Beyond Frustrated and need advise from Women who have been there

[superqt4u2nv]

Wow. That was a little rude don't you think? I gave as complete a picture as I could including as much precise detail possible. Perhaps you didn't fully read or don't care about my concerns:

I am afraid of adding more calories given my previous experience.

I will try cooking and freezing homemade food as you suggest.
And, as the other poster mentioned, I can add even more cardio.
I assumed this board was a little more open, perhaps people like me should just lurk and not post.

From what I can infer from your terse comments, you may believe I am doing nothing right and simply am not worth your time. Perhaps older women as I may be aren't exactly the right audience for you.

I have been here a long time and I have helped a lot of diffrent people from many diffrent walks of life age ranges etc. I hear your concerns but if you have been doing X and not getting results you want IE abs showing don't you think it's time to try something diffrent?

You asked for thoughts and opnions with HIT cardio and your Taekwondo you are doing a lot of cardio already. You are taking in very little calories what does that mean? The calories you are taking in are being stored as fat cause your body is in starvation mode.

Calories in vs calories out is not the be all and end all sorry there is much more to it the macro mix. The food choices you make etc. With out seeing exactly what you ate over the time period that you up you calories the quality of the food choices you made etc it's very hard to say exactly what caused the weight gain.

It can be some minor tweaks to your diet that could have been made at a high calorie level etc.

I am open to helping people that accept advise and are truely ready to make changes. It's frustrating when people come here in desprate need of advice and then fight you on every suggestion. If you were getting the results that you wanted why are you so desprate for advice?

Like I said start a daily log post up exactly what you are eating the times exactly how your training for a month or so that gives a great amount of detail to work with and make minor changes.

There is no magic pill not clen not t3 that bam going to give you the instant results if your nutrition is not at it's optimal level. It might make a minor change for the time your on it but what happens when you come off it? If the diets not there in spades the weight comes back.

 

[caligirl85]

I'll add my 2 cents in and tell you that I think you are under eating, especially for the amount of training you are doing. It's not just as simple as cals in/ out when you eat so low for so long, combined with a lot of training. Your body slows down in all it's processes, including fat burning. If you came to me for a "diet" I'd start you out at 2300 calories, based on your stats alone and that would be for weight loss.

You can try the thermogenics and there's various research out there to say they'll help 10%/ 20% whatever number but the answer really does lie in your eating. Your training sounds good. You are hesitant to eat more because of your past experience in gaining but I think that is the answer. Ideally, I think you should take 2 weeks off everything!!! Crazy I know!! Maybe some light cardio or your other martial arts but I'd take a complete break and EAT at MAINTENANCE LEVELS, which would be a lot of food.

That probably will fly against everything so I'd honestly be reconsidering adding in more calories. Even if you added in another 2-300 and centered it around training times, to start. You will likely go up in weight initially but your body will adjust and start functioning more efficiently. Another option is to have 2 days a week where you eat higher calories, so Sunday and one other day.

I have been where you are and am also a 40 year old woman. I weighed in at 266 lbs at my heaviest and have since been able to compete in this sport. When I started my very first contest prep, I was exactly where you are, only weighed in about 180 lbs, being 5'7". I started at 2350 calories a day for contest prep!! I ate until I felt sick. I did not believe for one minute it was right but I did a 23 week prep and lost about 54 lbs in that time. I honestly could not believe I started losing eating that much food. I NEVER went below 1450 calories per day and was doing 90 mins of cardio daily towards the end. That show I did completely natty. No fat burners or anything.

It's a really hard concept to wrap your head around and I totally hear you on the long work days and finding time. It's a constant struggle. But it's something I'd really consider if you want to change it and see some results. You can give the fat burners a try but I don't think they'll give you what you are looking for in the long term. I've tried them all and until I really got a grip on my eating, the results were minimal.

 

[caligirl85]

I'd also do your cardio after your weights....

 

[zedhed]

^^^yep agree, cardio after weights if you can.^^^
Also agree on the increased cals. I had nearly the same experience and it is hard to wrap your mind around.

 

[kittelmama]

Thanks for all the input. Hearing that there is something that I am doing right, does improve my attitude. Hearing from people who have been there a little also really helps ... nice to know there might be a pathway for me.

The thought of adding calories not only seems counter-intuitive but scares me down to my toes!

When I see the scale inch up and the waistline stay exactly the same while I am putting in such intense effort, my tough girl exterior cracks and I want to bawl like a baby!

I will give 4-6 weeks to upping the calories (the right calories naturally! ) I think going to 2000 would be a big step.

When you say concentrating it around the workouts -- what does that mean? I am at the gym starting at 8PM and leaving at about 9:45-10PM -- so where should I put those caolories - I have been told to eat nothing after 6 or 7pm by others, except for post workout protein. (probably something else that makes no sense!)

Why cardio after weights? Obviously, after a hard leg work out that might be counter-productive when I fall off the stair climber

I thought for muscle growth you wanted cardio first ... this is an easy change to make if it will help me though

Thanks!

 

[caligirl85]

If you even started by adding in 100 calories for a couple of weeks and slowly up it. I really do think you'll see your body start to function better. I don't believe in the no eating after 6 pm and think it's a lot of "bro-science" but that's based on my own research and reading. If you were going to add in more cals around workouts, it would be eating something about 45 mins before and then within an hour after. A lot of people will center the majority of their carbs, for example, around training. You could eat those extra 100 cals pre workout for example.

You can do some reading from guys like Scott Abel or Layne Norton or Alan Aragon for writings about nutrition and metabolism and Scott Abel for a lot of writing on metabolic shut down as a result of chronic low eating. He writes a lot geared towards the figure competitors but it's the same idea. The thing to remember with this industry is that there are a million different opinions and there are some pretty standard old school beliefs, such as no eating after 6 pm, that really just don't hold a lot of merit with today's research. But....

the biggest thing I have learned is to keep learning. It's really all about getting to know your own body and trying different techniques and methods. Take notes and record changes when you try different methods of eating. And also remember that it takes a minimum of 2 weeks, when making diet changes, for your body to start to kick in. I know, for me, it takes about 12 days for things to really have an impact and until I can feel things working better.

 

[caligirl85]

The cardio/weights debate....

I'm just going to cut and paste from one of the articles I have, rather then summarize it. It's written very well. #2 is really the key point in terms of the more scientific reasons behind fat loss/ muscle building.


Physiologically speaking, if maximum fat loss is your goal and you want to incorporate cardio into your training schedule, you're better off doing your cardio training immediately AFTER your weight training.

Here's why:

1. When you do weight training first, you have more energy and strength for that weight training.

I know cardio junkies won't want to hear this, but intense, QUALITY weight training is actually MORE effective for fat loss than cardio training. Why the emphasis on quality? Well, if you go to the gym and just flail around with light weights for 30 minutes, it's not really going to be very effective for fat loss.

However, if you really put some effort into it and train hard, the metabolic boost you get from weight training (in terms of not only calories burned while doing it but the increase in metabolism after AND the increase in muscle mass you get from weight training) is greater than the boost you get from cardio training. And, when compared to slow, long-duration cardio training, that boost is MUCH greater.

So by performing your weight training FIRST, while you're fresh, you're going to have more energy to put into it and you're going to be stronger. This will increase metabolic and muscle mass stimulation and therefore overall fat loss. It's a win-win situation!

That's not to say you can't do a couple of minutes of cardio as a general warm-up before starting into theweights...just don't do an entire cardio session before weight training. Always keep in mind that the weight training is the REAL engine behind your fat loss efforts.

And if THAT isn't enough to convince you to do cardio after weights, I've got another reason for you…


2. Performing weight training first decreases available blood sugar and puts the body in "fat burning" mode.

When you train with weights, you're performing short, intense muscle contractions. Glucose (blood sugar) is the preferred fuel for driving these intense contractions. As you go through your workout, your body gradually uses up its readily-available supply of sugars and starts mobilizing fat for energy.

Here's the key…mobilizing bodyfat for energy is a process that takes time. If you do your cardio first, your body will be initially working on that blood sugar before getting started on the bodyfat. By the time you're done withcardio and move to weights, THAT is when you're in the optimal fat-burning mode.

But the problem is, fat is NOT an efficient fuel for weight training. By doing cardio first, you use up all the "good" stuff for weight training and force your body to make do with a less powerful fuel source. Your weight training workouts will decrease in quality and your cardio efforts won't be as effective for achieving fat-burning, which is your primary goal!

So basically, you're shooting yourself in the foot TWICE!

Think of your body as a hybrid gas-electric car. This car uses gas to provide more power for acceleration and electricity to provide long-term power for maintaining speed.

Now think of blood sugar as gas and weight training as powerful acceleration. When you press the pedal (performing weight training), you're going to get much better acceleration when you're using the proper fuel (i.e. gas).

If you try and power the acceleration with electricity, you'll go forward but not nearly as quickly as if you were using gas.

The bottom line is this…perform your weight training first so you use up the "fast" energy first. Then, by the time you hit the cardio, you're ALREADY in fat-burning mode and every single second you're doing that cardio is going to be burning more fat than if you did it first.

---

These two reasons apply no matter if you're doing slower, long-duration cardio or high-intensity interval training (which I recommend). The key thing to keep in mind is that WEIGHT TRAINING is what's going to help you change your body FAST…cardio is a useful tool for improving your results but it's NOT what drives your fat-loss results.

And that being said, if you absolutely feel you MUST do your cardio first, I'm NOT going to tell you it's the worst thing in the world…the fact that you're doing SOMETHING trumps doing nothing ANY day of the week!

But if you're looking for maximum impact for the time and effort you're putting your training, DEFINITELY hit the weights first and cardio after."

Hope that helps!

 

[zedhed]

Hey Kmama,
I just wanna let you know that this is what Cali does for her living and she really does know her shit on this inside and out. IMO if she says it, its gospel for diet.
Sista its learning for all of us most all of the time. I really believe that here you will find the best help from anywhere on the internet if you give it time and patience.
And do it gradually as Cali said that is very important for your success.
We all do our best to help each other out and successful in this and we are glad to have you with us.
Good luck and keep up your posting. Like I said we all learn from each other all the time. There is someone else out there just like you that may stumble on to this and find just what they need.
Plus its gr8 encouragement for everybody on EF.
You go sista!

 

[Wontonsupe]

Wow. That was a little rude don't you think?

Yea, uh huh. Wow. I am nubie too but scared to post now cuz I think maybe not well received here. Don't want to get chewed out for asking advice. I will try to start tread tho, see what happens. I have fat weight to lose like you and I lift weights but seems frustrated becuz I watch my diet carefully and I lost 25 lbs. over 5.5 months but now at standstill. Not sure if weights cause too much apetite. I don't feel hungrier than before I lifted weights but I DO eat more. Not sure diet I should do. I so far just cut calories. Any help would be great!

 

[kittelmama]

Thanks Cali and Zed ....
Okay, Monday I begin adding food. Yikes.
I figure if I add 1 extra chicken breast 45 minutes before my workouts, with maybe a little spinach or fiber, I can handle that for starters.

I will give an update in 30 days -- So October 23rd, expect awesome results OR someone about to go on some form of "supplement". One or the other.

Other question you super athletes can answer. I think I need to change my leg routine. Extensions are destroying my already destroyed knees. (I have had 3 reconstructions on the left, 4 scopes on the right and both are bone on bone. Ortho wants to schedule knee replacements, but no way, not until I can't walk!)

Here is my current routine on leg day: (ignoring the cardio I usually do BEFORE, since I will now be doing it AFTER)

Hip Sled (press 70% angle) 3- 4 sets:
15X270/360/360 high and narrow
15X270/360/360 low and narrow
15X270/360/360 high and wide
(no rest between, just change position)

1/4 mile lunges with 25# straight bar on traps -- long stride with kick through

Leg Extensions: (with leg brace and patellar stabilizer on)
Either Drop set with 8-10 reps X 3 Starting weight 125 (anything higher gives too much joint pain)
OR
Drop set 50s X 2 (do as many as possible to failure, drop weight, no rest, continue until 50 reps)

hamstring:
Lying curl -- 4 sets 12 -15 reps - weight 120#
Seated curl -- Drop set starting at 135# 12/12/12 reps --- 2 sets

DONE

I have some limitations in terms of the really bum knee (no ACL, no PCL). I find I can do very little weight on a squat without excruciating joint pain.

With what I have read about extensions, maybe I should replace that excersize with something else.

Thoughts?