Major sticking point in weight loss

W

wildwoodflower

0
Hi everyone,

I am a newbie to this forum so firstly, hello all, I've been reading the posts and it seems like a great site! :)

I'm a 24 yr old female of 5'9. I currently weigh 22 stone, a year and a half ago I weighed 27stone 7lbs. I've gone down from a clothes size 30 to 24/26. However, I seem to have hit a sticking point in my diet and I was wondering if anyone could tell me where I am going wrong or at least point me in the right direction?

I am eating 2000 calories a day and I go to the gym at least 4 times a weak. At the gym I do half hour on the cross trainer, 15 mins on the treadmill, 15 minutes on the exercise bike. 5 mins on rowing machine and about 15 to 20 minutes on arm and leg toning exercises. This has worked for shifting my first 5 stone but as you can see I am still very overweight at 22 stone. I haven't lost any weight now for about a month and it's very disheartening because I am still trying very hard. On the days that I am not at the gym I still get excersise because I walk my dog twice a day and every Sunday I walk 6 miles (3 miles there and back) to work.

As for my diet, I have cut bread out of my diet completely and try to minimise wheat. I am a vegetarian but I eat lots of pulses, tofu, beans etc. I do eat eggs and dairy but try to minimise the amount of dairy I get by replacing it with soya when I can due to the fact that I have psoriasis and cutting down on dairy helps with that.

A typical day for me diet and food wise is

WALK DOG - 20 mins

Morning - Bowl of oatabix with soya milk and cup of coffee with semi milk
or a pitta bread with a spoonful of peanut butter

Gym (workout as above)

Immediate pre work out snack - a banana or an apple

Mid morning snack - half pint glass vegetable smoothie - usually includes 2 carrots, 3 sticks celery, handful of spinach, juice from one lemon or lime

Lunch - A mixed bean and vegetale casserole or tofu, brown rice and veg or vegetarian subsitute burgers (quorn or similar), eggs, salad, large flat mushrooms

Afternoon snack - 2 or 3 dark rye ryvita with a topping of 1 egg sliced and mixed with creme fraische, tomato, cucumber, cress and an orange juice

WALK DOG - 20 mins

Dinner - two large bowls of soup (most often carrot and lentil or vegetable or tomatoe and red pepper) or a baked sweet potato topped with creme fraische and mixed leaf salad. Alpro soya yoghurt to finish.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks
 
One thing off the top of my head is strength training is almost non existent in your routine.

Many people (more often us women) seem to be stuck in the mentality that in order to lose fat, we should do as much cardio stuff as possible, and only a little, if any, wt lifting.

In the beginning, almost anything you do will result in initial wt loss. The further along you get, the more important having a good, well rounded, routine becomes.

Drop some of all that cardio, and start lifting some weight. (and I don't mean the little pink, rubber coated ones either :p). Read up on some of the basics of lifting weights and creating routines. Also, if you can, I would check out the book, The New Rules of Lifting for Women (it's wonderful).

(and please, oh please, do not think that lifting anything heavier than a water bottle and an iPod will make you bulky)
 
In addition to what the previous poster said about adding weights to your workout, another thing that seems inefficient is doing four different cardio machines in the gym that total to only about an hour. Why not do one for the whole hour (if you want variety, do a different one each day; if you want to pick one, the rower might be a good choice because it is a full body workout)? Also, you might want to do mix in some HIIT sessions as well as long sessions.

Also, with both cardio and weights, write down how much you did and try to increase by a little each time. With cardio, longer and/or more resistance on the machine, or a higher ratio of high intensity to rest when doing HIIT. With weights, try to get one more rep, or increase the weight when you can do a lot of reps.

As you noticed, walking the dog and walking to work are other ways of getting exercise in. Perhaps you can walk or run to work (or the gym) more often, overlaying your exercise with transportation that you have to do anyway, saving time. And you can concentrate gym time on things that you could not do outside of the gym (e.g. weights, rower).
 
Thanks for all of the advice :eek:) It's all greatly appreciated. My new gym routine consists of one hour of cardio (usually on the cross trainer) and twenty minutes weight training. I've aked the advice of the gym workers on the weights thing and I'm also doing some research of my own with a view to getting some weights to use at home. I go to a very small womens only gym and the weight facilities are not very good at all, only a handful of those air resistance weight lifting machines (sorry, I'm not really up on the jargon lol but I'm sure you know what I mean) and the highest load isn't really that heavy at all. With there being so few machines aswell it's often like a race to get on them! :)
 
Hi and congrats on your weight loss!

I agree with the other posters, how about buying some dumbbells for home work outs? This is what I started doing 3 days per week for 75 minutes. I mix up my 60 minute cardio exercise with jog/walks and swimming laps in the local pool.

I'm also a vegetarian, its been a challenge getting more protein into my diet but since I've increased it I feel much better. I like to eat steel cut oats for brekkie with a scoop of vanilla soy pp, very tasty! I also love making green smoothies with spinach, berries, water and pp. One of my favorite dinner/lunch is a vegetable lentil loaf with steamed veggies. Last night I made Ratatouille and added some tofu for protein.

Check out ExRx (Exercise Prescription) on the Net great site!
 
deschain said:
One thing off the top of my head is strength training is almost non existent in your routine.

Many people (more often us women) seem to be stuck in the mentality that in order to lose fat, we should do as much cardio stuff as possible, and only a little, if any, wt lifting.

In the beginning, almost anything you do will result in initial wt loss. The further along you get, the more important having a good, well rounded, routine becomes.

Drop some of all that cardio, and start lifting some weight. (and I don't mean the little pink, rubber coated ones either :p). Read up on some of the basics of lifting weights and creating routines. Also, if you can, I would check out the book, The New Rules of Lifting for Women (it's wonderful).

(and please, oh please, do not think that lifting anything heavier than a water bottle and an iPod will make you bulky)
Click to expand...

Beyond the physical benefits, strength training serves a distinct psychological purpose. There are numerous studies out there that show that perceived weight loss and perceived improvement of the body shape and size is greatest when there is a resistance training program is in place when compared to cardio or dieting alone.
 
chihiro said:
Hi and congrats on your weight loss!

I agree with the other posters, how about buying some dumbbells for home work outs? This is what I started doing 3 days per week for 75 minutes. I mix up my 60 minute cardio exercise with jog/walks and swimming laps in the local pool.
Click to expand...

Well...I bit the bullet and got some from Argos today. Out of stock at my local store so have ordered them to be delivered :) With any luck they'll arrive tommorrow or Friday.
 
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