Why am I not losing any weight?

Nickpavey

New Member
Hi everybody,so my story so far....so I'm now 23 and a very active person, I started off at about 18.5 stone - 19 stone at my biggest, this I can put down to my uni days of drinking too much and eating all the wrong quick and easy meals you do as a student!
I have been out of uni now for a few years and execrising pretty regularly for about a year after knee surgery for an old rugby injury, at the moment I am going to the gym 5 times a week burning about 1000-1250 on the cross trainer and a further 150 in the pool after, I'm also playing badminton once a week which is around 200 calories.
I have a calorie controlled diet of around 1500 to 1750 a day through a slim fast 210 meal bar for breakfast and lunch,fruit and a low fat/low sugar fruit and jelly pot and then what ever everyone else has for dinner, I don't snack between meals the only thing I have is flavoured gum. I have worked out I am supposed to have about 2100 calories a day for a 23 year old 5'11 guy of my weight.
When I firtst started diet and exercising I quickly dropped down to 16.5 stone but then seemed to stick at that weight about 4 months! I then decided to log everything that I ate,what I execrised and calculate that again my daily allowences to get a total day loss or gain for calories, I am under everyday normally by a good amount around 1300-1600 when I go to the gym. I have been logging everything for 3 weeks now, I seemed to lose half a stone in the first week and 2 days and am now currently 15.5 stone.
My problems seems to be that I am now stuck at this weight, I'm currently exercising more and for longer than before and have a smaller calorie intake but my weight doesn't seem to want to shift, I was just looking for some advice on why this might be happening or if anyone else has experienced similar?

Thanks Nick
 
i dont know but a suggestion of how much water are you drinking???
it does help.

SOrry not to be much more help...
i to am on the slim fast diet and ive hit the point where the scales dont want to budge... but stick to it...
maybe change what you are doing at the gym... ive read a fair bit about your body gets used to the gym.. so maybe instead of the x trainer do the rowing machine and bike...
just ideas
and sorry for not being much more help.
 
Hi Nick,

The examples you've given of calorific expenditure: Are they daily or weekly? That is, are you burning 1,000 calories per day on the crosstrainer, or per week?

If it's per day, you're not eating anywhere near enough.

If you require 2,100 calories per day and you're only eating an average of 1,600, then burning off over 1,000 down the gym, you're actually only getting 600 calories a day... A drastic shortfall of 1,500 calories. While for a short time your body will go "Hey, yeah, I've got fat stored for that", over the longer term your body will start going "Haaaang on a minute... Is there a famine? I'd better hold on to what I've got and start lowering my metabolic rate so I don't burn through it so fast either!"

I strongly suggest you drop a copy of this post into the Fitness & Exercise board, and see if Justin can help you out.

Bad news? The lighter and fitter you get, the harder and longer you have to exercise to lose more weight. That's just the nature of being human ;)
 
Slim fast im not really a huge fan of, it can be initially easy to lose weight but difficult to shift after a certain point, and if you stop you can gain.

Try weight training, I like yourself go to the gym 5 times a week but vary my work out. I'll do 15 minutes Cardio per session, varying the machine, and then a 30 minute weight work out, one day i might be doing biceps and shoulders, the next legs, and then after chest etc.

Unless you come off that machine dripping in sweat and panting for breath your body might not be challenged by such a long cross trainer stint.

Im in a similar position to yourself so drop me a message if you want any more info
 
Excellent advice heartagram. Weight training builds muscle, and muscle increases your base metabolic rate. This means you require more calories throughout your normal daily life, which means that even at rest you're using more calories than you would with lower muscle mass.
 
Coulden't agree more.

I weighed myself at the start of september, and according to my home scales was 15.2 at my heaviest. Now this morning I was 14.2!

A lot of it is diet though, my average diet during the week is:

Bowl of Branflakes with a maximuscle promax shake
11am - Fruit or another promax shake
1pm - Tuna sandwhiches or chicken legs
3/4pm yoghurt or fruit

Then I usually go to the gym after work and don't eat after coming back, or if i go home at 5pm I'd have a few boiled eggs etc.
 
Yes, it does sound like you aren't eating enough, well, if the 1000 on the cross trainer is in one session.

Sounds to me like you need to jiggle your gym routine and definitely add weights, which is probably more important when dieting that cardio.

Don't worry, it wont make you put on weight, not in the long term...though you may get a little water retention in your muscles temporarily. You would need loads of calories to gain muscle...certainly well over maintenance, but it will help retain the muscle mass you have.

Protein is good for any diet. The most important macronutrient there is when you want to lose weight

Jiggle things up a bit, change gym routine, change the way you eat. Hope the scales move for you soon!
 
bro...you need to be doing some serious weight training otherwise your body just adjusts to the calories/exercise routine.

you need to alot of situps, work your ab muscles. and then your back, arms, legs etc.

if you build muscle, you will loose slightly less weight, but you wil get thinner. because muscle has a weight as well, but its lean muscle weight which is good. and you will loose more fat as you build more muscle.

i would suggest you research some proper gym workouts...most people i know that go to the gym dont really worry about fat loss, it becomes like an automatic thing...
 
Wow thanks for so many replies and some excellent advice in there.
As for the muscle building this is something that I do currently already do but at home not in the gym, I basically do this every other day which consists of arms, chest and legs. Think I might need to start adding the sit-ups into the plan though.

The 1000 or so calories is a day when I go to the gym so about 5-6 times a week, this has now been uped to 1250 each time and I am happy to report after a week off the scales the weight is now moving again and I'm about 2-3 pounds under 15 stone.

The work out is also starting to vary as I have added a 15 minute row to the sessions.

As for protein this is harder to come by as I am and have been a vegetarian for the past year or so, this limits my ability to bulk up on large amounts of muscle building protein as meat substitues obviously add this in but nothing like from the real thing.

Thanks again to everyone for the advice and suggestions and I'll keep you all posted on my progress
 
and remember....its not weight which is important...there has been plenty of discussion, there is no ideal weight...its your body shape which is important...
 
The simple reason for this is your not eating enough food/calories or fat. your doing huge amounts of exercise and your body has gone into starvation mode as it needs more energy.... rather then up the gym time , do it at higher levels & mix it up a lil your body could be too used to the routine so mix cardio and weights in different orders throughout your workout.

also increase your calories by a little and see how this helps.. make sure your drinking over 2 litres of water/fluids a day.

you may also want to rethink ure slim fast thingy, i am not a fan of these diets that in teh longrun dont teach us anything about how to eat healthy.... sticking to a low fat three meals a day should help you feel better and with more energy and should spur your weight loss on..

well done so far !~!
 
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