Hello all I am new to this sight and I have been dieting and strength training since Feburary of this year I was at 215 lbs at 5'4 male. Since then I have lost 47 lbs to drop to 167 my healthy weight is 130. I can not do cardio because I broke my foot last year and when I did the bone cut a nerve in half and developed into RSD/CRPS. I was just wondering if there was any advice or should I just stick with the strenght training. As for the 47 lbs in 2 months I am not sure exactly how I did it. I don't starve myself I eat about 1300 calories aday. With about 1 hour of strength training where I do 4 sets of 4 this week to the point where the last one is barely made. Next week I will go back to 3 sets of 6 hopefully if I can get the new weight I am working out with up that high by then. Open to any advice I am doing this to lose weight and get stronger and to take my mind off the constant pain I am in. Thank you for taking it easy on me.
Couple of things...
1. Congrats on the huge loss!
2. I would have liked to have seen you lose it at a more reasonable rate. You lost as quickly as you did because you at a very low calorie diet relative to your size. Remember, calorie needs are dictated, in large part, by your size, among other things. Your maintenance, without knowing your activity levels, at 215 was likely close to 2700 calories. There are roughly 3500 calories in 1 lb of fat. You were eating 1300 calories per day, given you a daily deficit of 1400 calories and a weekly deficit of 9800 calories. That's an approximate rate of fat loss of nearly 3 lbs per week, which would account for 24 of your 47 lbs. Because your calories were set so low relative to your size... you likely lose muscle as well, which would account for some more of your weight loss. And then of course water loss makes up a significant portion. I only bring these things up to a) make you aware and b) make sure you're on a sustainable path and c) make sure that the path you're on, sustainable or not, is actually leading to your ultimate goal.
3. You don't need cardio for weight loss, obviously, as you've proven. You need an energy deficit. In theory, that deficit can come entirely from a reduction in calorie intake. Ideally it's a combo of exercise and diet though. I'd say there's nothing to worry about.
4. And cardio isn't all about running, elliptical, biking or whatever. If you're concerned about not getting the adaptations derived from cardio, you can still do some form of cardio such as high volume, low weight circuit resistance training.
Throwing a lot at you here, but wanted to start with this. If you have questions, please feel free to let them fire.
