35-40 Pounds to Lose, can it be done in 5 months?

J

justmennc

0
Yea, another of "those" questions! Sorry

41 year old female.
5'5" currently 178#

I was very athletic in high school. A little overweight, 10 pounds or so but never really more than that. At 35 I was still pretty much in good shape around 140#'s. Then in my mid 30's I took my first office sit down behind a desk and commute of 11 hours a day total job. In 5 years I gained 30 pounds then had a back injury, surgery last year and ended up about 200#'s when all was said and done. UGH!

2 years ago I went to a family reunion and saw jaw's drop all over the room over my 50+ pound weight gain. A couple people even said something which just crushed me.

I started exercising after the surgery a little and for the last year, I have been exercised 2 to 4 times a week. 20 to 30 minutes each time and have lost 22 pounds through exercise alone as my eating habits still are pretty bad.

Now I find out that I have a wedding to attend the first of October which is kicking me into high gear. I have not seen some of people since the family reunion and I would REALLY like to get most of the weight back off before I go. So, is it possible?

So the last month I have been getting on the treadmill/Cybex/Stairclimber for 30 minutes a day 5 days a week before work doing Interval training I suppose keeping my HR at 140-160. I have not lost ANY weight the last month but have lost an inch from my waist and can see a difference in my clothes so perhaps I have gained some muscle from the more intense workouts even though they are cardio? Is that possible?

I want to add in an evening session and probably start back doing weights 3 days a week. How does that sound?

Also, Diet. I eat horribly. I know that is what is holding me back. How many calories should I be consuming a day? I did a food diary for a week trying not to alter my eating just because I was writing it down (hard not to do when you have to admit to it on paper!) and averaged about 2500 and they are not "good" calories either but lots of fast food, frozen dinners and candy :eek: But, I have some serious motivation now and am willing to commit.

Thanks for any and all comments and help.
 
So how bad do you want it?

I say this because there are two good stickies at the top of this forum that can help you get pointed in the right direction to loose the weight.

You are right, you are going to have to get "militant" with your diet and clean it up if you expect to loose this much weight this fast. That is one of the key elements to succeeding.

Now, personally, I think you need to look at the big picture and not just the fact that you are going to a wedding. Loosing weight, keeping it off, is part of a bigger equation. It's about being healthier and changing bad habits to improve your lifestyle.

If you only if you only strive to attain weight loss, and don't look at the whole, you will have difficulty succeeding.

Read the stickies, then if you have questions feel free to ask. There are a lot of knowledgeable people here who can help.

cheer,
Diane
 
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justmennc said:
So the last month I have been getting on the treadmill/Cybex/Stairclimber for 30 minutes a day 5 days a week before work doing Interval training I suppose keeping my HR at 140-160. I have not lost ANY weight the last month but have lost an inch from my waist and can see a difference in my clothes so perhaps I have gained some muscle from the more intense workouts even though they are cardio? Is that possible?
Click to expand...

Yes, that is certainly possible, although more so at the "beginner" level. Weight training tends to be more effective at building muscle / strength.

The smaller waist measurement is a better measure of progress than the scale, as you have noticed. You may also want to consider body fat percentage measurements, although be warned that they may not be that accurate in an absolute sense (though if the same method and device is used, they can measure progress).

Is it possible to incorporate exercise into your commute to work (e.g. walking, running, bicycling, or even walking up the stairs to a job on an upper floor of a building)? That would save some time (since your exercise would be helping you get somewhere, instead of spinning a treadmill), and perhaps allow you to prepare / eat something healthier than fast food, TV dinners, and candy.
 
OK, yes, I will indeed take the day tomorrow at the office when I am just sitting around playing online to read all the stickies and lots of past posts.

No, my commute is 1.5 hours total on the interstate. I do work up one flight of stairs and try to have an excuse to go up and down as much as possible but I have really bad knees and going DOWN the stairs is kinda tough. Up is no problem but down is a pain.

Any advice about the calorie goal assuming I am burning about 500-600 a day on exercise?
 
i agree that your goal should be more long term and generally 1 to 2 lbs a week is safe wait loss so you could probably lose about 30-35lbs in that time period with serious commitment, the most important place to start is diet. the reason why you probably stopped losing weight is because you were not at a calorie defecit anymore, read about your basal metabolic rate and your mantenance caloric rate and figure those two things out that way you can establish a defecit, using the harris benedict eq I calculated a ROUGH ESTIMATE of about 2100 calories for mantenance and a 20% defecit is safe so I would stick with that. Wieght training will help with your goals I think its a great idea to add this in. For max and safe weight loss i would recommend cardio 6 days a week for 30-45min if time alloted and weight training 3 days a week, but remember if the more you work out the more you will also have to eat!!! once you read the stickies youll be able to ask more specific questions and more people on the forum will be able to help
 
In the end, weight loss comes down to calories in versus calories out. If you eat like a pig (not saying you do - just an example) and burn 600+ calories when doing intense cardio, you might not see any loss because you're over eating by 600 calories (or more, in most cases). A lot of these threads have great eating advice, and most people have posted their diets. Have a look at those and start making changes to yours.

Mind you, these changes dont have to happen over night. When I began, I just cut out fast food and pop. I still ate junk at home and what have you, but it was a start. Then I cut junk food, and I started recording what I ate and being aware of nutrition labels. The transition didn't happen over night, but it allowed me to slowly adjust my life style and to learn how to eat properly.

Once you've started eating right, tell us what a normal day of eating looks like for you. You may find some things need a bit of tweaking, which everyone here would gladly help you with.

Good luck and keep us posted.
 
I think you have that, "I'll show you" attitude. Which is good and all, but dangerous in many ways. It puts you in great danger of developing serious problems later on in which case you feel that you have to maintain a certain level of fitness in order to even be accepted into some norm.

My guess is listen to what gotfit said. You need to look at the big picture. Sure it would be great if you can walk in there and show off and rub it in their face. But then what? You may find that even if you lose the weight someone might say something or they might not say anything at all (which might be more terrible than if people said anything at all... silence is the worst enemy).

It sounds like you're doing a fantastic job right now. Who knows you might look even better by the time the wedding comes. So just take it easy. Eat healthy and naturally (that is eat as best as you can but doesn't always have to be perfect), exercise, and be happy and it will come out okay for you.
 
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