New journal, struggling to lose weight through diet + excersize

F

fishyfoo

New member
I was asked to post this in the journal form instead of the newbie forum, so sorry for the double post

Hi everyone. Newbie here who's trying to lose the extra weight so she can tone down and fit back into a pair of size 12-14 pants. I'm a 25 years old female, roughly 78kg, about 155cm tall, and have been trying to lose around 15-20kg for the past few years, and I can't seem to budge it.

Monday and Tuesday nights I do karate for 2 hours each night, and just about every other day I try to do either a 20-40 mins on a exercise bike, or a 40 min walk (on a weekend I've been able to sit on the bike for about 2 hours. I go for a sustained ride more then sudden bursts of speed). I've lowered my calorie intake and stopped eating chocolates and sweets, and do my best to stick to good food, fruits and vegetables, but I can't seem to budge the weight.

What I'll during the week (and times and workouts too)
breakfast 7:30am: 2 weetbix with milk
morning tea 10;30am a small container of fruit (mango, grapes, watermelon, rock melon, strawberry)
lunch, 2pm: Sometimes a sandwich (salami, aioli sauce, ham, cheese, onion), or a stir fry (beef and veggies), or a soup (with noodles and chicken, and other veggies)
dinner, around 8:30-9PM: monday/tuesdays is pork/beef with vegetables, Wednesdays would be my bad day and will include some Italian pasta (like spaghetti bolognaise) with two slices of home made garlic bread, thursday I have two sausages with a few potatoes ( baked with garlic), Friday has been baked fish with salad. Saturday I tend to have a homemade burger (with chips you can get at the frozen aisle in the supermarket), and Sunday it's just chicken, wedges and some cucumber/tomato/cheese.

A few things I will mention here, is that on weekends or days of work I love to have sushi. I love the heck out of sushi. and when I get it I usually have 8 octopus dumplings (takoyaki, they're little tiny balls), and about 12 pieces of the actual sushi with half of it being the salmon + rice combo and the other some sort of mix. I don't know much about the portion size because everyone says sushi is good for you, but then the rice may be throwing me off, I dunno. I also have a glass of milk before I go to bed.

One last thing to note is that I have trouble maintaining my iron levels, and I need to include more iron in my diet but I'm struggling to do so.

Should I be trying to exercise more and not worry about what I eat? Should I be eating more since my body might be going into starvation mode? is the food choices I'm making putting all my efforts to waste? I'm fully prepared to work out for hours, but I want to know what I should be doing food wise to help lose weight and give me the energy and iron I need.
 
Do you know what your average calorie intake is ? and what is your mix of protein/carbs/fat ? what sort of heart rate are you maintaining when your on the bike ? is your karate training mostly kata's or is it mostly randori/sparing ?
 
Welcome!

My experience of weight loss has been that it's more about the food than it is about the exercise. Exercise definitely helps and is good for you, but it won't budge the weight the same way that food changes will.

What I'd suggest you do (even if you don't want to calorie count) is to work out your calorie/ kilojoule requirements (do a Google search for a BMR calculator- that should give you a reasonable guide), then keep a diary for a week or two and write down how much you eat and what portion sizes you have. (When I did this, I was surprised at high calorie some of my food was, and how much I was eating) From there, you can work out how much you want to cut to lose weight (as a very rough guide, you want to lose no more than a kilogram a week, and you shouldn't eat under 1200 calories unless you have medical guidance. 1200 calories is 5020 kilojoules) Also keep in mind that most estimates of "how many calories/ kilojoules do you burn while exercising", particularly the ones on exercise machines, tend to be optimistic, so you may not want to rely on them so much in determining how much you can eat.

Best of luck to you!
 
Thank you for posting in my thread everyone! :)

Here is a rough estimate of the calorie intake I got today, as this is the general formula I follow for weekdays (using calorie king to calculate this)

breakfast: 2 weetbix bars (with low fat milk)
Calories 117 ( Kilojoules 492 )
Total Fat 0.5 g 1%
Saturated Fat 0.1 g 0%
Carbohydrate 22.1 g 7%
Sugars 1.1 g

morning tea: small container of salad (Would be a reasonable estimate? I generaly have a few pieces of rock melon, watermelon, mango and strawberries in my salad
Calories 60 ( Kilojoules 250 )
Total Fat 0 g 0%
Saturated Fat 0 g 0%
Trans Fatty Acids 0 g
Carbohydrate 14 g 5%
Sugars -

Peppermint tea (with no sugar. Just the tea bag)

lunch: stir fry (using lamb and a sprinkling of dry noodles) (The
Calories 136 ( Kilojoules 570 )

% Daily
Value*
Total Fat 5.5 g 8%
Saturated Fat 2 g 10%
Carbohydrate 0 g 0%
Sugars 0 g

(this reading doesn't count the dry noodles, but it would of been a hands worth just to top it)

dinner: corn beef with vegetables
the beef (url=http://www.calorieking.com.au/foods/calories-in-beef-cuts-silverside-corned-lean-boiled_f-Y2lkPTQ4MTk0JmJpZD0xJmZpZD04MDUmZWlkPTE3NDQyOTg2MCZwb3M9MSZwYXI9JmtleT1jb3JuIGJlZWY.html]Calorie thingy[/url]
Calories 130 ( Kilojoules 543 )

% Daily
Value*
Total Fat 3.5 g 5%
Saturated Fat 1.5 g 8%
Sodium 1420 mg 59%
Carbohydrate 0 g 0%
Sugars 0 g


Calories 24 ( Kilojoules 101 )


Calories 223 ( Kilojoules 930 )

% Daily
Value*
Total Fat 11.6 g 18%
Saturated Fat 7.4 g 37%
Sodium 99 mg 4%
Carbohydrate 22.9 g 8%
Sugars 2.9 g

And thats pretty much it for todasy. The only other thing I'll have is a glass of milk. Now this is a good day mind you, other days I do eat a bit more. As for the other questions.

On the bike when I looked at the reading, it showed me about 70-80, sometimes 90. My karate is a mix of kata and sparring, and we alternate every night. Sometimes it's just practising our moves, and other times it's a full on fitness night. The last one I did had me doing 45 laps across 20 metres, 30 push-ups, 40 sit ups, 5 of running on two steps. The first hour I think was practising our basics (punches, blocks, kicks, kata).
 
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