I have a fitness/working out question
#157999 - 03/07/05 06:41 PM
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Ok.. I dunno if any of you are experts.. but I'm hoping someone has advice.
I'm 23 years old and need to lose about ten pounds.
Up until when I quit smoking last year I would generally weigh between 124-134.. generally for me between a size 2 or 4 at that weight. During this time I can honestly say that I have not been in a gym once in five years, and I was not overly active or anything like that. I also have never dieted. Anyways.. whenever I gained and went up in the 130's was usually in the winter and then i'd miraculously loose about 10 pounds every spring doing virtually nothing differently.
However.. since I quit smoking more than a year ago.. that stopped happening. I've gained ten pounds.. none of my clothes fit.. and I haven't miraculously lost any weight. boo.. I dunno if its even because of the quitting notion.. I'm just assuming cause thats all that changed.
Anyways.. so about two weeks ago I joined a gym and I have down about 4-5 40 plus minute cardio workouts and 2 one hour long strength training workouts both weeks and my clothes still fit the same... and I still weigh exactly the same. how long until I can see results. I haven't changed my diet drastically.. but at the same time I figured going from never working out in five years to working out would actually allow me to loose wieght without having to do a hardcore diet.
Does anyone have any suggestions for me.. I know you'll prob want to kill me but I never used to have to work at it.. and now that I have been I'm not seeing any results? Any suggestions?
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After about 2 weeks, I'm not surprised that you're not seeing results yet. Speaking from experience, losing weight takes a heck of a lot longer than gaining it. 
It works a little like this: A pound of weight gained/lost equals about 3500 calories. In order to lose 1 lb a week, you'd have to decrease your weekly calories by 3500 - or 500 a day.
You can do that by decreasing what you eat, or you can do it with exercise, or (ideally) a combination of the two. But you'd have to make sure to CONSISTENTLY burn 500 calories a day by exercising, every single day, to see a difference that way... and even then, that's one pound a week, which is the rate of weight loss recommended by doctors and such, but it's still "slow" weight loss if you're hopping on a scale and waiting to see a real difference.
I would suggest starting to count calories, honestly. I mean, I've seen your menus, and you don't make bad food choices or anything, so I'm guessing some of it might also be portion sizes. Or, as has been discussed here quite a bit recently, maybe you aren't getting ENOUGH calories, which would send your body into "famine" mode and make you not lose weight. There's a lot of variables. But mostly, it really just takes time, so hang in there and try to be as consistent with the exercise as you can. 
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Hi Ashley
Smoking can sure be an effective weight loss too eh? lol... not a HEALTHY one though, so glad to hear you've quit! good for you!
Anyway, if you've only started exercising two weeks ago I'd say give it time. There are milllions of reasons why you might not be seeing loss right away - genetics, stress, water retention etc. So yeah, just hang in there, you should see results soon.
However, your exercise program is extreme! 40 mins cardio 4-5x per week plus 2 1hr strength training sessions?!  that's lots girl. In fact, that might be too much. You need to ease into exercise - going from couch to this, well your body probably doesn't like that too much, and that might be why you're not seeing any losses. You're body might very well be freaking out over all this new stress (thinking its under attack), and without increased calories to help it out, it might be gathering up fat to help restore damaged tissue from exercise - this is what exercise does, it damages muscle fibers ever so gently then causes your body to work to build them back up, creating muscle. (Thus you actually gain muscle not at the gym but while you're resting.) However if you don't give your body adequate time to rest, it doesn't have this time to create muscle and (importantly) to repair the damaged fibers. This is called overtraining.
Now if you want to just lose weight you do that by cutting calories in your diet and/or by 'killing' them with exercise. However, if you do this too much too quickly (either cutting calories in diet or exercising insensely), like I said your body will want to start storing up sugars, which will turn to fat, to help it handle the attack and repair those muscle fibers.
My advice would be SLOW DOWN and gradually work up to this much exercise if you want to over 4-6 weeks. 3x/week at 30 mins of cardio is probably more than enough, especially if you're doing any strength training. You could stick to 2x/week (30-60 mins would be sufficient, depending on how intense you go with your weight training. Be very careful if you're lifting heavy and just starting out - this is the easiest time to injure yourself!)
Make sure you're drinking lots of water too, both at the gym and all other time as well! Good luck!
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Thanks for the Info..
I didn't think that my workouts were too intense..because I am taking a lot of classes, like hip hop aerobics, step aerobics, zumba, I only do straight up eliptical for 40 mins about twice a week. but if you think that this is too much maybe I should try to cut down a little.
As for weight training.. I take weight training classes at the gym which are one hour long and constant reps, but the most I lift is five pounds at once. so its not heavy hardcore lifting. I dont' want to bulk up, i'd rather slim down.
Anyways.. I hated working out.. and since going to the gym recently I'm loving it and I look forward to the classes, and my body doesn't hurt or feel too tired.. but maybe I will try to cut it down if you think it will help.
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casey
#158046 - 03/07/05 09:19 PM
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I know.. I'm just thinking about when the weight would just slide off randomly.. and it sucks when that stops happening. 
I'm going to try to start counting calories. I honestly highly doubt i'm in famine mode, cause I do eat alot. I'm thinking portion size must be my problem and I'll try to keep an eye on that as well. 3500 calories is so easy to consume.. but so hard to burn off. I don't have time to burn 500 calories at the gym every night.. so i'm guessing i'm gonna have to be extra careful with calories.
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Hey Ashley
If you're doing pretty low intensity workouts I take back a little bit of what I said... like your weight training sounds like a really good level to start at, and if you're not doing insane sweat-till-you-drop aerobics every time, and you're not feeling overly tired, then I'm sure you're ok. Plus if you're enjoying it I wouldn't want to tell you to stop!!
Just watch for signs of overtraining - like increased tiredness, slower recovery time after exercise (you feel sorer longer than before), decreased appetite. Stuff like that.
I'd also chime in with Casey and recommend counting calories. It can sometimes be surprising how much or how little calories we get each day. Plus if you know how much you're eating and burning you can have a better idea of why you are/aren't losing weight.
FitDay.com is a free site that makes this really easy. LOL people are going to start thinking I'm the fitday nazi or something or that I work for them! Honestly I just love this site because you don't have to do any math! haha... I use it myself to count calories of food and exercise and it's really easy. You can also keep a journal. Ok enough with the plug... seriously, they're not paying me I swear! 
Good luck!
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Give it time!
#158124 - 03/08/05 05:53 AM
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Linz
Reged: 09/01/03
Posts: 8242
Loc: England
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I know with me there's a load of other issues, but losing weight gets harder as you get older!!! How middle-aged do I sound?  But it's true...I have a WAY harder time losing weight now than I did when I was 16, 17.
It could just be that that's changed...or a combination of that and no smoking (yay for you, btw! ).
I think that if you don't worry about watching calories too much and just avoid sweet treats, and carry on exercising like you are (and don't watch the scales too much), you'll start losing after a few weeks. It takes time. Boring! 
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awesome.. I'll check out fitday. I am currently doing recording workouts on self, but it doesn't do calories so I'll check the other one out.
Anyways, i'm not doing hardcore exercises, and the first time I did weightraining and step especially I really hurt, (muscle wise) but each time I take them now it hardly makes me sore (I dunno if this is a good thing though?!?!)
I do take 2 kinda insane sweat and constant jumping around for one hour classes, but the rest are more fun and low impact.
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thats what I'm hoping will happen. I don't want to become obsessed, beacuse i'm not overweight. Its just vanity weight that I'd like to lose because all of my old clothes don't fit. Myself, being a poor college student, can better afford 30 dollars a month for a gym more as opposed to an entire new warddrobe.
I just wanted to see how long it took people before they started seeing results.. but i'll wait it out. thanks for the motivation.
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Edited by spicey813 (03/08/05 06:58 AM)
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WELL, said Casey..... you have really shown your experience with this reply!! Thanks!!
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