Lifestyle Changes for a better me

B

bdonline

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About two months ago, I made a decision to change my lifestyle for a better me. My main objectives for the changes include:

1. Lose weight (15 - 25 pounds)
2. Build muscle
3. Improve eating habits
4. Combat somewhat sedentary lifestyle

My weight at the start of this (end of July) was 192 pounds. My height is 5' 10" and I am 22 years old. The exercise component of my lifestyle change entails:

1. Monday, Wednesday, Friday - up to 1-day variation with catch up on weekend. Maintain free day between workouts.
2. 20 - 25 minutes on elliptical at a moderate pace with moderate resistance. Typically results in a readout of 100 - 150 calories burnt.
3. Free weights 12 reps, three sets, 25 pounds and up, 3 different arm exercises.
4. Variety of stretches, sit ups, leg lifts, other general standalone exercises

My eating habits are also further tuned. They were quite good already but I am making efforts to improve them even more.

I have been trying to figure out if my workout could be improved and if my results are legitimate. When I first started, I was literally weighing about a pound less each workout. I got down to 185 pounds! However, I slowly began weighing more and even hit 195 pounds a few days ago.

Losing weight is my main goal but I understand that more muscle mass can help burn calories, too. But another key question is: saying lose weight can be misleading. If I am building muscle mass (weighs twice what fat does) could I theoretically hold my weight while losing fat?

Any suggestions would be seriously appreciated. Thank you all!
 
You were probably loosing muscle from lack of food dropping that fast, and then started gaining weight when your body started storing everything because it thought you were starving to death. I don’t know, could that be the case? Find you maintenance weight in calories then go for a slight deficit combined with your workouts.

You need compound training and stop the focus on your arms, if you want mucle. They get bigger as you improve your overall lean mass.

Training programs:
Starting Strength
New Rules of Lifting
Strong Lifts 5x5
(look'em up)

Clean eating with lots of protein

The world is yours, just have to take it.
 
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Strangely enough, I basically didn't modify my eating habits outside of trimming my cooked carbohydrates slightly. I guess in a way I am disappointed to not be seeing better results after two months. As a hypothetical: if I wanted to only lose weight and only by means of exercise, how much more vigorous does my listed workout need to be? I would estimate it to burning 225 - 250 calories three times a week. Isn't that fairly helpful? My weight used to be managed by most of a day doing difficult physical work each week. I am trying to recover since no longer getting that exercise, which has allowed me to gain about 30 pounds in three years.
 
A couple of thoughts regarding why many people don't loose weight as fast as they think they will or should:
1. if you were previously working an active job, where you were constantly moving 8+ hours a day you could easily burn 1000+ calories just from your normal daily activities
2. remember your daily calorie usage is the combination of your activity and your base metabolism rate. Your base metabolism changes as your body attempts to maintain the status quo, ie your body tends to decrease your base metablism rate when you move more or eat less, which is why just burning 250 more calories 3 times a week does not mean you will automatically loose x pounds a week.
3. you do not say that you are counting calories. Most people tend to eat more when they are more active because they are more hungry, unless you very carefully count calories by weighting every portion you consume you can decieve yourself as to your daily calorie consumption.
4. most people tend to gain lean body mass (muscle, bone, water, blood, connective tissue, nerve tissue, internal organs, skin, etc., everything except fat) when they start resistance exercise. If this is the first time you have done resistance exercise in your life or the first time in many years, you can easily gain 5-10% of your body weight in lean body mass in a few months.
5. if your body feels it is being deprived, either by calorie restriction or excess amounts of long slow cardio it will make every effort to store as much body fat as possible, by reducing your base metabolism rate and diverting as much food as possible to energy (fat) stores
 
Thank you very much dswithers and JohnnySolo for the very insightful information. You are correct in thinking that I am not counting calories. My philosophy on weight loss is that if I do nothing, I will probably get heavier. If I make fair efforts, at a minimum, I should maintain my weight. I will hopefully lose weight (very slowly of course), which is probably not only the healthiest but also requires the least amount of effort. My whole life I have hardly ever consumed the big snack/beverage choices on anything close to a regular basis. This helps a lot.

Is there a convenient way for me to calculate muscle mass that would give me my body fat percentage? This would answer my question definitively. I would like to monitor my progress. I had an Excel graph going but as I said, my weight dropped quickly only to rise again.
 
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