Can anyone offer advice??

[sagiquarius410]

I'm a 28 year old female, 5'7" and I weigh 180lbs. 180lbs!!!! I am literally disgusted with myself. I never used to weigh this much at all. I've never been super skinny and always felt like I was "big boned", a term I hate. My average weight when I was "thin" was 140lbs. I started working at a car dealership in sales when over the period of a year I saw myself gain 45lbs from eating fast food all the time. I was in a vicious cycle of Chinese food, pizza, junk food and heavily addicted to coffee and red bull, 5 hour energy shots. I always wanted to get in shape, but felt addicted to food. I literally hated myself as soon as I got done eating but I felt like I couldn't stop eating. I was tired all the time, irritable, and miserable.

So that's my background. I've probably been eating like this since I was 14, minus energy drinks. So I left my job at the dealership end of January this year. I've been starting a lifestyle change for the past 2 weeks now and the first week cheated a few times but have been faithful this week. I'm doing a 100% clean eating diet. No preservatives, white flour, sugar, salt, dairy, except a little Greek yogurt in smoothies.

I started walking at a fast pace and now I'm doing beginner HIIT workouts. I just noticed since I started the better eating and working out that I feel super exhausted and maybe a little irritable? Sometimes I notice now that I eat better I don't feel like I have the "stamina" to push through the workouts. I've been trying to do the HIIT every day but was just too exhausted tonight to do it. But yet when I would cheat, the next day I felt like I had that energy. What am I doing wrong? I am eating very lean, but I do make sure towards complex carbs and healthy fats.

Basically I would like to know what I can do to be a real "skinny girl". I don't want to be fat and unhealthy anymore. I'm tired of feeling miserable and tired all the time, and brain fog, no energy etc. any tips? Ideas? I want to be long and lean.

Thanks for all your help in advance. As a newbie to this direction is something I'd be so grateful for.

 

[Sure!]

You are putting your body through a big change and it takes time to adjust. Some dietary things to consider:
- are you eating too few calories? Target your weightloss at no more than 1.5 lbs per week
- are you eating too few carbs? There are a lot of benefits to low carb, or better yet IMO, moderately low carb, but you have to be sure to fuel your energy needs, and HIIT is very demanding. It may be that you need to make some adjustments to when you eat so that your body is fueled for the workouts.
- are you getting enough water? Dehydration will leave you feeling tired.

Do you love the HIIT workouts? Really, exercise is super important for good health, but for weight loss, not so much. You just don't burn that many calories, so do what you love so you will stick with it. If you really enjoy the workouts, then figure out how to get the energy you need, but if you are just doing them because you read somewhere that they were good or because someone suggested it, you might want to go for lower intensity but longer lasting cardio.

Finally, remember that this will be a lifetime change, not a quick fix. Slow down a little bit and figure out what works and what doesn't. I make little adjustments and changes all the time and then assess how I feel and whether the change was a good one or not.

Best to you!

 

[Wardy257]

If you increase the amount of energy you burn by exercising and decrease the amount of energy you take in by changing your diet at the same time it stands to reason that you will run out of energy some days. Especially, if you have cut calorie dense foods like fast food and caffeine/sugars like Red Bull so it will take you a while to adapt to your new diet. It is also vital that you do not reduce your calories too much, you cant force your body to burn fat.

By my math you need about 2000 calories a day when you don’t train and 2300-2600 a day when you do train so there is a good chance you are not getting enough energy from your food. As long as you eat healthy foods and get at least 100g of protein a day this amount of calories wont be an issue for you as long as you are active. On days off where you don’t train or have much activity you could drop to 1500 calories as long as you are full recovered from any previous exercise sessions. The important thing is to be disciplines with you calorie input and stick to it for 6-8 weeks and then adjust it up/down as appropriate and then again keep to it for 8-10 weeks. The more effort you put into accurately tracking the calories you eat the faster the results.

It is also important that you rest and recover appropriately. Doing HIIT everyday, especially as a beginner is a bit too much and you would be better of training twice every other day if you are determined to keep up this intensity. After exercise the first thing your body will do is replace/refuel the energy used in your muscles etc, then it will recover/repair/improve the areas you worked on/with. Therefore, if you don’t take in sufficient calories each day and rest your body either wont refuel the muscles or wont repair properly or both. This is why I would recommend only doing HIIT 3-4 a week and supplementing it with less intense activity such as walking, cycling etc ensuring you have at least 1 full days rest and maybe 2.

While slow/low intensity cardio is the best for fat loss it has been proven that training at 70% is better for overall calorie loss (not just calories burnt from fats) so HIIT fits into this quite well if you do something like interval training etc. Try and mix is up a bit by doing a variety of different HIIT and if you go for the exercise twice every other day you could do HIIT in the morning and go for a long walk or bike ride in the afternoon.

Just remember it took you many years to gain this extra weight so you can not expect to loose it in a couple of week or months. Just keep at it and eat healthily and stay active.

 

[Be Complete America]

I'm so proud of you for recognizing the need to change and taking the first steps toward that! That's really awesome. As the others have said, your body is adjusting to major changes.

Make sure you get enough sleep. When we don't sleep enough, we tend to overeat or crave unhealthy foods. Also, are you keeping track of what you eat/calories? is great, especially if you have a smartphone.

Also make sure you're getting enough protein. A great way to add in protein is through whey protein powder to add to the smoothies you're already having.

 

[CrazyOldMan]

MyFitnessPal is good, for monitoring weight loss, if a little vague regarding calories consumed by exercise. If your goal is weight loss you will love it, monitoring training progress, not so much.
Thing to remember is log everything that crosses your lips, many tend to miss the cans of fizz or after work glass of wine etc. and wonder why they aren't dropping the weight this says they should. It also shows you the balance you are eating and if you are high in one area, something very valuable.
There is no magic food or food type to add or remove, unless you are eating raw lard and sugar mix. Excess protein is converted to urine or fat, converting and removal in urine gives short term weight loss (water) that comes straight back, excess carbs are converted to fat, excess fat won't even need converting.
Eat in balance suitable for the human animal, predominantly complex carbs (starch), with sensible fat and protein and minimal sugars. We have spent a few million years adapting to this diet, if you keep to it and reduce all round rather than cutting parts out, you will lose weight steadily and sustainably. Bad news, this will not give dramatic 10 pounds in a week losses, good news, you will improve your health and the weight will stay off.

Exercise wise it gets complex, but there is good news in most arenas.
Low intensity, instant fat burn after initial start and easy to maintain for a duration meaning safer and less likely to cause damage. If you are breathing easily and training for 20 minutes plus you have burned fat most of the time. Not as much energy needed for recovery, but still some. Builds very little muscle.
Medium intensity. Some fat burning during activity and recovery. Will build more muscle than low intensity. Ideally you will want to be breathing well most of the time and gasping periodically for this intensity, as in beginners HIIT.
High intensity. Often little fat burned during but the recovery is longer and more energy hungry so a lot burned then. You will build more muscle here than on lower intensities and find breathing is either absent or flat out.

Why am I typing about muscle gains on a thread about weight loss?
Muscle is heavy and people jumping on the scales everyday will see increases and freak out, even if they have lost fat and gained muscle, decreasing overall size of their body. This doesn't mean constantly gaining weight as muscle is what you want, but it is something to be aware of.
Lean mass gains help fat loss. One pound of fat doesn't burn any energy while you sit in front of the TV while a pound of muscle does, especially if recovering from training. So unless you are totally adverse to any sort of visible body tissue between your skin and skeleton, muscle can be your friend.