@islandgirlkaren wrote:
Im just about ready to give up. Im in my 6th week of working out 6x/wk. 60 mins cardio weights 2x week. Eating at a 500-700 cal deficit. THe quality of the food isnt perfect, but by no means am i scarfing down fried food and sweets. no eating after 8pm, drinking 90 oz of water/day. I feel firmer, clothes fit a little better, but NO weight loss. Im just so discouraged. the first week i lost 2 lbs(water im sure), then it came right back the next week and has not budged since. How the heck am i supposed to lose weight? seriously. NO results. Just so upsetting. I know how hard i am working.
hmm. you've got several approaches you can take
One great thing to try would probably be to start measuring body fat % and inches instead of pounds, if you're close to a healthy weight this will be a much, much better way to measure progress. If your body is close to, or in, a healthy weight range you should consider switching your goal from lose weight to lose fat.
also, bodies don't lose weight or fat on a 7 day cycle. if you're only weighing yourself once a week same time same day...you may be missing the days where you're a little lighter and weighing on days when you're heavier. one horribly inconvenient way to stop this would be to weigh yourself daily and average it. it's much, much easier to see weight loss by average. it's really inconvenient though, and if you have issues with the scale determining self worth it may not be the best route for you.
also, since you're a lady, 6 weeks puts you smack in the middle of where you were in your cycle when you started. I can't tell you how many times I've freaked out about extra lbs because I'm only weighing in weekly and I hit that week before my period and I'm bigger, and heavier, and it's like all this work I'm doing hasn't changed anything. it's like I have to see it on a calendar to remember, oh, right, so that's what's going on. maybe that's part of what you're facing.
you can try eating a little more.
if that is 6X weekly high intensity cardio...that's pretty stressful on the body and that cardio activity will need to be fueled. maybe try a 250-500 deficit. slooooow loss is better than no loss. carbs tend to be better for high cardio amounts, bumping your amounts from small servings to medium may help. also timing them to be prior to your workout helps from storing any extra.
you can try eating differently:
look at your micronutrient intake. are you low on iron or calcium, or potassium, or even trace things like manganese? I've found that if these are consistently low I can have trouble losing weight. you'll need a pretty varied diet to get it all, though it looks like you've got a great balanced diet. so I'd just check the calcium, iron, potassium.
check your protein amounts, there are several schools of thought on how much
--the US RDA is set at a minimum 0.8g per 2.2lbs of bodyweight
--international society of sports nutrition is set at 1.2-2.0g per 2.2 lbs bodyweight
--American dietetics association is 1.2-1.7 per 2.2 lbs of bodyweight
don't get tripped up at the *2.2 lbs* I put that in as lbs because we see grams of protein but measure in pounds. the formulas are written by kg (which is 2.2 lbs). some folks mix up kg body weight and lbs and will recommend grams of protein by pounds that can be 2x as much as needed.
you can try exercising differently
sometimes too much activity has the opposite effect. more is not always better. and if you're sedentary all day and then hit a 60 min high intensity cardio session and then flop on the couch for the rest of the night you aren't getting near the benefit you would be with 3 20 min workouts a day. and sometimes the body can hit a rut and become used to a specific routine and just..become acclimated there. for this you can try flipping your intense cardio and moderate lifting. do light-moderate lifting 5-6x week with three high intensity cardio sessions per week.
or you could try keeping the deficit but stepping down the activity
it could be you just need to taper. if you were training for a race, to build endurance and stop from hitting an overtraining injury at about 6-8 weeks you'd hit a taper period where you back down on intensity and duration and give the body a chance to heal up any little things before they become big problems. it's also good to do this when you're hitting cardio pretty hard for weeks on end after months or years of not really doing as much. frankly, make sure you get good rest. and that can mean take 2 days off a week instead of 1. rest is 1/3 of what your body needs to improve its condition: diet, activity, rest. rest is when your body build the muscle you've used during exercise.
but whatever you do, do not, do not, do not give up. despite the scale not moving you are having results, your clothing is loose, you feel tighter, stronger...even if your loss takes some time to show on the scale...you are changing your body the way you want. your hard work IS paying off and quitting now wont give you the opportunity to see if your body was *this* close to getting where you wanted it to be. and for sure, quitting definitely wont get it there.
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