughout the day without being a zombie, and I've performed very well on tests and exams on as much as a 70 hour deprivation (that's only happened once in my life though). So yeah, something abnormal is going on there. The sleep deprivation seems to trigger some intense depression as well as mild to moderate anxiety. I also get the sh**s if I've been up that long. Little, if any solid matter to it. Having to go to the bathroom as much as once per hour, but never bad enough that I need to run, and I can always sleep fine without worrying. Not that much is there to come out going that frequently, but I do get the urge to pass whatever little there is quite often. I'm thinking my adrenal gland may be a little out of whack from the sleep problems?

I do make up for the lost sleep though on the nights that I can. As I said, I can sleep in as long as I want and wake up to my own time. I may miss a night sleep on average once a week. Maybe more. Sometimes less. It's rare, but not unheard of for me to be awake for as long as 2 days straight, plus or minus a few hours. I know, my doctor really needs to help me. This is ridiculous.

 

[DEF]

I'm with LV (of course). Your diet is the most likely suspect.

You say:

it's just more a question of what I find my body feels better working with.

But if you have no stamina, do you think your body is working well with your current diet?

 

[K1nS]

I feel maybe you are pushing yourself to hard, running 5-7 days a week is alot, maybe you should cut back a little? 3 days a week maybe...

 

[ophix]

But if you have no stamina, do you think your body is working well with your current diet?

I've got no stamina cause I've been sitting in a chair for at least 16 years XD

I think you missed something in my post there, because I did mention that my energy levels were good. I just have bad endurance in my legs so I can't run that well for that long. I can run FAST in short distances, really fast. And I can rest up and recover from it quite quickly, I just get a lot of muscle soreness starting up if I go for extending my time.

When I first started running, maybe 2 minutes before my legs were starting to feel a bit sore. The fact that I can cover 14 minutes now, seemingly by the day, tells me I've made good progress in my stamina from where I started.

Otherwise I'm waking up without problems, doesn't take much to get me out of bed and active or anything, so I don't seem sluggish waking up or anything. I'm not yawning or feeling tired through the day at all, and as I said, I seem to be recovering from my workouts quite well and with good time to continue doing them on a regular basis.

I feel maybe you are pushing yourself to hard, running 5-7 days a week is alot, maybe you should cut back a little? 3 days a week maybe...

I appreciate this advice and will keep it in mind, for sure. The reason I've been doing 5-7 days is because I haven't been able to get much resistance training done. I'm looking around for a gym or something that looks like it might work for me to be doing weights, but haven't got any memberships or anything yet. I've been doing what little weight work I can at home to try and prevent/slow my muscle from being consumed by the cardio.

I didn't start with 5-7 days of running. I started at 3. After a couple weeks of getting used to the activity I pushed it up to 5, and then whenever I feel I'm recovering well and have plenty of energy by the end of the week, I'll go for 6-7 days. I don't have any sort of "I MUST run on these days" so if I don't feel like I should be running, or if I just feel abnormally tired for any reason that day, I'll either take it real easy on myself, or I'll just not run.

I'm not too worried if I lose a bit of strength before I pick up the weights. It's obviously not ideally what I want, but it's getting my heart and lungs into pretty good shape, and it seems to be toning my legs up a bit so I can't complain too much.

I've definitely gotta get those weights started ASAP though.

Anyways, I've posted that rough guideline of my diet so that it can be scrutinized. Personally, having gone from a diet which did contain meat, to a diet which contains meat on only certain occasions, I feel like it's working better, my body feels like it's working better. I used to get more indigestion, used to have sluggish days where I just didn't want to do anything, all day, and could never wake up, my recovery was slower, and I always felt like sleeping through the day, wasn't fun. THAT was a diet which wasn't working for my body.

It's not fatigue I ever need to worry about. It's muscle soreness during the workout. And since I'm usually able to get a second run in, without forcing it out, that should tell you that my legs are recovering fully from it within a few hours and are ready to go run the same thing again.

So from what I'm experiencing, the diet works to at least meet the demands of my body to keep me running. However if people are concerned about it, I'm open to all advice, suggestions, and analysis of what I've given you as information on myself.

I am keeping a journal here, if you check that out you may be able to get a little more information on how I'm progressing. It's fairly new though so don't expect too much.

 

[phaledax]

it's going to take me a while to read all that, i just concentrated on the diet part. so i noticed NO multi-vitamin and that your not opposed to eating animal products. so then
you require a ton more protein in your diet, just to be healthy not even talking about gaining muscle. Milk products: whey protein powders and in your case casein protein's will go a LONG way go to trueprotein.com and i would go this :: Whey Protein Concentrate 50%, Calcium Caseinate40%, Branch Chain Amino Acids INSTANTIZED (BCAA's) 5% , Medium Chain Triglyceride Powder (MCT) 5% w/aminogen << and have this 2-3 times a day, if your ok eating eggs at home let us know. to me im just /rolling my eye saying "another vegan wondering why they have no stamina and can't gain muscle feeling sick all the time" I wONder it's a difficult task to do the vegain rout the proper way if you can avoid that do so.

 

[ophix]

I'm less opposed to eggs.

I haven't been eating them lately though.

It's dairy that I avoid entirely, and that wont change. I was lactose intolerant as a kid, I don't think my body can handle milk very well, and I question how well the body handles milk to begin with. Meat I take in very limited quantity.

No, I'm not big on multivitamins or anything like that. If I can get it through food, that's where I'd like to get it. If I have to work a little bit harder or lose weight a little bit slower to do that, so be it. I wouldn't mind eating more meat if that's the case, but I can honestly say that I don't feel like I'm lacking in anything, and I'm not seeing any signs of it in the results I'm getting.

I don't know where this concept of me being a sickly, weak, tired vegan is coming from though. I haven't felt any of those things for awhile now since I've changed to this less meat diet. I'm pretty out of shape, but you should have seen me before. I've already dropped nearly 100lbs in my lifetime, I used to be up at ~230-240lbs when I was 13, at under 5'5. So yeah, my legs get sore quickly when I run, but they're developing better for the durations. Reason is, I didn't lose that weight through the exercise, my dad forced me onto some "medical weight-loss diet" which basically dropped me 1-2 pounds a week. So yeah, I probably lost a fair bit of muscle through that, but at least I've managed to keep that off for a few years now without any diets or exercise so it's not like I'm just going to bounce back up. Still doesn't mean my legs have gotten any better since then though, so I do struggle with endurance running a bit. Not because I'm winded or exhausted so much as my legs just get sore.

 

[phaledax]

ooooo ok i got it, so eggs yes, i would eat 6 a day ish if you can 540 calories 32g protein 42g fat, mostly good fats. and add all natural peanutbutter to your diet (adams is one)
multi-vitamin this is the cheapest / best way to get the vitamins, minerals, phyto-macro nutrients you need. EVERY vegan or vegetarian of anykind absolutly must take a multi-vitamin just to be healthy, not even talking about weight loss or muscle gain. im just talking about being healthy in general, there is no realistic way around this getting it all in your diet is almost impossable, especally this type of diet.
note: don't dislike vegetarians at all but do understand it's a volunteery handycap, and my hat is off to anyone who can do it well.

 

[Marathon James]

How long have you been doing all of this? You might have already said it but I got lost in your novel.