Painfully Slow Weight Loss

R

rechromed2

New member
Hi all,

I recently had knee surgery(micro fracture) and started swimming to stay active while on crutches. This however turned into gym membership and pretty much what I consider a complete diet/lifestyle overhaul. I have never had a gym membership before in my life. By the time I was off crutches I hadn't lost a single pound from swimming for 2 months, half an hour a day 6days/week. My weight was 239lbs. I am a 33y/o male and 6'5". My goal is to get down to 215lbs. I suppose I really don't even care about the wieght number as much as the fat! Who knows, when I get there I might find out that I need to go more! As soon as I could walk again I started a daily routine of weights and cardio. I would do a half hour of cardio(eliptical, bike) 5 days a week keeping my heart rate between 130-150. I would also lift for approx 1 hr every 3rd day(back/bi's and chest/shoulders/tri's) I couldn't do legs due to my surgery. Just got the ok from the doc yesterday to start with the legs. Prior to working out my diet had zero accountability in it. Lots of fast food and what ever else I wanted. Surprised I am not 100lbs more!

My typical daily diet:

Wake up-
1 Slice- Whole wheat and Flax seed toast with Pnut butter
Protien shake.

Post Workout- Protien shake

Lunch-
1 can Tuna fish(chunk light) sandwhich on same bread or Subway roasted chicken breast sammy.
Apple or Bananna
String Cheese\
Can of pop- I know this is bad but its down from 3 or 4 cans a day!

Snack-
String Cheese and peice of fruit

Dinner-
Large Chicken Breast(most nights) or some other lean meat
Cup or two of steamed Broccoli

Now after another 2 months of my exercise I am only at 235lbs. My Body Fat went from 23% to 20% in that time based on the twin grip gizmo the trainers use at the gym. I know that this is the number that really counts but it seems frustrating not to see more noticable losses. This last week I have ramped up my cardio to an hr long session. I'll see how that goes. Am I being impatient? It seems like I am not doing something correctly. It just hit me that maybe I am not eating enough. With the diet above does that seem possible? I do not really ever feel hungry either based on the above diet. So any suggestions/ thoughts on what I may be doing wrong? Thanks for any thoughts in advance.
Mason
 
your nutrition isn't the worst i've ever seen but it's not great - you're not getting a lot of fiber and for your activity level, calories are a bit low

Why so focused on a number on the scale... I'll withhold the lecture about acting like a girl :) you've dropped 3 percent in body fat -that's far more important than a number on the scale - have you built muscle -probably not - not with the low number of calories you're eating.

I'd strongly suggest reading around the forum - start in On Topic -with the stickied threads there -and then nutrition and exercise -you'll be busy for a while but there's a lot of good info to get oyu started.
 
Mal-
Thanks for the reply. Yes I have indeed been reading around the rest of the site and lots more to do. The scale is not the end all be all for me. I was just under the impression that with my activity level I would see a bigger lose. I am a skier and I ski a lot, probably 50+ days/yr. My initial motivation was to get in to better physical shape so that my brain and not my physical shape( or lack there of) would tell me when I was about to do something dumb while skiing in the backcountry! The weight goal is just an arbitrary number for me that I picked out. I figured I would be stronger and in better condition if I got down to that number. In the end I don't really care what the number says if I have a physique that I am happy with, i.e. no spare tire and the tall lean look of my military days. But I can't imagine that physique being at my current weight. Here I was all proud of my eating lately compared to what was going into my piehole previously. Guess I need to re-evaluate that and go from there. Is 5 days of 1hr of cardio going to be too much? Should I be more at the 3 day level? So if I have gone down 3% body fat and its unlikely that I have gained muscle mass, where did the weight of that fat go? Thanks again, Ciao.
 
Proud of your eating is a good thing.

are you keeping track of your calories in any sort of program - like or the like.. and are you weighing out and measuring your portions... I have cooked since Jesus was a pup, and am quite good at it... I thought I knew portion sizes.. .Until i got a food scale, I was dramatically underestimating calories...

Trending over time is what you really want to look for with body fat monitors - the next one might have you at 21.25 percent or at 19 percent.. depending on water in your body..

The ever so brilliant steve should be waking up soon andwill be able to answer far smarter than me.. but I'd say 5 days of cardio is a lot -3 days is good and then add in strength training to hold on to the muscle you currently have..
 
I have not been keeping any long term log of my daily intake. I checked out Fitday and will create an account there. What I have been doing is starting out with my carbs an proteins at the top of a sheet of paper. 175grams Carbs an 215grams Protein. Everything that I was eating I would subtract from that total until I got down to zero an that would be my intake. This was the suggestion of the clerk where I buy my protein. Trouble is I have no clue on how to get all 215grams of protein in even with 3 shakes throughout the day. Carbs are the easy part ; ) The YouTube clip on measuring was pretty enlightening. He also plugged my activites into a caloric needs program and came up with 2850 calories for a weight loss amount with my activity level. That just seems like an ungodly amount of food! I definitely have some learning to do on eating because the more I learn the more I realize that is a hard number to achieve if its all good for you food!
 
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