Not seeing the weight loss I'd like

roakes

roakes

roakes

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Hey all,

At the beginning of April after following some great guides on here and changing my diet substantially (I was eating at a great calorie deficiency) I calculated my requirements and sorted out my daily macros as below:

Height: 6' 3"
Build: Broad
Weight: 210 lbs
Body Fat: 24%
LBM: 160 lbs
BMR: 1,921
Activity Level: 1.3
Calorie Requirement: 2,498
Calorie Target: 1,998


Non-Gym Day (Mon and Fri)

Calories: 1710
Protein: 152g
Carbs: 142g
Fat: 59g

Gym Days (Tue, Wed, Thu)

Calories: 1984
Protein: 171g
Carbs: 186g
Fat: 53g

(Weekends I don't follow any kind of plan aside from "try to eat healthy", but I do go out drinking one night on the weekend so I know thats a tonne of empty calories)

On the Tuesday and Thursday I do around an hour of cardio (4 machines at 15 mins each) and do 3 weights machines between each cardio one. On the Wednesday I just do the cardio. According to the machines I'm burning around 500 calories during cardio.

I'd like to have been losing a pound a week but it just isn't happening, I still seem to be fluctuating around the 15 stone mark. I can only imagine I have put on some muscle mass from the weights which may account for this but if my scales are to be trusted I've not lost much in the way of body fat percentage.

Maybe I need to find a different way to measure my progress than just weight and body fat percentage via my scales but at the moment it's a little disheartening seeing no real weight loss in almost 4 months. I weigh myself at the same time every Friday morning before eating or drinking anything and preferably after a BM.

Could do with some sage advice :)

Thanks

Russ
 
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Keep at it I'd say. I would have thought you'd lose weight on less than 2000 calories a day. I'm the same height as you, currently 15 lbs heavier and I'm losing weight at 2800 cals per day with no cardio!
 
Probably consuming a lot more calories than you realise on your drinking day. I know some people will kick off at me saying this but you could try giving IF a go. I only say because it is very easy and I have had some good results from it and I know other who have as well. I lost about 5-6kg in around 3 months without a big calorie deficit.
 
Intermittent Fasting, check leangains.com for a good starting point but there are quite a few variations.

As for why you're not losing weight, it might be the drink night, a pint is roughly 200 calories so if you are drinking a lot then it won't help. It might also be useful to split your cardio/weights and focus 2-3 days just on weights, maybe try the 5x5 stronglifts program and then do cardio on 2-3 of the other days.

If you can cut down more on food without feeling too hungry then that might be worth a go but I managed to eat sensibly and drop from 93kg to 74kg just through regular exercise (5-6 times a week for 1 hour) and you want to make sustainable choices if you can so your rebound risk is reduced.

Might also be worth digging out some photos and see if you look different, scales are only one measure and not always a great one since muscle weighs more than fat by volume so you may have bulked out but lost body fat.

One last thing to try is interval training, personally I hate it but it does seem to give good results. Maybe do it for 10 minutes (in two 5 minute blocks) during your cardio days
 
I doubt very much I'm going to change my weekend habits at the moment but I think maybe hitting the gym a little more may help in that case, I seem to be maintaining with my current food/exercise regiment so adding more exercise should help reduce things, splitting the cardio and weights shouldn't be a problem.

I'll get myself a tape measure too and keep an eye on my body measurements rather than just overall weight.

I do interval training on the treadmill already but I'll try to work it into the other cardio workouts.
 
roakes said:
I doubt very much I'm going to change my weekend habits at the moment but I think maybe hitting the gym a little more may help in that case, I seem to be maintaining with my current food/exercise regiment so adding more exercise should help reduce things, splitting the cardio and weights shouldn't be a problem.

I'll get myself a tape measure too and keep an eye on my body measurements rather than just overall weight.

I do interval training on the treadmill already but I'll try to work it into the other cardio workouts.
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To be blunt: wrong attitude.

If you want to lose weight, then I suspect you know what the answers are. I have a colleague at work who wants to get more 'toned' (:rolleyes:... even though she's a lovely girl) but doesn't work hard at the gym and goes big each weekend. Big surprise, she's not noticing any difference in anything.

If you - for some reason - can't do without the booze, then swap to spirits for less calories. Straight. However, if you can't have a good time without the alcohol, may I jokingly suggest you actually have a slightly more significant dependency problem. ;)

Cut the booze, up the workrate at whatever exercise you do (i.e. harder, not necessarily longer), chuck in some weights, and you'll be sorted.
 
rather than jumping from machine to machine doing cardio pick 2 per session and do a solid 30 mins as a warm up and then 30 at the end. as for your weights what are you actually doing ?

and yeah kick the beer, besides the fact its empty calories it also buggers up your body chemistry which will have an impact on your training and recovery as well.
 
For the record, I do drink spirits primarily although not straight.

As for the weights I use the weight "machines" as such rather than free weights, truth be told I can't remember the specifics of what they work individually but it's a mix of all groups.
 
roakes said:
I doubt very much I'm going to change my weekend habits at the moment but I think maybe hitting the gym a little more may help in that case, I seem to be maintaining with my current food/exercise regiment so adding more exercise should help reduce things, splitting the cardio and weights shouldn't be a problem.

I'll get myself a tape measure too and keep an eye on my body measurements rather than just overall weight.

I do interval training on the treadmill already but I'll try to work it into the other cardio workouts.
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just to put it in to numbers for you, your weekend is 28.57% of your week.

If your strict about your diet 70% of the time but not 30% of the time you can easily undo the hard work you are putting in on your 5 days a week!

I used to be like you with the weekends, no real structure, a lot more relaxed about what i ate but still tried to keep it healthy (but lets be honest its never really as healthy as it could be. )
I changed my habbits of being a bit more relaxed at weekends and really started to see results.
I have been steadily losing 2lb a week for the last 10 weeks and i started at 179lb and now down to 157.5lb
I eat on non training days around 1950 cals and on training days throw in an extra 250 cals is for my PWO shake.

I have been pretty strict with the diet but i have supplemented some days with meals out, but sticking to the healthier options and i have still kept up the weight loss.

You will be seriously suprised how much of a difference your weekend slackness in the diet department is having.
Unlike you i never drank at weekends, but i was still seeing my weekend eating was cutting in to the good work i put in during the week.
 
Free weights are actually much better as they force your whole body to work, check out stronglifts or starting strength for examples of good beginner plans based around free weights. They'll both give you more useful strength since anything you pick up in the real world doesn't generally have a pulley attached to it :)
 
Just to point out, your calculated requirements for maintaining would be closer to 2900 meaning you should easily be able to lose weight on 2400 cals. Also, do 30 mins of free weights at the start of every session so that you use up your glycogen stores before starting the cardio. Also, with a heavier focus on muscle building/weight training = more muscle = more fat burned.
 
roakes said:
Ok thanks for all this, I'll take it on board and try to make some positive changes.
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Don't take it as criticism, I made plenty of mistakes along the way, better to learn some of them from other people, there'll still be plenty left for you :D

For what it's worth I feel healthier, happier and just generally "better" for losing weight and getting fitter. Ran a half marathon last month and enjoyed it which 12 months ago wasn't something I would ever have imagined.

Stick at it, take photos for motivation (and smugness as you make progress) and maybe join something like fitocracy if you want like-minded people and a way to track activity.

Good saying that always makes me smile - no matter how slow you might be going, you're still lapping everyone on the couch :)
 
The weekends being the main issue with the diet I suspect? I have everything very regimented and calculated in the week, unless you think I need to reduce something?
 
roakes said:
The weekends being the main issue with the diet I suspect? I have everything very regimented and calculated in the week, unless you think I need to reduce something?
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as i said, your story seems pretty similar to mine. everything looks good 5 days a week but your weekends are probably undoing all the hard work with the diet. I really saw a big difference when i fixed my weekends

let be realistic and say your required calories to maintain are 2400 per day,
over 7 days thats 16800.

your self laid out target calories to cut are 2000 per day or 14000 over 7 days.

you stick to diet for 5 days thats 10000 cals consumed. You are lazy on your diet on saturday and you eat 2800 (very easily done, one pizza is 2k+ cals on its own, one kebab + chips is 1.5k+ cals etc), then you go out and drink another 1000 cals (240 cals per 550ml can, 25ml vodka is 55cal + any soft drink with that being around another 50cal per mearuse and x that by 6 or 7 its all adding up..) so already not including how you eat on the sunday and not factoring in if you have already had a drink on the friday night your just below your weekly cals intake.

so far by saturday your looking something like this
5 days =10000 cals
Saturday = 3500-4500 cals
sunday = 2500 cals (no drink and being back to a little healthier)
weekly total when slacking at weekends = 16500 = maintenance

i am also being fairly reserved with weekend totals as i know that for many people drinks at the weekend can mean silly numbers like 15 cans of larger and 5+ double measure shorts with soft drink etc, on top of take away friday/sat/sun

Until i wrote down what i was doing i didnt think i was being that bad at weekends but when you see the numbers it actually makes sense that 2 days of not so good can easily counter 5 days of super strict ;)
 
Well my weekends certainly aren't THAT bad but could be improved! For clarity...

Friday - Never go out, never drink, never have takeaway.

Saturday - Eat healthy in the day but not regimented as the week so have cereals, peanut butter on whole wheat for breakfast and then usually just a chicken sandwich or salad for lunch and another before going out. I drink usually 2-3 pints then switch to spirits and mixer. No kebabs etc. after.

Sunday - Hangover day which usually consists of toast for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch then takeaway on the evening.

I think my main gains are going to come from spending more time at the gym rather than the 3 days I am at the moment and changing what I do while I'm there.
 
roakes said:
I think my main gains are going to come from spending more time at the gym rather than the 3 days I am at the moment and changing what I do while I'm there.
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The main gains are going to be seen from fixing your weekends. My weekends were even less relaxed then yours, i dont drink and i would have maybe a kebab or a pizza one night of the weekend.

I go to the gym 4 days a week and do free weights for over an hour per session, a few guys here can vouch i work hard, and this made little to no difference to how much weight i lost. The biggest impact was fixing up the weekends, not the workout schedule at the moment.
 
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