Workout 7 Days a Week and Can't Stop Gaining!

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KateEQ

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I need some advice, so if anyone has any thoughts on my problem, please please let me know. I am a 23 year old female, and I have been working out since I was 16. I have become more serious in the past 4 years, and have worked out with a trainer and at one point was training for a competition within the past 2 years. I workout everyday, usually doing an hour of cardio in the morning, then lifting weights (5 days a week), and I have started doing another 45 min of spinning in the evenings 5 days a week. I am careful with my diet, and am eating 1200 calories a day, mostly protein, then carbs and a small amount of fat. I take a fat burner with my morning cardio, and CLA, plus vitamins. I would say I have being on this regime for about 2 years (on and off) but my boyfriend who I live with is a personal trainer, so I never get far off track. I currently weigh about 135, and I am 5'4. I keep gaining weight, and haven't actually lost any since last spring, when I lost about 5 lbs and then got ingured and gained it all back. Before meeting my boyfriend I was borderline anorexic, and my lowest weight was about 4-5 years ago at 110. I used to be on stimulants, which kept my weight down, and I am now off. I do so much exercise and keep gaining - I dont fit into most of my clothes, and I look at all my friends who dont train, and whether they are skinny or not, they don't keep gaining weight. I don't know what to do, but am wondering if I have a medical problem. Does this trigger any ideas for anyone? I dont like talking to my b/f about it, because I feel as though he thinks I am blaming him. It might be muscle I am gaining, but I dont go all out on the weights. Besides friends of mine that compete gain muscle, but lose size. Please help!
 
is it that you have muscle?? have you talked to your doc, how do you feel otherwise- tired etc. have you had your tyroid checked, estrogen and testosterone levels checked. ??? need more info if you pm me and we can talk
 
What foods are you currently eating? This is very very important and it is your road block.

Please post back your diet and I will be glad to advise you on more weight loss effective foods.

Peace - Elijah
 
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Diet

This is my current fitness/ diet plan:

Morning cardio: 1 hr, 500+ calories
Breakfast: 200 ml egg whites, 1/4 oatmeal
Meal 2: 3-4 oz chicken breast; steamed veggies; 20 grams carbs (either yams, oatmeal or brown rice)
Meal 3: (same as above)
Evening cardio: 45 minutes spinning, 500+ calories
Post Cardio Shake (water with 1 scoop protein);
Evening snack: nuts, salad, apple, protein shake etc

I drink a lot of water and generally weight train in the morning or evening before or after cardio.

Thanks for offering the help - I am finding myself losing motivation, and wondering what I am doing to make my body gain so much size.
 
If your only getting 1200cals that would be your problem with all that excercise, bump it up to 1500 for a few weeks. I would eat more and drop the cardio to once a day. You should also take one day of complete rest to rest your CNS.
 
Thanks for the advice.
I thought the idea was to burn more than you take in, so the less you eat and the more cardio, the better (within reason of course). I know about severely restricted caloric intakes promoting fat storage, but it's hard for me to believe that when I used to eat less than 500 cals a day and was very small. Wouldn't it be more beneficial to burn an extra 500 calories per day?
 
hypothyroidism kateEQ get tested, plz. we have talked about this and i really strongly suggest that you do this. its your #1 priority right now.
 
KateEQ said:
Thanks for the advice.
I thought the idea was to burn more than you take in, so the less you eat and the more cardio, the better (within reason of course).
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Yes, and you've gone far, FAR FAR FAR away from reason. You're living at slowed down metabolism b/c of the squarrel-like diet you're on and b/c of the volume of exercise you do. Bump up your caloric intake atleast to 1500 kcal, restrict your aerobic work to no more than five times a week and weight lifting to no more than three times a week. Try this for a few weeks and see what happens. You'll experience some further weight gain at start, but after that it'll stop and most likely your weight will start going down again.
 
mmm mir i think seriously its a tyroid problem as well. she needs to get tested seriously. that should help loads too.
 
There could be a thyroid problem, but she could just be under eating which will trigger the body into starvation mode which will lead to fat storage and weight gain.

I still think she needs a check up and a full blood work up with a doctor.
 
Its ironic the more cardio you do the more the body gets effieint at it and you burn less calories.

Looking at your routine your losing a lOT of muscle which will only slow your metabolism ever more. Weight training if very important.
 
Hmm Newf - Good to know. I was planning on cutting out the weight lifting altogther because I think a lot of what I have is muscle. I started doing load bearing cardio instead of weights. I may have been lifting too heavy. I am very strong so I usually do as much resistance as I can for 12-15 reps, but maybe I should stick to low or no weight and increase the reps.
 
I have another idea, get your bodyfat checked maybe your too obessed with the weight scale, body composition is by far a more accurate measurment of how fit someone is.
 
jenn said:
mmm mir i think seriously its a tyroid problem as well. she needs to get tested seriously. that should help loads too.
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It might be, but what I'm seeing is a totally healthily functioning starvation-mode. It is normal and healthy for the thyroid to lessen the output of the metabolic hormones when too much stress is put upon the body and not enough energy is given, to go into a starvation mode and not let anything bad to happen.

But this is my view, and you're right in that a doctor is the most qualified person to diagnose her situation and that she should see one.
 
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:) mir there is back ground not posted here that leads me to believe from a pathophysiology point of view that there is some warrent for thyroid testing if we can get this woman to go. and she defin needs to work on her diet too for sure. i was not discounting that, i hope you didn't think i was. i was just adding to your thoughts:)
 
Thanks for the ideas. I know I need to get tested for hypothyroidism - it's just a matter of actually doing it. I've also been advised before to eat more, so maybe I'll actually listen this time! Thanks again.
 
I would say you've damaged your metabolism. You have clearly been pushing your body really hard to lose weight for a long while; exercise, dieting, eating disorders, whatever it has been.
The same thing happened to me, I wasn't constantly gaining,but I was doing so much that i should have been losing. Then i got ill, and exercised less but ate more. I didn't gain much weight, maybe a few pounds. Now that i've gone onto the raw food diet (which I had been on before but hadn't lost weight) and have been running again, i've been losing weight very quickly.
 
i'm in the exact same situation

I'm 20, I've been exercising since I was about 14, maybe 13. I work out every day as well (3 hours of intense cardio, one hour of strength training) and I too keep on gaining weight. In addition to that, I noticed my muscles actually LOSING a lot of firmness and tone.

I suspect it's because your body "adjusts" to your workout routine after a while, and no matter how much you increase time and/or intensity, it stops producing results. Which is what happened to me. I never realized keeping weight off could be so complicated for people who exercise regularly. A couple of months ago, I incorporated jumping rope into my daily workout, and that did WONDERS for my body... I started out doing 30 minutesE of that. By the second month I had to increase it to an hour, by the third month an hour and a half, and after that it just stopped being nearly as effective.
....i'm gaining weight and losing muscle tone again. UNBELIEVABLE.

Anyway, I think the solution is CHANGE. If you find new cardio exercises and switch it up whenever you begin to gain weight again, you'll be able to keep the weight off. The problem with that is that my body "adjusts" far faster than I can adjust my workout routine.
 
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I think that you're right, I probably have damaged my metabolism. One thing I am wondering about is if there is a negative side to exercise that is not talked about. That sounds weird, but what are the downfalls of ceasing to exercise. If your body is used to buring an extra 500-1000 calories through exercise everyday, what happens when you stop exercising, and keep eating the same amount? Not that I plan to stop exercising, but I have been through times when I do 2 hrs of cardio per day, and then due to work/ school I can no longer go twice a day. Also, like the last reply posted: how true is it that your body adjusts? 3hrs a day of cardio seems like overkill. Maybe the intensity, not the time needs to be revved up. I have trouble getting up to an intensity that I actually sweat. Sometimes I won't even break a sweat, whether I be running, on the elliptical, stairs or whatever. If I do an hour of that a day, is it possible that it is a complete waste of time because it is not intense enough?
 
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