4 hours exercise a day with no results!

J

jefftd77

New member
Here's my situatiuon...

I'm 31 year old male that's 5'4

I was 134 lbs a year ago (I'm short) and have now managed to bring myself to a slobbish 175 lbs after McDonalds and no exercise for a year.

I made the decision to leave the country for 2 months and put myself on a weight loss program... Gym and eating healthy for 2 months

I have been exercising 3-4 hours a day for the past 10 days and burning a total of 4000 calories a day (according to my heart rate monitor watch).

Small breakfast then I do 1 1/2 hours cardio then go for lunch and come back in the evening to the gym for about 30 min cardio and an hour of heavy weights then have dinner.

I don't want to get my carbs thru bread rice and other high carb foods as they have always been a weak spot for me but am not doing the "atkins" diet as I don't want hi-fat foods.

I am basically eating proteins (lots of lean meats and eggs) and getting my carbs through veggies (carrots, corn etc.) but no potatoes.

I am eating about 2,000 calories/day and burning 4,000 but have only seen about 2 lbs of weight loss in 10 days. I thought a 20,000 calorie deficit over 10 days would equal about a 5 lbs weight loss?

Should I believe I am building muscle now that is counter-acting my weight loss and soon will start to lose more weight once my muscles stop growing (stop increasing in weights when working out)?

I just don't know how I can not be losing weight when I'm at a 2,000 Calorie/day deficit...

Any thoughts or opinions are greatly appreciated!!

Thanks,

Jeff
 
Mmmm

The only clue I can go on is that you're eating over your BMR (provided you're sure you're eating what you say you're eating). Meaning, you're eating enough calories for your body to sustain itself if it did absolutely nothing, but you're also doing long hours of different exercises which could potentially be building muscle.

There will be people with better/more accurate advice, but I personally think you're just building muscle (again, provided you're counting your calories correctly).

Apparently, the way to lose fat/weight is to do heavy lifting whilst in a caloric DEFICIT (the lifting is to preserve the muscle mass). You're in a caloric surplus, and lifting all sorts.

I wish I could input more, but that's my hazardous guess, I'd wait for someone with a bit more knowledge on your circumstances.
 
You have lost weight. 2 lbs is a loss.

Your math is ok, but scales don't always show a loss in line with those expectations. Weird fluctuations happen when you're keeping an eye on the scales. Were they the same scales, was it the same time of day, was your tummy equally empty both times, do your scales measure reliably (ie, repeatedly give you the same figure for the same amount of weight, even for a heavy weight?). Could it be due to water/salt?

It sounds like you're putting a heap of effort in, and reminds me of people on that Biggest Loser show - but they don't always get the result on the scales they expect from the work they're doing either - not within a particular week or two anyway.

It's just not easy to predict the amount of weight you will lose in a particular time period. The figures people use to work out whether they are in deficit or not include things like estimates of how many calories they burn without exercising - this can vary a bit from person to person.

I used to find that I would do something very similar from week to week to week - but if one week the weight loss was a bit bigger than usual the next week it would be a bit less than usual - and vice versa. Other people here have also felt the scales played tricks on them - yet if you are truly in deficit and maintain that, you will lose weight over time.
 
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Thanks for the great replies!

I do get extremely worn out but am on holidays for 2 months so I don't have to worried about being drained for work (I have taken a quick nap between my morning and afternoon exercises on a few days)...



It's the same scales I'm using and about the same time of day. My BMR is about 1550 calories/day and I am burning 4,000 calories within the time I'm awake according to my heart rate monitor. I just figured eating 2,000/day is ok if i'm burning double that....

I was going to do all cardio but I figured weight training will help me build some muscle that will help burn the fat...

I have noticed a large increase in strength but am now just waiting for the lbs to melt off...

Thanks again everyone for your input and I'll keep you posted.... only 6 1/2 weeks left!

Jeff
 
long term diet and goals

I am no expert at all so this is my thoughts about your situation but feal free to disregard due to my inexperience But I personaly have taken on a new approch to dieting I veiw it as the long run(time) diet I have posted some questions about my diet and the responces is your weight loss is more based off of what you eat and it sounds like you are doing that but keep faithfull to that but what I do to keep sane is to allow myself some bad foods but in small amounts also I have taken on a concept where I will only eat when Im hungry forget the scheduled times for eating just eat when you are hungry when you do sit down for a meal let say your given a big plate only eat entill you are just satisfied then save the let rest for another time. I have been starting to eat only celary or carrots when it gets closer to my bed time but somes times if I am really hungry I will eat something real but not much of it though. my opinion is sure you can convince yourself to go crazy and excersize like crazy and eat good but then you get tired of doing that and slip into your old habits my approch is to modify you old life to make it a more long term appoch modify what you do now into a more doable sane diet but keep up the excerise I started with just 2 days a week of walking then I got modivated to do 3. then I got pissed off and bumped it up to 5 but what I have learned in the process is that it is a long term thing(make it a lifestyle) you might not see your progress because you look at you every day and the progress is all over you body in small amounts but people around you will notice. I have come to a point where my body will tell me if something is to much to eat and I will stop eating something that is to rich so that helps me govern my diet I will eat just about anything but its small portions is the key I will even eat mcdonalds or potatoes just in small amounts my body even tells me what I should eat to like I will feal drawn to a certain thing and the other way around I will feal a resistance to eating something else LIke one time it was noddles I think its my bodys way of saying that it has had to much of one thing I have seen some progress my arms have become skinnyer and my legs and my belly so the combination of both eating(big key) and keeping up some excersize over the long run(months, years) is the winning combination its a lifestyle you need to change the way you think alltogether not just modivate yourself to go super crazy for a short perod set more realisit goals now when I excerize I will walk and jog and just keep my heart rate up decently. now like I said before I am no expert and there are probolly many who would disagree with me but it works for me

I hope this may help

Oh another thing I just remembered is that someone on a forum told me for some people it is good to eat 6 small meals a day and with anything that is bad small portions is the key I read in a readers digest a diet called the 10% diet(might be called somthing else) they said you can have whatever you like but as long as it is 10% of your daily eating they also suggested 1600 calories but I swiced up to 2000 beucase I did a calorie burning intake a day based off of my hight and age and it came up with something like 2600 per day to just stay the same weight

ok hope you the best
gl
 
slight modification

I feal to clarify that I like to make sure I have a full verity of foods I dont go to mcdonads everyday per say just once in a while or have bad food once in a while and in moderation. sometimes when eating something bad per say it might taist good but I will stop with a smaller portion or stop half way when eating it my body tells me if its rich or not and I will eat the rest later. one thing I do if I eat junk food on an occation is I will ride out those calories I just ate entill I am hungry again. but what I have noticed is I will get light headed sometimes so I know that I better do something like eat a small amount of food or I am considering a like a small health drink at that time. mix your food up have different things one thing I keep running into in forums is people say to much of one thing is not good so keep it mixed do different things
 
jefftd77 said:
Here's my situatiuon...

I'm 31 year old male that's 5'4

I was 134 lbs a year ago (I'm short) and have now managed to bring myself to a slobbish 175 lbs after McDonalds and no exercise for a year.

I made the decision to leave the country for 2 months and put myself on a weight loss program... Gym and eating healthy for 2 months

I have been exercising 3-4 hours a day for the past 10 days and burning a total of 4000 calories a day (according to my heart rate monitor watch).

Small breakfast then I do 1 1/2 hours cardio then go for lunch and come back in the evening to the gym for about 30 min cardio and an hour of heavy weights then have dinner.

I don't want to get my carbs thru bread rice and other high carb foods as they have always been a weak spot for me but am not doing the "atkins" diet as I don't want hi-fat foods.

I am basically eating proteins (lots of lean meats and eggs) and getting my carbs through veggies (carrots, corn etc.) but no potatoes.

I am eating about 2,000 calories/day and burning 4,000 but have only seen about 2 lbs of weight loss in 10 days. I thought a 20,000 calorie deficit over 10 days would equal about a 5 lbs weight loss?

Should I believe I am building muscle now that is counter-acting my weight loss and soon will start to lose more weight once my muscles stop growing (stop increasing in weights when working out)?

I just don't know how I can not be losing weight when I'm at a 2,000 Calorie/day deficit...

Any thoughts or opinions are greatly appreciated!!

Thanks,

Jeff
Click to expand...

Jeff,
First of all you cannot rely on an exercise watch for an accurate indication of how many calories you burned- it simply is not possible. The number quoted- 400 calories is inaccurate as if you were indeed expending that many calories, you would be very sick at the end of the day if you are working out as often as you are. You see the human body is an adaptive machine and the more we do an exercise the less calories we burn, so if I start an exercise and do it for a period of time, as I get better and better the body becomes more efficient and learns to burn less and less calories as a result. That being said, it is impossible for a machine to estimate caloric expenditure as there are also variable s such as weight, age, muscle mass and individual genetic aspects that have to be taken into account.

The idea too of calculating that you are eating 2000 calories but burning 4000 and that it should translate into a 5 lb weight loss over the course of ten days is also unrealistic. Were that the case, if you kept it up you would eventually weigh nothing, and we all know that this will not happen.

As for muscle mass increase, that could be a factor, but at the end of the day I always advise that you forget the scale and instead focus on the mirror. If you lose twenty pounds of muscle, the reading on the scale will make you feel that you have reached your goal, but when you look in the mirror you will not like what you see. It is about losing fat and building muscle, which to be honest is difficult given how much you are over training. You won't see much progress if you keep up such a pace.

At the end of the day I recommend that you stop focusing on how many calories you are burning and instead focus on creating a sustainable routine. As it stands right now you are training far too often and for far too long. As extreme as your program is, you are destined to not be able to do it indefinitely and as such you will end up regaining all the weight when your body finally says that it has had enough, and when you see that you are not at all losing weight the way you want to. Training that often simply does not work, and will lead to injuries as well.

Diet wise, I would also suggest that you invert your food intake, with a large breakfast, a smaller lunch and then a smaller dinner. My philosophy is that you breakfast like a king, lunch like prince and dine like a pauper and has worked wonders for years, as you eat in accordance to your activity level.

To sum it all up, cut back on your training- no more than three days a week, eat a bigger breakfast and taper your meals off over the course of the day and don't look at the scale and calorie counters. Keep in mind that if you are not following a program based on moderation, you won't get very far long term, and the long term is what it is all about.

Hope this helps.

Warmest regards,

Kevin Richardson
 
2,000 calorie deficit seems extreme to me. For me at least, when i was losing wieght some weeks i'd lose nothing and some weeks i'd lose 5 lbs. I can't explain it but just happens, I would keep up the good work and see what happens in the next week.
 
jefftd77 said:
Here's my situatiuon...

I'm 31 year old male that's 5'4

I was 134 lbs a year ago (I'm short) and have now managed to bring myself to a slobbish 175 lbs after McDonalds and no exercise for a year.

I made the decision to leave the country for 2 months and put myself on a weight loss program... Gym and eating healthy for 2 months

I have been exercising 3-4 hours a day for the past 10 days and burning a total of 4000 calories a day (according to my heart rate monitor watch).

Small breakfast then I do 1 1/2 hours cardio then go for lunch and come back in the evening to the gym for about 30 min cardio and an hour of heavy weights then have dinner.

I don't want to get my carbs thru bread rice and other high carb foods as they have always been a weak spot for me but am not doing the "atkins" diet as I don't want hi-fat foods.

I am basically eating proteins (lots of lean meats and eggs) and getting my carbs through veggies (carrots, corn etc.) but no potatoes.

I am eating about 2,000 calories/day and burning 4,000 but have only seen about 2 lbs of weight loss in 10 days. I thought a 20,000 calorie deficit over 10 days would equal about a 5 lbs weight loss?

Should I believe I am building muscle now that is counter-acting my weight loss and soon will start to lose more weight once my muscles stop growing (stop increasing in weights when working out)?

I just don't know how I can not be losing weight when I'm at a 2,000 Calorie/day deficit...

Any thoughts or opinions are greatly appreciated!!

Thanks,

Jeff
Click to expand...

Please tell me that once the 2 months is up that you're not going to go back to eating the way you use to and not exercising.. If you do that you will lose all your results eventually.

I think you are over working yourself.. that's a lot to do in a day. You could be just fine running intervals for your cardio for maybe only 40 mins a day.. you don't want to overtrain, your body needs time to heal. And those monitors aren't that accurate. So if I were you'd I'd switch to 40 mins of intervals in the morning and then no cardio at night, maybe only a 5 minute jog to warm up for your lifting...

And a balanced diet is the best diet.. carbs are needed, both simple and complex.. you just have to eat all things in moderation.. wheat breads and pastas aren't bad for you.. either are yams or potatoes.. you'll be very cranky if you cut out your carbs. they're a great form of energy.

2lbs of weight loss in a week is a very normal rate.. and you could definitely be gaining muscle.. go get your body fat percentage checked and then check it again when you're done with your 2 months.
 
foods

Bennuendo you said "you just have to eat all things in moderation" does this mean any food as long as its not much of it and as
long as your body is not screaming stop :puke:
 
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nester9 said:
Bennuendo you said "you just have to eat all things in moderation" does this mean any food as long as its not much of it and as
long as your body is not screaming stop :puke:
Click to expand...

I mean that you shouldn't try to cut out things like carbs, fats and sugars.. our body needs them at some level. I just think that our body works best whenever we have a balanced diet. Of course you want to choose healthy options but don't try to cut something completely out of your diet.

What I like to do is set out a portion or two of what I'm planning on eating for that meal and that's all I eat.. I don't go back for seconds. Give your body time to realize you just filled your stomach up and you won't be hungry and you won't overload your stomach.. aka eat slower.

In the morning I try to get a carb, a dairy, a fruit and a protein.. 1 or 2 servings of each.. and I do the same thing through out the rest of the day.. (dont' forget the vegetables too)..
 
.

what about junk food can you eat some of that as long as it is small portions and a small amout in a day

also I think that jefftd77 isnt paying attention anymore I responded to his question when this discussion was old at that time but who knows maybee he is but isnt saying anything

what did you think of that puke I was lmao as I was doing it :D
 
To be honest, I would debate the 4000 calories you are burning a day with just exercise.
Jogging an hour burns 600, sprinting hard out for an hour would be up too 900 maximum.
Most HR monitors are utter garbage - even the good quality ones.
Try logging things on fitday.com or similar and see what it says you were using. You might be surprised.
Also, you might want to make sure you are drinking HEAPS , and perhaps eat a little more if you really are doing 4 hours of exercise a day :)
 
water

I thought I heard that drinking to much can wash away important minerals for the longest time doctors thought that you would drink I cant remember was it 8 large glasses a day but somewhat recently they recanted and said the mineral thing unless your not referring to that much?
 
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