Am I doing something Wrong?

D

dolphin363

New member
Hi All - just wanted to get some opinions - I started working out and eating healthier on 1/5/09 - I go to the gym 6 days a week - 4 days I do just cardio (first 4 weeks was 2 miles in the am) Now that I'm in my 5th week I started doing 3 miles - this is on a treadmill and I'm speed walking and jogging - the other 3 days I'm strength training - I do a cardio warm-up of about 10-15 minutes and then I hit the weights - this week I started going back and doing more cardio when I was done - My eating habits are good - salads, fruits, low-sodium, water, blah,blah,blah. So I lost 7lbs - I'm not disappointed in that but I really thought it would come off quicker? My starting weight was 174.5, so just wanted some opinions! Thanks
 
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7 lbs in 30 days.

That's just about perfect. Your expectations are skewed.

Good work.
 
Losing weight means you are going in the right direction. I presume you are female. A typical woman should consume around 2000 cals daily. To lose weight at a healthy rate of 2-3lbs of body fat per week, cut 500 cals from your diet and aim to expend another 500 daily through exercise. This will help you achieve a deficit of 7000cals per week equal to 2lbs of fat as 3500 is needed to lose 1lb.

Some tips to help you monitor your eating patterns and weight loss:
1 Keep a diary of everything you eat daily (will help you exactly what you are eating and where you are going wrong)
2 Buy decent body fat scales (Tanita or Salter)
3 Buy kitchen scales and weigh your food (control portion sizes, calculate calories)
4 Buy a calorie counting book that tells you the calories in most foods (collins gem calorie counter)
5 keep up your exercising!!! Try interval training, it can help burn up to 9 times the fat compared to conventional trining alone.
 
I'd highly suggest not going by the above metric of "average women should eat 2000 calories."

Caloric requirements, as is discussed everywhere on this forum, is highly dependent on individual circumstances. It's easy to get a relatively accurate ballpark to be in so I don't see any reason to go off some arbitrary number like the above.
 
7lbs a month is really good. Like Steve said, your expectations are skewed. Much more than that (too much weightloss in a small period of time) would be unhealthy.

I lost 5 lbs in the first month, and due to exams (and my still trying to change eating habits) I put back on a pound :(
Grrr.

But good job and keep it up!!!
 
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