help ! i'm stuck !!

[adriana]

i've been working real hard for the past two weeks, really good eating, heavy weights and lots of cardio.

i'm stuck. completely stuck. my weight has not budged.

i'm 43 years old, female, 210 lbs, 5'1".

this is a typical meal plan for me :

Meal 1 - ½ cup oatmeal + 1/4 cup 1% milk, 250 grams 1.5% cottage cheese, 10 almonds, apple

Meal 2 - 4 egg white + 1 egg omelet w/sauteed onions, small baked potato, green tea

Meal 3 - 5 oz grilled turkey breast, baked sweet potato, 2 cups steamed cauliflower and carrots

Meal 4 - 3/4 cup oatmeal + 1/4 cup 1% milk, 250 grams cottage cheese, apple, green tea

Meal 5 - 240 grams water-packed tuna, garden salad, herbal tea

* i use approx. ½ tablespoon of olive oil throughout the day

42p/39c/19f balance, 1820 calories


my workout schedule for the past two weeks has been as follows, more or less (today, friday, i'm resting because i have other things i must do):

sunday - upper body, morning cardio and spinning in the evening
monday - lower body, morning cardio & 45 min. treadmill in evening
tuesday - upper body, morning cardio only
wednesday - lower body, morning cardio and 45 min. elliptical in evening
thursday - upper body, morning cardio & spinning in evening
friday - lower body, morning cardio only
saturday - rest


i've improved greatly in the weights that i'm lifting, pushing or pulling. and my endurance on the cardio machines has also improved. but i don't feel that any fat has left my body !!! my clothes might be just slightly looser, but that just might be my imagination also.

i did so well on my first 12 week program, loosing 26 pounds of fat. but now i'm in the 7th week of my second 12 week program (body for life, for the most part, except for the past two weeks) and i'm STUCK !!!! by the way, i did this mini Boot Camp of mine to rev up my metabolism and it doesn't seem to have helped at all

what can i do now?

thanks for you help. and sorry for such a long post.

adriana

[adrenalin18stud]

this is very strange, doesn't make sense to me.....your 210lb at 5'1?? and on this routine??, that is heavier than me and i'm 5'8 around 200lb.

maybe you could try to reduce your carbs a little or even try to eat only one carb meal a day, to improve your metabolism, try to spread your meals to 6-8 meals a day, make them small. the best time to do cardio is first thing in the morning because you will use your bodyfat as fuel, try to do that every morning first thing.

[Viola]

With the amount of cardio you are doing your body is probably in starvation mode. I would increase calories by 250 for one week then increase by 250 again for one week. You have to sometimes trick your metabolism so it will give up more fat.

10x your bodyweight would be 2100 calories. This is really the minimum amount you should take in daily.
12x your bodyweight would be 2520 calories. This is a good amount to lose at a consistant rate.

You can go to Fitday.com and plug all your numbers in and see what you are actually eating and burning for calories.

I hope I helped you in your search.

Viola

[Hibiscus09]

originally posted by Adriana
42p/39c/19f balance, 1820 calories

Adriana, are you sure about the protein #s there? You should keep up with it on Fitday.com to make sure you have the right numbers. That was definitely more than 42 grams of protein & you definitely should have more than 42 grams of protein.

Do you know your bodyfat%? If so, I would go to

http://www.hussman.org/fitness/bmrcalc.htm

and figure out your BMR. Add a few hundred calories to that & start with that number for your daily intake. (This will probably come close to the 12X bodyweight that Viola suggested) Deduct 50 calories per week and you will probably start seeing some progress again. Also, why don't you try cycling your calories? If your beginning calorie intake is 2,100 (just an example) do 2,100; 2,000; 1,900; 2,100; 2,000; cheat day; 1,900. Of course, cheat day can be whereever you want it to be.

As far as your breakdown goes, I believe BFL is about 40p/40c/20f. Maybe you should switch that up some also. Try 40p/30c/30f for a couple of weeks & see how that feels. Also, for the last two meals you might want to stick with just fibrous veggies and get your complex carbs in earlier.

I think BFL is a great program but your body is probably just adjusted to it now & not really changing much from it -- you need to keep your body guessing.

Finally, that is wayyyyyy too much cardio! Less can be better. Your body is probably used to that also (although mine would just fall over from exhaustion before I ever made it to that much cardio - LOL). Try just doing 3 morning interval cardios (no longer than 30 minutes!) and maybe one spinning class a week if you're loving those. I know when I did those, I was really addicted. My new gym doesn't have them. Anyway, stick with that cardio schedule for a few weeks & then SLOWLY add to it -- like maybe one more post training session for 20 minutes.

I hope some of that helped -- DON'T get discouraged!

[adriana]

i really appreciate all your help everyone.

Diane - i do track my food on fitday.com. those are the numbers i got there ! the numbers are percentages by the way. not grams. i've also changed my workout routine like you've suggested.

i am cutting back on the cardio for the reasons you all stated, and also because i'm really short on time these next few months. i guess everything happens for a reason, huh?

thanks again for your help. i'm sure something will start to happen again with these changes :-)

adriana

[Hibiscus09]

LOL - Adriana - I had a really stressful week last week & I don't know why I read that as grams! That looks fine. I think it's a good thing you're slowing down on the cardio & you might want to try some of the things suggested to shake up your diet.

Good luck with everything! I'm off to Florida for the week.

[tone-n-up]

It was like raeding something I wrote when I was reading you thread asking for help. The only thing that is different for me is that I have been doing only 3 days of cardio. I also have been doing the bFL program and now in my 2nd 12 weeks. Everything like you say. I think I am gaining muscle still, I just am not loosing on the scale. I need to do my BF % soon.
At any rate, I would love to hear how you are doing with the changes.