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Like you have found there are many ways to go at this. And the right way is really only about you and what you want. What is most important. Figure that out and then go from there. If you want abs and people say you are too small to have abs.....who cares if you want them then get them then worry about something else. If strength is bothering you most focus on that. If size then focus on that. But THE KEY is to focus on ONE thing. Don't try and ride two horses with one ass. That just a great way to not accomplish either. So once you figure out your one true goal for the next say 8-16 weeks (depending on goals) the design your habits, eating, and workouts around that singular goal. For nutrition for either goal. Figure out calories needed first. (size gains you need surplus, fat loss you need a deficit). Next focus on macros. IE 1g/lb bw give or take. No need for more. And it is nice and round. Carbs let be dictated by energy and preference and split carbs and fats into your remaining calorie allotment. As far as timing just try and get 3-6 meals in a day. Protein spikes 4-5hrs apart. Break macros apart how you like but if you want to focus on this focus carbs around workouts and fats away from workouts and pro split through the day. Next focus on sources of food and supplements are dead last. Honestly hit point 1 and 2 and that will dictate 80% of your progress. Either way figure out a plan both lifting and nutrition you can do consistency for a long time. Consistency and persistence are what dictate who wins and loses in this marathon.

First off dont lose weight when pregnant. That is a massive no no. You dont need to gain as much weight as someone who is thing but you also cant lose weight that is a great way to set up your kid for many problems off the bat. Second I am going to go against the above poster and say you can lose weight without eating veggies. Is it harder? Sure. Is it possible? Yes. The keys to long term weight loss. Dig into why you want to lose weight? Is it be healthy for you kids? Be able to do more activities with you family? Set a better example? Feel better? feel more confident? Any of those? All of them or more. Either way sit down and really dig into why you want to change. Next step accept it a long long long road. You have a solid 80lbs to lose. That is at the very best most optimal (ie wont happen because bodies are smart) 40 weeks of dieting at 2lbs loss per week. That is 3/4 or more of a year of dieting at the very best case. That is a long time. I would say at least a year of dieting is needed. So when you chose to make changes to your diet. If you cannot see yourself doing that all year long. Then it is not maintainable. Make SMALL changes and work to make them habits. Whether right away that is just one less bowl of cereal. Or drink no calories. Or trade one serving of pasta for one serving of veggies. Anything. Make them small and make them habits so you dont have to think about them. Change your home enviroment. Studies show leaner people have readily available fruit at least 2 choices that are easy to see and grab and they do not have snack food visible. Have easy to grab healthy snacks and protein options that are easy to grab and eat. This allows better easy choices when hungry. Again small things add up. As you make these small changes habits you keep moving to a bit larger change which will now be easier because you already have a foundation

This combined with eating less than you need based on your body weight, activity, hormones ect. When I work with people or myself I generally look at what am I eating now and what is my body weight doing? Am I losing, maintaining or gaining? Then I also look at what have I or the client done in the past? What has worked and what did I like about it? What hasnt worked and what didn't I like? Now what can I design that fits me, my personality, psychology and body that will allow me to stick to a deficit without making me yank my hair out, eat my arm after I binge on the ice cream. So it takes trial and error to really hone in on what will work. But if you can't see yourself eating the way you have a diet set up, in a year or two then it isn't the right option and you need to look elsewhere. It normally means it is restricting you too much and will set you up for failure at some point. It doesnt mean you are weak or can't do it it just means that option is not something that is compatible with you. For myself I have a couple of choices depending on my mindset and where I am at. Right now I am in fat loss phase and using a cyclic approach. It is a bit more than what many people like but it fits me. I am really good at pushing very hard for a few days with a nice back off day. This turns into 3-4 days of protien and green veggies only. And then a high carb day that is around 300-600g of carb (which honestly for me isn't a lot especially with low fat). And this allows me to lose a good rate with no loss of strength or energy. Infact I hit a PR front squat this weekend. I am even maxing my front squat 6x a week. Still not dead still not losing strength. If you want to read about the squat or diet I have articles posted. http://www.thewhitecoatfitness.com/the-non-moderate-diet-approach/and the squat http://www.thewhitecoatfitness.com/squats-steak/ The video of the front squat (just 315 nothing crazy) is on my sites facebook page. I hope some of this helps. But also dig into your true motivation for the weight loss. Is it too look awesome naked? For health? For performance? What ever the reasons are write them down and put them somewhere to look at each and everyday. This will help build intrinsic motivation which is needed for the long run. Enjoy the process. Love yourself how you are now and just improve upon it. Don't wait to be happy once you achieve your goal. Do it now so you can enjoy everyday.

Like it has been mentioned. This is something a large majority (I wont say everyone) feels at the start and probably most of the way through this journey. A couple things that hopefully will help Its ok to feel that way and want the attractionIts ok to want to look better naked, on the beach ectThink about why the body and look will help you (is it confidence?, is it openness? is the ability to relate? the ability to start convos?) these are normally the deeper motivations behind the wanting to look better for attractionSo take the above reason and focus on that.Make a set goal and path to get thereFocus on the small steps of acheivement and reward yourself at each success.Have a few things each day that you commmit to doing each day that if you succeed doing them, they will move you towards your goal. Make sure these are easy enough to commit to and succeed with. Small things add up.Lastly each night write 1-3 things you love about yourself. Each and every night. And yes you must write it out. Bonus points for saying it out loud as you do it.Hope these things help. But just remember you are already doing great in starting your journey. The mindset can be very hard to change. I am 6+ years deep and still working on the mindset

A little surprised no one hit on the fact body weight is a poor determiner of true progress towards fat loss. Especially for a new trainer. Unless I missed something in the OP sounds like someone went from sittng around a lot to lifting weights a lot. With shifts in how clothes are fitting and looking. While getting stronger. So unless you are needing to hit a body weight for a competition or work bw is not always the best measurement. It can be one. But for women especially it can be quite a problem. Monthly menstrual cycles are amazing at throwing a massive monkey wrench into weights. (not all females have this but the majority do and it can be 5-15lbs over a 1.5weeks depending on the woman) So for bw, When did you have your last BM? How regular are these? Have you eaten anything that would be higher in carb than normal? Higher in sodium? Is your period happening soon or now? Have you increased your fiber or veggie intake recently? A whole variety of questions can be asked to tease out why weight can be an issue This is where tracking measurements and progress pictures comes in. These are needed IMO because people are too emotionally invested in weight loss and fat loss to notice the changes that are occurring especially slow ones that crop up over a period of months rather than days. To the original question of is counting needed? It depends is my answer. What are you end goals? How lean? How great of performance of your body do you require? Are you wanting elite level lifts? Extreme low body fat levels? Then tracking is needed. If you want to look good with your clothes off and perform better than most in the gym counting is most likely needed for 2 weeks and on and off to keep your eye tuned up. Once you count for a few weeks you will be able to calibrate what is ball park of what you need and you can adjust from there. Personally I don't count anymore other than on and off if i really get the itch to. But it turns me into an OCPD person and detracts from my life. So I dont do it. So I find ways to make sure I can meet my goals with that difference. For me I like a cyclic diet of low days (very low days) and high days (high carb) for my dieting phases. I eat pro and veggies on low days and 3-4 days of that I hit a high day of very high carb and medium pro. Then continue. This keeps me happy. Keeps me losing fat. Performance stays up. No medium days. I don't do well with mediocrity. I have no middle gear for better or worse and lack willpower. So this is what I developed for myself to counter act that. Full article if you want to read more here. http://www.thewhitecoatfitness.com/the-non-moderate-diet-approach/

This is great. These are what we are taught to get at for motivational interviewing. We have to get patients to illicit the answers to these questions before they will ever change. Whether that is quitting smoking, controlling diabetes, weight loss, anything. It all stems from these questions which get at internal motivation and how ready they are to change.

I have seen much different figures though they are not large enough to create a massive effect. I think this view is short sighted in light of the massive difference in hormonal effects and how well each uses fat and carbs. I have yet to run into someone that carries a lot of muscle and is lean that can't eat a lot more than someone who has replaced their muscle weight with fat. IE 180lbs and 10% vs 180s and 15% the former can eat a lot more and much more than 2kal/lb of muscle from that above calc

I will keep it kinda short and just give some general thoughts. I will be happy to fill in extra detail if you desire. First and foremost. You have done awesome. You have dropped a ton of weight. Better than what many people do. I have patients who have heart attacks that still can't seem to find the will to lose that much weight. So congrats!! Next. Learn to accept yourself and be happy with who you are now and not have it depend on your body weight or certain look. Now I didnt read anything to make this actually be applicable but its a topic that seems to not be covered often. If you are saying things like "I will be happy once I lose x" or "I will be happy at this weight x" that means you are basing happiness off that particular thing. Best case scenario you won't be happy until then and the process up until then won't but fun. You will be unhappy with it all. Learning to love the process will help compliance and overall enjoyment and build long term motivation and success. Next try and build things to keep you in a calorie deficit and those things should make life easy. Find foods that fill you up and allow you to eat a large volume with little calories. Try and eat 50g of carb from strawberries. I imagine you won't have room to crush a lot of other food especially if you are hitting a good amount of protein in your diet. Lean sources of protein are great at filling you up. Green veggies. Have these at every meal if you can. Have some handy snacks that are crunchy and calorie poor. LIke carrots, apples are nice too. Try other things like prepping your food in bulk so that you always have some ready to go meals. Pack gym clothes to have on hand to make sure workouts get done. Try intermittent fasting so you can eat larger meals and not worry about eating for portions of the day. Ok it wasn't short but hopefully there are somethings to help there.

As long as you aren't crash dieting, even then its pretty hard, you will not be losing muscle if you are strength training. There are plenty of studies that support this notion and muscle loss doesn't happen until end points of bf level. Even still, it is not a large amount and the muscle will be back as soon as the calories come back. At that weight you should only worry about fat loss. Continue on a solid strength training program and let the fat shed off. Your strength will come back after your dieting stint if you end up losing any

Calories up bw down. Wins

Wow with that level of steps in a day that is crazy. Very active. Might want to look into a cyclic type diet. Some high days some low days. Rather than all low. Your activity is quite high and you do a lot of lifting so the carbs should go to good use. You can adjust the ratio of low to high carb days based on results. And you track everything, very obvious, so you will pick up patterns very fast. Just yet another option

Passing free anything, espeically ice cream is a giant leap in my eyes. I love free stuff. Even if I don't like it. Its free I want it. Its a ridiculous mindset but it is what it is. The doctors lounge sucks. It has so much free food, muffins, scones, bagels. People buys pizza all the time. It is a chore to avoid. Great job

Just have to say done a leangains method for almost 3 years. Mostly everyday. But some days life gets in the way. Finace wants to grab breakfast. Want to go out and have breakfast. Anything. The biggest and best thing I have learned is dont stress the minutia of it. If you are off by a few hours or a meal goes late or early don't worry about it. If for a few days you eat at 12/12 that works too its fantastic it all works. Your overall macros drive 90% of progress. Maybe more. Not when and how much you eat. The extra stress from trying to "do it right" Will create worse effects than "doing it wrong" Just my little bit. I just love the convenience. I dont feel it helps fat loss any extra.

Gotta say I agree. You can do a lot of cardio and recover. Most will actually help with recovery unless you are doing a bunch of HIIT cardio.

I am gonna go against the grain here. I don't like developing poor relationships by food and banning food. The food I like I work into my diet. This means a need to count my macros. But this removes the huge urge to binge and feel deprived and binge and feel hateful and repeat. That is a nasty cycle to get into. I did it. It wasn't fun. Now I have it in my diet each day. Little bits here and there. Keeps the build up from happening. I know that each day I get a little something. Also when I get cravings. I stop and think about it. I recognize it, that it is there. And then analyze my mood. What brought this on, how do I feel, is this true hunger, what am I lacking that I feel i need to derail myself. After really thinking about it I accept it. And if I still want that food after, then I have it, No guilt, no punishment. I am working really hard from the punishment cycle and guilt and thinking I am loser because I have cravings. Just not healthy. I accept they are there and normal. Now after that, I feel much better, diet better and really the most important part I am happier

Sorry I missed it hasnt been straight through dieting. I guess I thought 7 months was straight through. And IMO that is much too long to be dieting in a row without a month or two broken in there with smart maintenance mode. If I missed it I am sorry point me to right spot. But was does your lifting look like? What type and how much cardio do you do? How much activity do you have outside of workingout? Abs are just another way to work things. Burns calories. Will make them thicken up some. I got down to some pretty low body fat but abs still werent a stand out part. Until I got to training them. I wrote a full article on the too long story which I really just summarized lol. http://www.thewhitecoatfitness.com/15-fat-loss-strategies/ Dieitng is just like strength training. Progressive overload. Each stall point. You either cut cals or add exercise. I almost always prefer to add exercise since I love food. So once you've been at maintenance for a bit start to walk your way down the ladder of drop cals stall increase exercise. Stall repeat. Also have an article on fat loss tips and working on a free ebook on dieting.

Could not add more if I wanted to. PIck one goal. Singular goal and kill it. Then focus on the other. The lifting strategy need not be different just the amount of food.

I think its time for a weightloss break. Reset everything. Your mind your body are both rocked. You've made amazing strides and fought hard. This isn't giving up. This is giving yourself a break to regroup. Get feeling better. Get back to eating more food. Enjoy it. Keep doing your cardio and eye balling (track every once in a while to keep your eye sharp). Keep making good food choices most of the time. But use this time to reflect and take in all you've accomplished. Take a month or two of this to really get back in the mindset of now its time to push again. Once your energy is back and you are fully motivated to kick it down again, then do it. IF works well but isnt for everyone. I love it. I don't think inherently it gives massive benefit other than it allows large meals and can be very convenient (no packing). If you tried high fat low carb try some other macro splits and see what works. Maybe at this leaner state you can tolerate more carbs and like it. Maybe not but won't know until you try. For me again, my body stops cutting with low carbs and only gets going with high carbs. Add HIIT. Add complexes. Add in some ab training. Whole host of things to add once you get back at it

Coffee with coconut milk and splenda, crystal lite and diet pop. Then water during workouts

I've had this before. I am crazy so take this with a grain of salt I did 2-3 workouts a day. HIIT in the morning of some sort. (sometimes just liss) 10-20min HIIT or 30-60min walk LISS (walking) around lunch. 60min walk PM weights (Legs, push, pull, legs, push, pull, arms repeat) 1.5hr Did this for 3 months. Loved it. Strength up. Body fat down. Weight the same. Again I am crazy and my body is very used to a ton of training. Years of 2 sports at once with many training sessions a day. Carried through into a very active life basically as much as I can in terms of walking and weights. Its less now with clinicals for med school but still like to hit weights 6x a week 1.5hrs and walk 1hr a day

Please pick any one of the vast array of proven training regimines and learn from those before franksteining 5 exercise principals into one big ugly workout. Seriously. Pick strong lifts. or 5/3/1 or hell a body part split and hit 8-12 sets per body part. Doesn't matter but for now you are too new to be designing odd workout conglomerates like this. And please please please work you legs. I promise they are not over powering your upper body. And for cardio sure doing a burpee ladder can work great. But don't combine that with a weight workout And pullups aren't working your chest

Just to reiterate. Get your protein in. Monitor food. Weighing and tracking is best and most accurate but if that is too much for you just make sure to get protein first then get some fruit and veggie then if you are still hungry fill in with carb sources. Aim for your bw in protein so if you weigh 150lbs hit 150g of protein. Break that up over how ever many meals you want. Add veggies to each major meal. Add fruit as a snack or to a meal or two. After that add some carbs in. The key is monitoring in some way so you know what to take away. If you never track something you never know what you can change since it is always changing

Lol yep

I am highly embarrassed by how little doctors (the majority) know about weight lifting, physical activity and nutrition. I end up biting my tongue a lot since I can't sit and argue how wrong they are since they are the ones who give me the grades and most do not like being called out by a lowly medical student. I had a nice run through the medical system because of lack of understanding of lifting/training/diet on liver enzymes. Spent a lot of doctor visits, ultrasounds, CT scans and I finally said enough is enough when they wanted to biopsy it. I cited a bunch of studies for them to digest on the effects all of those things can have on the liver and they finally came around and seem quite dumbfounded. With the diet personally I've never found an RN or doctor I truly trusted since most of them put out info that just never made sense. I find places like this to be better for finding diet info. Stick with a diet that gets in a good amount of protein and fat and carbs. Start tracking food first off. And try diets that are low carb, medium split and higher in carb and see which works best for you and which you can stick to. What you can stick to the easiest will determine what works best. Even if a low carb diet drops fat off fast for you, if its torture it just wont stick in the long run. You can certainly focus on weight workouts while you focus on fat loss. You most likely wont hit massive PRs as you try to diet down but that doesn't mean you should stop your weight workouts. Hit those as hard as you can. That will help retain muscle/metabolism and use your diet to lose the fat.

Alright the diet has been hammered enough. And I agree with the above. If you are truly only eating 1200 calories every single day with no slip ups ever. This is weighed everyday the same stuff and calculated then there are other problems that need addressing Hip pain. Describe this further....how long has this been going on? Specifically what brings it on? What type of pain? Dull? Sharp? Lightening? Burning? Does it radiate? Does anything help it? Does movement help? Is it worse in the morning or evening? Now without those answers a couple things that everyone on the planet can use (yeah big statement). Mobility for glutes, hamstrings, and HIP FLEXORs. And more glute strength. To address the first. Work on a couch stretch for 2+ min at least a day. http://www.mobilitywod.com/2010/08/episode-02-dont-go-in-the-pain-cave/ Also addressed is some hip stuff there. Glute exercises. Glute bridges. Single leg do sets of 20-50 multiple times a day. Glute thrusters at the gym weight them up and crank out a few sets every time you are there. Kettle belt swings. Great for both stretching and hip strength. Lunges and squats and hammer form on both.