I have been walking for 4 weeks for about 30 min., 4-5 times a week. I have lost 1 pound. What could be the problem? This has been the most I have exercised... ever! How can I only have dropped a pound. It is very discouraging. Am I doing something wrong? My dieting is not very strict, but I know that I am not over-eating. I even I asked my husband to honestly tell me if I eat too much. He said no. I work full time and have to eat on the run alot... so I'm thinking maybe it's what I'm eating, but I'm really not sure. I don't want to give up with the exercising because I do feel better and have more energy and that should be enough for me to keep going, but I thought maybe I would have seen some results on the scale.
Are you also drinking 6-8 glasses of purified water every day? That helps to flush toxins out of your body as well. You are also right to question the foods you eat - especially on the run. I surely wouldn't give up the exercise either.
Another thing you would probably benefit from is rather than using the scale take your measurements - you want to lose inches. Muscle weighs more than fat, but fat takes up more room. Make sense?
Hope this helps,
~V~
PS Maybe you'd be interested in our $100,000 Cinch Biggest Loser Challenge?
Sometimes when you start exercising it "scares" your body and it will reserve energy for about a month. The other thing could be that you are building muscle that you've never built before and because muscle holds more water than fat, it may seem you are not losing when, in fact, you are losing fat and gaining muscle. You might try tricking your body too...ride a bike for a few days instead, or try jumping rope on one of those days to reroute the nutrients and blood and get you metabolism moving. The best thing you can do for your body is to keep up the work and ALWAYS eat breakfast and drink more water than you think you need. Once you feel thirsty you are already on the verge of being dehydrated.
are you eating frequently? Are you eating enough? If not, you could have a slow metabolism. Make sure you're eating healthy snacks at least every 4-5 hours.
What are you eating? PM me and let's see what we can do.
Liev
It probably is WHAT you're eating. I recently lost 25 lbs in 6 weeks time with the Nutrisystem Woman's Walk excercise dvd. It's really simple to do and it doesn't take up too much time and my 2 little ones even enjoy doing it with me! You might need a certain diet to give your metabolism a boost. I kick started my weight loss with Nutrisystem. I did it for about 3 weeks to get me started on the right track then I just started doing it on my own. I'm now at the weight I was in high school and couldn't be happier!! Hope you find something that works for you!!
Hi, I would give the exercise a few more weeks before I would worry. I know it can be discouraging. You may need to add some weights to your workout. Get some small dumbells and after your walk do a couple of moves. The more muscle you have the more fat you will burn.
It could be that you are eating to many calories, or its the type of food you eat because certain foods take a lot of exercise before you burn them off. Example. I can't remember the exact amount of M&M's but it really wasnt many but "It takes running the length of a football field 4x to burn like 5 M&M's".
If you drink pop that is a killer right there.
There are several websites you can go to and track your calorie intake you maybe surprised at how much you are taking in.
www.everydayhealth.com or www.prevention.com
or just to find out the calories you are taking in a good book or online source is www.calorieking.com
Keep up the good work you will see a differenct soon.
Have a great day!
Exercise increases muscle mass as it burns fat. Muscle is more dense than fat, so you will often not see an immediate loss in weight; you will sometimes even see a gain. Don't go just by pounds - look at inches as well. If you've got more energy, and your clothes are fitting looser, you're doing it right.
If you're eating lean protein, a few complex carbs, and minimal fats, and drinking plenty of water you're eating what your body needs to burn fat and build muscle.
The best way to lose weight is the Wii Fit, I lost 9 pounds in the month of January using it for 15-25 minutes per day.
You may be gaining muscle and losing fat. That's what happened to me during basic training, which was 3 months. You should also watch your sodium intake. Salt will retain water, which as women we tend to do a lot of anyway.
I am a certified personal trainer and here is what I suggest. Walking is great, but you need to add some intensity to your workout. Try finding a course with hills to walk on or just simply do intervals of speed walking or running. Walk for a minute then speed walk for a minute. If you can run walk for 2 minutes and run for 30 sec to a min. I also highly recommend adding some weight training into your routine. When you lift weights you build muscle. Your body burn calories to sustain that muscle so the more muscle you have the more calories your body will use to maintain it. That does not mean you have to bulk up, lean muscle will make a huge improvement as well. I am a big fan of the resistance bands. You can get them at Wal-mart and don't have to go to the gym to workout. You can get a great full body workout right at home. Most band sets come with a video or you can purchase an instructional book. Add weight (resistance training) at least 2 times a week.
Diet is a huge part of weight loss. In order to lose 1 pound of fat you have to expend 3500 calories!! That's a lot of calories, but with a good combination of exercise and diet it can be done. You said you eat on the run a lot. You might think that causes you to eat less, but in fact it typically makes it worse. You might not be able to make the best choices in your food eating on the run. The amount of food you eat does not necessarily determine the amount of calories you intake. It is the quality of food that is important. Try to stay away from processed foods. A good protein keeps you fuller longer!! I could go on forever about stuff to do, but to sum it up add intensity and some resistance training and chose quality foods over processed foods.
Best of luck and don't give up!! 2 pounds a week is a normal weight loss.
At your age, you are going to have to work hard to get those pounds off. Some of the weight is most likely hormone weight since our bodies hold estrogen in our fat cells. You may want to consider not using birth control or any form of synthetic hormone replacement as that will keep the pounds on. If you do have symptoms of estrogen dominance, using a natural progesterone (can be OTC or prescribed by a doc) and this will help hormonally and with weight loss.
As for your exercise and dieting, you wont see results in less than six weeks, especially with the small change you made. You need to be doing at least 30 minutes a day of cardio AND an additional 30 minutes a day on strength training. The only form of 30 minute exercising that will give you results is Metabolic Effect (www.metaboliceffect.com) which continues to keep your metabolism up for up to 3 days after the workout but that is a hard core program. I know Jill (the model on the home page) and Jade (the workout designer/owner) personally and can say their program is the best.
My suggestion to you eating wise is to take baby steps. I have to do this myself because I LOVE to eat. I have to wean myself into eating smaller portions. Don't eat fried foods or drink sodas (soda is a HUGE no-no, even diet when trying to lose weight). The biggest factor here is looking where you are getting your sugars because sugars = calories & they aren't included in the calorie count on the nutrition label, they are classified separately. If you drink juices, you need to read the ingredients and be sure it doesn't have sugar or high fructose corn syrup as one of the first ingredients. The best thing to drink is water. If you get bored with water you can use alternate sweeteners such as Agave syrup. This is a natural sweetener that diabetics can use without problems. Splenda and other artificial sweeteners are dangerous and contain harmful chemicals which also trigger hormone imbalance and as women we should avoid them, especially once we hit mid 30s. A bg thing to understand with eating healthy is you cannot eat perfectly all the time. If you do, you will fail. Don't bother with any of the fad diets like Atkins etc. You will not be able to keep up with it. My suggestion is to start off with portion control and trying to eat 6 small meals per day (I do this by having a breakfast of oatmeal or grain cereal 1st thing then have a snack of fruit and/or yogurt or granola about 2hrs later then light lunch and another snack a few hours later then light dinner). This serves two purposes. One, you shouldn't be getting hungry throughout the day and two, you are raising your metabolism by doing this. Our bodies are actually designed to process food this way rather than the big meals we traditionally do. If you get hungry have a snack but make it light and not junk. Only allow yourself treats because you want it not because you are hungry. By treats I mean that piece of cheese cake or bowl of ice cream that has been calling your name. I allow myself to have a small portion of something like this once or twice per week. Doing this keeps me from craving it and eating half the container of ice cream in one sitting.
If you need more help, please don't hesitate to contact me. I am earning my degree in natural medicine, a certified prenaltal/postpartum fitness instructor, and a women's health advocate with a lot of knowledge on hormone balancing. I have a lot of information that can help you reach your goals. Take advantage of me now before I finish my degree and carry the title "doctor" so I can start charging. LOL
Congratulations on finding a way to work exercise into your normal routine and then sticking with it for four weeks! That's tough to do (especially with three kids to take care of). Don't give up! Be sure when you weigh yourself that it's at approximately the same time of day; you don't want to be comparing, say, a first-thing-in-the-morning weigh-in with one that's in the evening, because our weight can fluctuate so much over the course of the day. If it were me, I would wait another month or so and keep up the walking. After that, if I still wasn't losing any or much weight, I might perhaps talk to a nutritionist about specific diet changes they'd recommend or try stepping up the intensity of my workouts -- adding weights, taking a higher-intensity class once or twice a week, etc. Best of luck!
One thing that I've found encouraging when working out is to take measurements as well as weight. Measure around your waist, your hips, your thighs, and your arms and then do that once a week. Sometimes even when the pounds aren't coming off, the inches are. You could be replacing fat with muscle, which won't necessarily show up on the scale. :) Also if you are interested in an easy way to follow a healthy eating plan for a few weeks, try any of Denise Austin's books that have an eating plan. One is "Shrink Your Female Fat Zones." It has six weeks of meals laid out. Congratulations on starting a more healthy lifestyle.
Hang in there! You are off to a good start. If you are having to eat on the run alot that could be the trouble right there. All the other advise given by the other mamas are good too. All us mamas are supporting you!
Here are some tips first make sure you eat a good breakfast, some fruit or yogurt if you are press for time. It is important that you get your system running again after the all night fast. Also if possible take your lunch to work so you can control what you eat. Hide some low calories , low cab snacks in your desk, some peanuts, microwave popcorn the no butter kind a mini bag, the little 100 calories packages of things.
First, are you weighing at the same time each day? we weigh more in the evenings than in the mornings. Then exercise builds muscle which weighs more than fat so you may actually be slimmer but weigh more. i tend to go more by how my clothes fit than what the scale says. Eating on the run could also be a contributing factor--since that tends to be a lot of "fast food" which is a real diet killer--lots of fat and calories. Read labels--"low fat" foods are often loaded with sugar and foods I never suspected are high in sugar.
TD,
I am an aerobic instructor and have been in your shoes before. First, think about the things that you are eating while you are on the run. You may not be overeating but just eating high calorie and high fat foods. Also when you are walking what is your speed. Here's a tip...walk on an incline of like 3 to start out with if you are walking on a treadmill and then gradually increase the incline. You'll burn more calories that way. If you are walking outside, try walking up some hills if possible. Increase your water intake. Drinking a glass of water will help keep your hunger at bay and also keep your body hydrated. Good luck and stay with it. Remember muscle weighes more than fat and burns tons more calories than fat as well.
Hi I recently had a similar experience. I just had our 3rd child and the weight is not coming off as easily so we started back in the gym doing 20-30 minutes of cardio and strength training 4-5 days a week and I too only lost 2 pounds in 3 weeks! I learned the trick was that one it takes your body 3 weeks (21 days) to adjust to your new routine and the second is that you have to have your heart rate up to a certain pace in order to burn calories. You can see what your heart rate should be online based on your age. After doing this for a week I lost 6 pounds last week.
It sounds to me like it's most likely what your eating if your eating on the run. You may not be eating much but if its all high calorie, that could be your downfall. Try keeping a food diary for a week. Then review it and see if maybe your eating (or drinking) more than you think or if its all high calorie. There are several places on the internet you can look up calorie counts for foods, including fast food places. I found that when eating on the run, keeping the receipt for what you ate and then filling in the diary later when you have time to slow down helps me keep better track.
It sounds like everyone else has some great advice, which I will try to follow as well. :) But if you keep it up & still see little results, I would recommend seeing a doctor, because there could be a medical reason. I have hypothyroidism & that makes you gain weight & makes it harder to lose weight, among other things. If you have any other symptoms such as chronic fatigue, feeling cold most of the time, losing hair, constipation, depression, etc., definitely see your doctor. There could be other medical reasons as well, so it couldn't hurt to get checked out anyway. If there is not a medical problem, & I hope there isn't, just keep at it & I'm sure you'll see some great results soon.