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[Shebrew]

Well, hello there!

 

Just found Nerd Fitness a week or two ago, and been lurking, but decided to join.

 

A little about my journey so far:

 

My journey to health and weight loss has been sort of slow. I'm 5'1", 28 years old, currently 135lbs and around 28% body fat. I've pretty much hovered somewhere in the range of 135 lbs most of my adult life (usually within 10 lbs plus or minus, but sometimes quite a bit more: looking at you senior year of college) and then started trending upward when i hit the age of 26. So about 2 years ago I joined a gym and started working out with a trainer. At that point, I was weighing in at around 155, which is close to the most I've ever weighed. Another year went by, with not very much change. Sure, i was going to the gym once or twice a week, but it was a struggle. About a year ago, I decided it was time to get serious. Made myself a cool motivation board, and got to it. Getting up in the morning was a struggle at first, but now I'm used to it. I started weight training 3 times a week and working in some cardio here and there. Tried to make a better effort to eat more healthfully and the weight started coming off and my clothes are suddenly too big (and I love shopping so that's been a great excuse to buy new clothes).

 

So that's the positive. I was losing weight pretty steadily up until about July and now my weight loss has plateaued at 135. It's like my body has decided that I've reached the weight I should be and it doesn't want to let go of the 15 lbs I have left standing between me and my goal of 120lbs. So I've kicked up my workouts a bit more.

 

My current normal looking workout week: I weight train 2-3 times a week with a trainer. I spend 30-45 minutes on the elliptical 3 days a week. I started running 3 days a week (stopped for the past 10 days though. Started to get shin splints around week 5 of my training schedule) but I am running a 5 mile race tomorrow and as long as my shin splints don't come back, I'll go back to running 3x a week starting next week. I also do yoga 1-3 times a week.

 

Yet, despite my renewed efforts, that scale is barely budging and often fluctuates between 134-136. So I must be doing something wrong in the area of what I am eating. Since I have made almost no progress in 5 months, despite changing my workout routine, I am hoping getting a little support, advice, and encouragement from this great community to help me figure out what the issue is and how to get that scale moving again. I am definitely feeling frustrated at this point.

 

 

 

 

 

[TMedina]

Welcome!  And good luck!

[Elastigirl]

Welcome! I wonder if you doing too much cardio? Between the elliptical and the running, that's a lot. A few other things that affect weight are stress and not getting enough sleep.

 

Maybe you can share what you eat and what your goals are diet and we may be able to offer some advice.

 

 

I'm about the same height, and started out around 140 pounds, and now about 123.

 

 

Also another thing to do is get a body measuring tape. Then you can see  how many inches you've lost. That will help you determine if you are losing fat but not dropping on the scale because of muscle.

[Shebrew]

Hi! 

 

I quit running for a bit due to shin splints but I'm about to start back up again. I didn't know it was possible to do too much cardio! I just thought trying to get some in every day would be good.

 

I do have a measuring tape that I've used on occasion, but mostly I measure body fat with one of those handheld machines that sends a pulse through your body. I do that about once a month. My body fat % seems to have gone down, but only a small % in the past few months. Maybe I should start measuring with tape as well?

 

As far as eating:

 

I'm a pescetarian, so I get a lot of my protein from fish and tofu.

 

I don't drink soda or juice (I actually don't like sweet tasting drinks) and mostly just drink water, unsweetened tea with a splash of milk, or seltzer water.

I do maybe love cheese too much though.

 

I'm not usually hungry in the morning and eating before my workout can make me nauseous, but I am trying to get in the habit of eating breakfast. Usually my go-tos for breakfast are one of the following: 2 eggs, siggis skyr (sometimes i add in a small handful of paleo granola), muesli with either flax or almond milk, or, if I'm really pressed for time, a protein shake (I use the Sun Warrior brand) made with almond milk.

 

For lunch: My work has a cafeteria so it's a toss up what I eat, but i aim to get in vegetables and a protein. Usually either hit the salad bar and make a salad with a half cup of tuna or a salad and some marinated baked tofu. Depending on the day. I try to avoid anything that is fried or looks oily but sometimes there are delicious carby things like sushi rolls or couscous that I get as well.

 

Dinner is always a tossup. I work until 7 so I am usually pretty tired when I get out of work and what I end up eating is a toss up. I keep some relatively healthy instant options on hand. I also split my time between my apartment and my boyfriend's, and figured out pretty early on that if I bought produce, it would spoil faster than I could eat it, so I buy a lot of stuff frozen. So I have sweet earth burritos and frozen fish fillets and frozen stir-fry vegetables. When I stay at my boyfriends, he shops at whole foods and usually will cook something healthy for dinner that includes a steamed vegetable and a protein. he also usually makes rice or something, but I try to abstain or only have small amounts.

 

For snacks, I keep in my desk: Quest bars, Two Moms granola bars, and wasabi peas. Since our cafeteria has food all day, I can also go there to grab a banana or something else.

 

I try to log everything in My Fitness Pal. I think on the whole, I eat pretty healthfully, but I also think I have too many lazy or treat yo self moments where I'll have either a cookie, or something highly processed, or something high in carbs. I also think that my boyfriend and I have been eating out too much, and I proposed that going forward we make Sundays meal planning and prep day (which is something I've wanted to do for a while, but I'm so not type A and so it's a struggle to sit down and actually do it) in the hopes that we will eat out less and I'll be able to make better food decisions both quality and proportion-wise.

 

So, that's where I'm at. Any advice would be helpful. Sorry if that's a really long post. haha.

[Drashnar]

Welcome!  Sounds to me like you might benefit from planning your week ahead of time.

 

I take an hour or so on Sunday to plan my meals for the week, and where I'm going to eat them.

 

Having stuff ready and down on paper, or on your calendar on your phone, can be a huge help.  Good luck!