Need Advice

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bessyb

0
Hello everyone!!

I really need some help and advice!! Let me first tell you a little about myself. I am a 29 year old hispanic female. All of my life I hav been overweight, last year I was 195 pound when I decided that enough was enough and it was time for a change. My sisters friend is a trainer and he was kind enough to start training me. I began in August and have lost a total of 40 pounds I am now 157 pounds. The problem that I am having is the loosing of 10 more pounds. I have been on a diet that he gave me where I am eating chicken breast and salad twice a day and a protein shake once a day. I have been on this diet for about 2 weeks and have only lost 2 pounds. It feels like my body is locked up and is not willing to loose anything faster. To me is frustrating because I have done everything in my power to loose the weight. I exercise 5 days a week and I know that loosing weight slowly is probably a good thing but I just feel that it takes me way to long to loose it. I would like some advice please.
 
Bessy,
All you're eating is one protein shake, 2 chicken breasts and 2 salads a day? There's your problem! Depending on what's in the salad and how big the chicken breasts are I'd say you aren't topping 1,000 calories a day. That's not enough!

Are you weight training and doing cardio?

~teresa
 
Diet

Yes, I do Cardio about 4 times a week and weights about 4 times a week. Yes and that is all that I am eating. I also drink water but I don't think I drink enough.
 
Yowzas! Eat more my friend! Eating so little is harming your metabolism and you are jumping on the choo-choo train to yo-yo diet world. Eat more calories and continue working out with a regular cardio and strength training routine. Those last 10 pounds can be pesky, but hey that's the way it is :)

I wouldn't worry about the weight. In fact, one pound a week is not bad at all. My concern is that you are losing one pound of muscle per week because you certainly do not have enough calories to be losing fat.

When you do not consume enough calories your body needs to find a way to make energy to fuel you. So it doesn't turn to stored fat as many believe. It doesn't understand you are dieting. It thinks you are starving. So it keeps its fat to stay warm and to keep you safe due to a famine.

So it eats your muscle for fuel. Yes the scale says you are dropping weight, but that doesn't mean you are dropping fat. Eat more :)
 
After reading your postings I have come to realize that I have done this the wrong way. What would your advice be in regaining the muscles that I have lost??
 
Follow Lynn's Five Tips for Weight Loss (below)...they're all great. That kind of irritates me that a personal trainer would recommend that you eat so little and to eat virtually NO carbs! How do you have the energy to exercise? That's another problem...I bet you DON'T have all of the energy to exercise that you normally would so you're not getting the most out of your workouts either.

Anyway, these are Lynn's tips...follow them religiously and don't forget to eat vegetables as some of your carbs and include some healthy fats in there :) If you need help deciding which carbs and proteins to eat I would go to or just browse around these forums.

1) Eat 5-6 small meals throughout the day. Each meal should be 2-3 hours apart. Each meal should contain one protein and one carb. The first meal should be eaten within an hour after waking.


2) Drink lots of water


3) Rest properly. This means taking at least 24-48 hours between strength training the same muscles, and it also means getting at least 7-8 hours of sleep per night. Lastly, it means taking 1-2 days off from exercising per week.


4) Cardio. This should be done at different intensity levels and different session lengths. Consider doing a low intensity/long session, a high intensity/short session and a few medium intensity/medium length sessions.


5) Strength Training. Strength train each muscle 1-3 times per week. You should lift a proper weight and perform the proper amount of sets/reps for your strength training method. Check out this site if you need additional strength training info, exercises, routines, etc.

Let me know if you need any more help!
~teresa
 
Some trainer's just plain suck. I hate saying that but it is so true. bessyb, I am so glad you are taking a second look at your program. Follow those 5 tips that teresa77 posted for me and I think you'll have a great start.

I'm so excited that you are going to eat more and reach your goal in the process. Just remember that the scale is NOT best :) Go by how you feel and how your clothes fit and if possible- your body fat reading. You rock! Good for you that you are making a smart move.
 
Well, I will defenetly try to do what both of you guys have suggested. I really appreciate the help. I have been doing this diet and yes my energy has been low. The reason my trainer put me on this diet is because he told me that I needed to burn the same amount of calories that I ate. Now in doing this diet will I first gain weight because of the way that I have been eating??
 
It's possible that you could gain a little weight at first because your metabolism is screwed up a bit. Don't worry though, it'll get back to normal quickly.

Since you're exercising though, daily, I would imagine you need at least 1600-1800 calories a day to lose weight (maybe even more...it depends on your body and your activity level throughout the rest of the day).

~teresa
 
Trainer Lynn:

The only error that he has made is the diet part but I like the way that he is training me in regards to the exercising. I am defenetly seeing some differences. I really appreciate your help and have now change my diet completely and do feel better and more energized. Also I am not getting any cravings like I had been with the way I was eating before.
 
If you like the way hes training, then stick with him. He did help you lose 40 lbs. Hes not a nutritionist, but he should've known better than that crazy diet.
 
True about the weight loss and I am happy with how my body is toning up. Thankfully I found this site which helped me see how unhealthy I was eating. The changes in me have been good as soon as I changed the way I was eating.
 
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