Weight loss/fitness etc

parking_question_chap

Weight loss is 80% nutrition and 20% perspiration.

1500Kcals sounds too low for you at 15-8. I would be looking at more 1800-2000.

engineer_amy

First place to start is working out your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE). https://tdeecalculator.net/


You need to burn 3500 calories to lose 1 pound of fat, so if you are aiming to lose 2lbs per week, you need a calories deficit of 1000 cals per day. So get your TDEE above, take 1000 off and this is your daily calorie intake. Track everything on my fitness pal. its the only way to accurately assess your intake. its too easy to have a chocolate biscuit with your coffee and forget to log it, but those calories soon mount up, and will explain why weightloss isn't happening. Quite often, a big difference in your calorie intake can be achieved just by monitoring your portion size.


Whether you get your optimum calories through CICO, macro tracking, Keto, intermittent fasting, (insert any other diet here) it doesn't matter. you need to find a diet that will fit into your lifestyle and is sustainable. What will work for one person may not work for you. I tried Keto, but I have no gallbladder and the high fat content gave me crazy heartburn and I missed my fruit and veggies too much.
I have lost over 9 stone, just by tracking my calories and sticking to a balanced macro split. I still allow myself a treat every now and then, but it is tracked and my calorie intake is planned around it that day. also I go out for dinner on a Saturday night and I will order what I like, I do tend to go for the healthier choices now, and again it is tracked (as best I can estimate), and I will eat light the rest of the day.

ruperts

Just to take slight issue with the "you can't out-train a bad diet" thing, not many people really have such a bad diet that it can't be out-trained.

OP weighs 15s 8lbs, which is only about three stone overweight if that. Key question is how long it took to put that weight on. Say it took three years, that's one stone or 14 pounds per year. There's 3,500 calories per pound of fat, so the total surplus calories in the year was 49,000, or 134 per day.

You can easily out-train a 134 calorie surplus. It's ten minutes of running, 20 minutes of swift walking.

What is the definition of 'piling on the pounds'? Maybe four stone per year? People would definitely notice if you put on four stone in a year. But even that only comes to 534 calories per day. Out-trained by an hour of moderate activity.

So I think unless you have been really piling on the pounds, then the most important thing is developing a habit of regular exercise, preferably doing something you genuinely enjoy, rather than trying to revolutionise your diet, especially in a way that you don't enjoy and is clearly not going to be sustainable.

Sharon87

In2deep wrote: »

Thanks very much to everyone for taking the time to reply.

Much appreciated.

The way I am looking at things is that I've gone from probably drinking alchol most weekends with no exercise at all to no alcohol at all and exercise so surely got to lose weight.

I am also cutting out things like fizzy drinks and biscuits (although i do have the odd treat).

I have been using the my fitness pal app and find it very good for tracking my calorie intake (when I remember to fill it out)!

I would say my diet is okay at the moment but I could improve it.

I have set myself a calorie intake of 1500 a day, but in all honesty I dont know if that's too much or too little. I do struggle to stick to that and find that I am really hungry when I get home from the gym.

Can eating not enough have a negative effect on weight loss too?

My personal trainer told me that the best time to eat regular carbs like potatoes/pasta is after a work out as your body needs carbs to refuel. I was doing weights as well as well as cardio. So after the gym that is the perfect time to eat, it also burns calories faster than at any other times, which is why you're hungry after the gym. Don't ignore that hunger after the gym, eat a well balanced filling meal with carbs.

It is also possible to put on muscle as well as losing fat, but it's hard to do, and you need enough to do enough weights and eat enough protein.

Jono111

Do the exercise for the health benefits, don't stress about the weight or the speed of weight loss. I went from 36 to 32 waist but my weight has gone up by 6kg but I have lost a lot of fat.

KxMx

I improved my diet slowly and lost 4 stone in a couple of years.

I have remained the same weight for over a year which suggests I'm eating the right amount of calories.

I didn't want to cut down what I was eating any more so I have started exercising.

I am now doing 2x dog walks + one hour long Zumba class per week, was doing just one 50 minute Zumba Gold class per week. Where possible I'm making further better food choices rather than cutting back more.

Eventually I'd like to do two Zumba classes weekly but it took me 6 months to move up from Gold and there is the cost and time factor.

EssexHebridean

Jono111 wrote: »

Do the exercise for the health benefits, don't stress about the weight or the speed of weight loss. I went from 36 to 32 waist but my weight has gone up by 6kg but I have lost a lot of fat.

Bingo - this nails it.

Don't go the route of restrictive diets unless under medical advice - losing weight while also losing any sort of decent relationship with food is not helpful to anyone. Learn a bit about nutrition - and learn what makes up a healthy balanced diet. Think a little more about portion sizes and what proportion of the plate should be made up with each of the macronutrients - protein, carbs and fats. Aim for "healthy" fats rather than the less healthy options. Also try to add in lots of wholegrains - as well as being better for you than refined carbs they will also keep you fuller for longer. If you find you get hungry at particular times of day make sure you have a fruit or beg based snack to hand to combat that, rather than setting yourself up to end up at the shop or vending machine with a chocolate bar in your hand. it sounds as though you're already aware that you were drinking more than might have been advisable for you - so cutting that back is a decent shout.

On the exercise front find things you love doing and that is the key to making sure you want to stick with them. I run - and quite often ahead of going for a run I am dreading it, but it's the feeling once I'm out there and when I get back which totally outweighs that lack of motivation to go - otherwise I'd just never do it. I also go to the gym a couple of times a week - but do very little cardio as I'd rather do that outside in the fresh air - I enjoy the strength training aspect as well though so that's what keeps me focused there!

I lost around 4st a few years ago purely by learning a bit more about nutrition, learning to be conscious around portion sizes and getting more active than I'd been previously. Took me somewhere in the region of 18 months - and I've now maintained that loss for a couple of years while also working to improve my relationship with food generally (the poorness of which was a hangover from years of things like weightwatchers, and general demonizing of particular foods, seeing things as "good/bad" etc). For the most part I now just think of it as food - some of it I try to eat more of, some of it I try to eat less of!

Good luck!

slinga

Been active all my life and been gym training for 20 years now and have a Cross Trainer at home.

Been stuck between 86kg and 80 kg for years.  I suppose 83 is about right for my average but that gives me a BMI of 27 ish.

If I really go for losing weight by stop eating snacks I can lose 1 kg a week but when I get down to 80kg although my face is drawn and hollow cheeked my gut is still there and flabby.

I can't do any exercise targeted at my gut and stomach muscles as I always develop Lower back pain.

Any suggestions to lose the gut?

flanker6

slinga said:

Been active all my life and been gym training for 20 years now and have a Cross Trainer at home.

Been stuck between 86kg and 80 kg for years.  I suppose 83 is about right for my average but that gives me a BMI of 27 ish.

If I really go for losing weight by stop eating snacks I can lose 1 kg a week but when I get down to 80kg although my face is drawn and hollow cheeked my gut is still there and flabby.

I can't do any exercise targeted at my gut and stomach muscles as I always develop Lower back pain.

Any suggestions to lose the gut?

Even if you could do exercises that target your stomach muscles, these don't result in spot reduction of the fat there. 
Fat will be lost all over the body. So to "lose the gut" you'll need to drop the overall fat on your whole body. But, many people find that they lose fat in the reverse order of where they put it on. i.e. if you put weight on your stomach before your face, when you lose weight, your face will lose it before your stomach. (General rule of thumb - there can be exceptions.)

Retrogamer

I wouldn't focus so much on "weight loss" but instead focus on fat loss.
It's perfectly normal for weight to over around the same in some circumstances as if you're out of shape your body will lose some fat, whilst simultaneously gaining a little more muscle.

Aldi were doing some Scales recently for about £25 that measured body fat % and muscle % in the body. Although  not entirely accurate they give a good indication if used every 2 weeks or so, to see if your body composition is changing despite weight remaining fairly static.

I tend to eat approx 2000 calories per day when training at the gym (almost all weights) but in my days where i'm not training, i reduce it to approx 1500 calories with protein being the main macro.