I am not considered overweight medically speaking however, I would like to lose about 8 lbs. I know thats not much but I seem to be going in the wrong direction. I was working out 4-5 times per week from November to March. I looked great and felt great. I had a personally issue occur and took a break from the middle of March to the middle of May. The inches (partially) have come back to my hips/thighs which is where I am trying to lose from. Will it take me just as long to get back to where I was before or is there any chance its easier this time around? I have been working out a lot the past few weeks but have gained weight. My diet never ever changes as I eat the same foods all the time. I am not really as worried about the weight as I am the inches. How quickly will it be possible to redeem myself and get back to where I was in March???
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2 month break....am I now starting over???
- Thread starter jenoldfield
- Start date
Redeem yourself? You make it sound so bad. Don't worry, you'll be fine.
You admit that your diet "never ever changes." That's entirely under your control, and it's the most important factor for losing weight or fat. It's quite realistic to lose 8lb in 8-12 weeks, if you get on a balanced diet and then get into a calorie deficit of 500kcal/day (so, if you use up 2,000kcal/day (which is fairly average), you'd be consuming 500kcal less than that, ie 1,500kcal/day). Your return to exercise will probably increase energy expenditure by about 300kcal/day, so you'd only be looking at about a 10% reduction in calorie intake (achieved fairly easily by reducing portion sizes by 10% or by omitting 1 snack) to get to about the right level and lose ~1lb/wk.
What sort of exercise are you doing? When it comes to changing body composition, people tend to get their exercise priorities the wrong way around, focusing mostly on low intensity cardio and minimally on heavy lifting (heavy being relative to your ability to perform the exercise with good technique), whereas heavy lifting will have the most impact on body composition and low intensity cardio is realistically not very important for the goal. While strength training builds muscle when in a calorie surplus (consuming more energy than you expend each day; the opposite of the deficit that you're after), it maintains/preserved muscle while in a calorie deficit, optimising the amount of fat lost amongst weight loss. That is to say that if you lose 8lb while doing heavy strength training, you will lose a better 8lb than if lose the same weight without heavy strength training. As you're more concerned with inches than the number on the scale, this should be a particular highlight to you.
You admit that your diet "never ever changes." That's entirely under your control, and it's the most important factor for losing weight or fat. It's quite realistic to lose 8lb in 8-12 weeks, if you get on a balanced diet and then get into a calorie deficit of 500kcal/day (so, if you use up 2,000kcal/day (which is fairly average), you'd be consuming 500kcal less than that, ie 1,500kcal/day). Your return to exercise will probably increase energy expenditure by about 300kcal/day, so you'd only be looking at about a 10% reduction in calorie intake (achieved fairly easily by reducing portion sizes by 10% or by omitting 1 snack) to get to about the right level and lose ~1lb/wk.
What sort of exercise are you doing? When it comes to changing body composition, people tend to get their exercise priorities the wrong way around, focusing mostly on low intensity cardio and minimally on heavy lifting (heavy being relative to your ability to perform the exercise with good technique), whereas heavy lifting will have the most impact on body composition and low intensity cardio is realistically not very important for the goal. While strength training builds muscle when in a calorie surplus (consuming more energy than you expend each day; the opposite of the deficit that you're after), it maintains/preserved muscle while in a calorie deficit, optimising the amount of fat lost amongst weight loss. That is to say that if you lose 8lb while doing heavy strength training, you will lose a better 8lb than if lose the same weight without heavy strength training. As you're more concerned with inches than the number on the scale, this should be a particular highlight to you.