How do you lose the LAST FIVE lbs? It's rough!

[reasonle]

My weight loss journey began back when I was a junior in highschool (~8 years ago).  At that point I was 165 lbs and I always assumed I was "big boned" for a girl as well as being overweight.  I am about 5' 6" and I guess I just tried to make myself feel better by saying that I was big boned too.

Now that I have reached and lost more than my original goal weight (125), I have discovered my body can go a bit farther!  I have now realized that rather than having a large frame, I have a small one.  So now my goal weight seems to be a few pounds less than where I am now, about 5-7 lbs.

I know that my deficit needs to be small, and believe me, I am going slow!  I don't really track my calories anymore (although I used to religiously, scale and all), I just eat when I am hungry and try my best to eat whole foods amd protein at every meal, but of course I let myself splurge sometimes.

I run, walk, and do bodyweight exercises at home.  My current calorie goal with my fitbit is 2250 cals a day.  Normally I hit it, sometimes during the week I am just under, but on the weekends I am always over.

So my real question is, does anyone have any advice for loosing the last 5?  I am so used to eating just enough so that I am slightly hungry when I go to bed, but should this not be my goal anymore?  I think on most days I eat about 2000 cals.  I know this is an estimation but after YEARS of intense calorie counting and food weighing, I am pretty good at guessing what I am eating.

[bonesamon]

I think I weigh myself too often at once a day. Im starting to think maybe I should do every other or every third. I do it at the same time evry day, but the up 1/10, then down 2/10's is driving me crazy. Ihave lost 35 lbs. But it has taken me FOREVER. Over a year. I still have 15 to go before re-evaluating my body fat and measurements. I am recovering from open heart surgery and heart attack. And im well under 50. I have always been very very thin, until right before (year or two), and when I quit smoking after surgery, I gained weight, like 25 lbs. Anyway. I want to ask if people found the ARIA scale helpful, or more of a luxury/toy gadget. Its kind of expensive, and I have tons of toys. But if it will help me in my journey, I will get one right away. Thanks.

[missmia]

Hello,

 I think you have a good question. It may help others with the same thoughts. I don't use the aria but just wanted to let you know we're here for you. Keep up the good work. 

I weigh myself everyday and it is quite annoying seeing the weight go up and down. I used to weigh myself every other week until I got advise off of another weight loss site that said to do it every day, so I do, and I think it does help me stay on top of what and how much I am eating more than when I weighed in every other week.

Look me up so we can be friends.

[I-train-hard]

Bonesamon – ask your doctor what would be “safe” heartbeat rate for you. You will get the idea.

Your hart will get stronger; the hart rate would go up. Give it or take few months.

My father had double bypasses. I might know what you went through.

I weight myself once a week, usually on Sunday in the morning, after I wake up. Doing it more than once a week gives you more disappointment than good.

[bonesamon]

Thank  you!

[bonesamon]

I would like to hear if more people found that walking briskly, running, arobic type excercise(t.v, dvd type), or weights, etc. has been the most effective at weight loss. Combined with diet of coarse. I understand that not everyone can do each of the above, due to various limitations, but if these limitations were not a factor is there one superior excercise at burning calories, thus losing weight. Thanks

[Heybales]

I would like to hear if more people found that walking briskly, running, aerobic type excercise(t.v, dvd type), or weights, etc. has been the most effective at weight loss. Combined with diet of coarse. I understand that not everyone can do each of the above, due to various limitations, but if these limitations were not a factor is there one superior excercise at burning calories, thus losing weight. Thanks

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Well, you almost got it when you said combined with diet. But then you muddied the waters again with confusion.

Diet is for weight loss - done right can be fat loss only, done wrong will include muscle mass loss. Exercise is for body transformation and heart health - done right can encourage just fat loss, done wrong helps muscle loss.

Only thing exercise helps with for diet is the fact that when done you usually will burn more in the day - therefore eating less than that higher number compared to no exercise may help you adhere to the diet.

Because would you rather eat 2000 and burn 2500 with exercise that shapes the body?

Or eat 1500 and burn 2000 without exercise and merely end up a smaller version of current self - flab and all, just less of it?

Strength training will shape the body more than cardio.

Diet will expose that shape by causing fat loss. If there is nothing good to expose .. You usually end up the skinny fat people discover - goal weight reached that is healthy, but higher % of fat than healthy or desired or average - and it shows.

But strength training doesn't burn as much for equal time (though it burns more during repair needed), so maybe you only get to eat 1750 instead of 2000 because you only burned 2250 with exercise.

But if you can adhere to that - you'll see same loss, but better shape underneath.

Or even better, only burn the 2250, but still eat 2000 and adhere to it successfully - and body will transform more from better workouts.

Many will try to combine cardio and weights incorrectly, and the cardio will ruin the ability to get good strength training workout - therefore you don't get the results you could with a singular focus.

(edited for formatting - those email replies sure get hosed up)

[Dominique]

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@Heybales wrote:
Many will try to combine cardio and weights incorrectly, and the cardio will ruin the ability to get good strength training workout - therefore you don't get the results you could with a singular focus.

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@Heybales (good to see you’re still hanging out here!): what would be an incorrect combination of cardio and lifting whereby cardio would ruin your lifting? Is it based on the assumption you have limited time available (eg. one hour for both at the gym)?

[Dominique]

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@bonesamon wrote:

I would like to hear if more people found that walking briskly, running, arobic type excercise(t.v, dvd type), or weights, etc. has been the most effective at weight loss. Combined with diet of coarse. I understand that not everyone can do each of the above, due to various limitations, but if these limitations were not a factor is there one superior excercise at burning calories, thus losing weight. Thanks

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The best form of exercise is the one you actually enjoy doing, because let’s face it, if there were one type of exercise clearly "superior at burning calories", but that you completely loathed, what are the chances you’d keep doing it over a longer period of time? 

[Heybales]

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@Dominique wrote:

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@Heybales wrote:
Many will try to combine cardio and weights incorrectly, and the cardio will ruin the ability to get good strength training workout - therefore you don't get the results you could with a singular focus.

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@Heybales (good to see you’re still hanging out here!): what would be an incorrect combination of cardio and lifting whereby cardio would ruin your lifting? Is it based on the assumption you have limited time available (eg. one hour for both at the gym)?

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Great ways for cardio to ruin lifting. This keeping in mind the only way lifting causes improvements is if it overloads the muscle by weight. If by tiredness then not same effect.

If you do intense cardio right before, or intense enough the day before, using same muscles you intend to lift with, you'll likely not overload by weight because muscles are already tired. So you might say artificially limiting yourself by having wornout muscles already.

If you do intense cardio day after lifting using same muscles, you are killing the repair to some degree within the needed 24-36 hrs, so recovery results from that workout won't be as great.

Then if you do the same muscles again next day - you get in to whole cycle of just stress but little to no desired recovery for the muscles.

Eating at maintenance you should be able to shorten recovery and could likely get by with more than you can during a diet. Eating at surplus even better.

But even then, at some point, body can only repair so much in so short a time.

And the problem is the feeling during the workout is the same - I'm pushing as hard as I can.

But until you drop off what could be causing a problem and compare - most would never realize what they are doing to themselves, and could actually push more weight.

This can be demonstrated by taking a lift that is normally later in your routine, and moving it first. Usually the weight will feel a lot easier. Even if it's placement at the end didn't cause the same muscles to be used a lot already. Just plain old general tiredness because of the lifts preceeding it. Or even better, move what is normally first to the last, especially if squats or deads, or bench maybe.

Recent examples has been the fad of HIIT on any activity, so you do lifting days alternating with HIIT days using same muscles.

Considering true HIIT (cardio intervels compared to cardio long steady-state) is as close to lifting as you can get doing cardio - it takes same 24-36 hrs recovery.

So people hear that HIIT burns more fat because of recovery time (exactly same reason lifting does too) compared to straight cardio, so they attempt to combine it not so great.

Best routine I've seen for people that just love the intervals - right after lifting with those muscles. Knock yourself out - then the next day repair from all of it.

Or do split routine and do upper body then.

I've even done split lifting routine - and then done a circuit training session afterwards. It's a killer, uses slightly different muscle fibers, but the next day is now repair for all of them.

[Dominique]

Belated thanks for your reply, @Heybales! I think I’m less at risk of having cardio and resistance training interfer with each others, as I don’t have to fit them in the same time slot: I’m self-employed, I work from home and I have a lot of time on my hands. All my cardio is performed outside and involves mostly my lower body (walk, run) and my resistance training tends to focus on upper body

[serpico67]

ok i have never done a diet as such, just run hard and eaten fairly sensibly but i do eat cake and chocolate from time to time.If you are serious about losing weight, try eating what you  want ( balanced ) but stop eating anything at 7pm at night. If you can also try soup or a liquid meal at lunch, like a milk shake - i also eat tinned fish to get the protein i need somewhere in between. try it. best of luck 

[Dominique]

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@serpico67 wrote:

If you are serious about losing weight, try eating what you  want ( balanced ) but stop eating anything at 7pm at night. 

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Why should you stop eating at 7pm? Whether or not you can eat after 7pm (or 6pm, or 8pm, whatever) depends on how much you have eaten before that, compared to what you have expended. The food you eat after a certain time in the evening doesn’t become more fattening just because it’s being eaten later in the day. 

[workoutwoman]

I found that diet is the most important ingredient in losing weight.  I am 68 & have worked out hard most of my life but never really got the results I was looking for.  At this point in time I am looking to drop some fat, keep my muscle & develop a long, lean look.  Not looking for six-pack abs but want to get some fat off that area & tighten my entire body.  I am eight months into shoulder replacement recovery; so I couldn't workout for quite some time before & after surgery.

[missmia]

 I agree with you about diet. What we put in our bodies is way more important than exercise. Food is fuel, energy and medicine. Say we never exercised again in our life. If we ate clean, we wouldn't gain weight.

[Heybales]

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@missmia wrote:

 I agree with you about diet. What we put in our bodies is way more important than exercise. Food is fuel, energy and medicine. Say we never exercised again in our life. If we ate clean, we wouldn't gain weight.

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Well, lets be realistic here too.

If you ate "clean" - whatever that undefined word means to anyone - if you ate more than you burned - you would gain fat.

Your body doesn't magically say - "oh, this excess calories is clean food, I won't store this as fat I'll do ....... with it"

If you never exercised again - your daily life will eventually become the workout for you.

I've seen thin "healthy" eaters get up stairs wheezing just like an overweight out-of-shape person would.

[TammYoga]

Have you thought about seeking help from a dietitian? I am a personal trainer and yoga instructor and have personally been working with a professional dietitian to look at my diet and guide me with questions about my food and exercise: calories, what foods best to eat when, etc. I feel sometimes when trying to be healthy we can pick up ideas from the media and friends that we try to implement into our own lives with the intent to be healthier. Then, if we do this with too many things, we put limitations on ourselves and our bodies making it harder to reach our goals while maintaining our health. Sometimes those limitations are our thoughts and beliefs about what is healthy. A professional can help you look at what you are doing from a fresh perspective.

[SolangeE]

@SunsetRunner, hahahaha that is so true! the easiest but not very healthy way. 

thanks for all the advices everyone! I have been fighting for months to loose 10 pounds. Hopefully this fight will be over soon! 

[TammYoga]

Think about all the resistance you are feeling while trying to lose. Notice your body tensing up and try to relax and not be so rigid and hard on yourself. We can stop the weight loss by feeling negative and not appreciating our body the way it is today, perfect!

[SolangeE]

That is so true! @TammYoga I think that is my current problem, I used to not worry so much when eating bread from time to time but now I feel so guilty! I will try to relax and enjoy myself as I am right now, of course eating healthy and exercising but with a positive and gratitude attitude! Thanks for the reminder. 😉

[TammYoga]

It is a journey. I have to remind myself the same thing. ❤️