So I know Rocket Science, I spent my days playing with satellites and other complicated stuff. But weight loss is somehow eluding me the past few months, it shouldn't be this hard!!!
I realized something last night when I was with my personal trainer. I had been to the gym for an hour on Monday, I had eaten hardly 700 calories by time I got the gym last night, and I was starting to feel tired during warmup! The trainer hadn't even gotten to me yet! When he did, good lordy! I thought I was going to pass out and throw up and die all at the same time! And he said he knew exactly what I was doing wrong. It wasn't that I was out of shape, he said I'm actually in pretty decent shape. It's that I'm exhausted and starving myself! My response was... "I'm eating what MFP tells me to eat" and he had a pretty clear answer to why that isn't going to work for me anymore.
Basically MFP is assuming I'm lazy, and that is indeed what I put in here since my activity level is "Sedentary". I had 1270 calories to lose 1 lb per week. And I wasn't losing that one pound either, I'd go down a bit, and then when I'd spend a day or two eating more normally, I'd put on a pound. I'd workout and have hardly any energy. I'd given up on running because I would just be exhausted after 5 minutes. My daily routine might be sedentary, but my metabolism isn't anymore. I can't survive on 1270 calories!
Clearly, something needed to change here! And I'm happy that my personal trainer is willing to work with me to do it. So I've got a gameplan that will hopefully help me get rid of the last 10-15 lbs. How I was doing it worked for a good 9 months, now that I've stalled, someting has got to go.
1.) EAT MORE! I've changed my activity level to "Active" and now I have 1530 calories a day. That definitely doesn't mean eating more ice cream and cookies. It's really so I can get more protein in my diet. I've been neglecting it lately, and it was working for me when I was focusing on it more. I'm planning a food schedule more like this:
Breakfast: Breakfast sandwich, or peanut butter on an english muffin, or Kashi Go Lean cereal in greek yogurt.
Snack: Something with protein or a Kashi bar
Lunch: I've got options, but either a salad or chicken sandwich with side salad would be good.
2 Snacks: Eat around 2pm and 4pm so I have energy for a workout after work
Dinner: Fish or chicken, and veggies
Snack: Something tasty, preferably with protein
So it looks like protein is the new focus. I'm not doing any Atkins diet or anything, I don't believe in diets with their own names. But I'm going to make a conscious effort to eat less empty carbs and add some protein in throughout the day for more energy.
2.) Stop killing myself with half-ass workouts. I asked my trainer yesterday how many times a week I should be working out. He said 3-4! I've been averaging 6 a week when I don't have things interrupting my schedule. It's better to get 3-4 quality, longer workouts in than a half-ass workout every day because I'm too sore, tired, and hungry to put any effort into it. So I'm aiming for 4 times a week, taking a rest day if I killed it the day before (like the day after a training session...), and aiming for an hour at least when I do workout.
3.) Don't focus on calories so much. I'm gonna try to focus on the quality of food I'm eating and the protein, fat, and carbs in them. And trying to eat more often. I shouldn't be eating when I'm already hungry, every 2-3 hours is a more reasonable schedule.
No guarantee this will work, but I'm giving it a shot since what I'm doing right now isn't working and it doesn't seem healthy. I can't imagine how on the Biggest Loser last night, they are eating barely 1100 calories for the day and working out 8 hours! I barely had the energy for my hour of training yesterday eating more than 1200! It seems like on here, I'm not the only one who has realized that at this point in the weight loss, eating more to lose more is the way to go.
No comments:
Post a Comment