Lookin for Advice

[poetax]

Hey I'm Poetax, 25 and female. My height is 5'4" and I'm currently 150lbs

I've been looking for help with a few fitness questions and issues, and hope I have come to the right place to get answers.

 

Like most people here, I've had a long history of weight issues.  My whole family has always been overweight.  I remember in middle school realizing for the first time that I was always slightly bigger than everyone else.  My mother even told me that we have fat genes and I would be fat for the rest of my life.

 

In high school I played on the tennis team and always had a PE class on the side to stay in shape.  I probably weighed around 165-175 until the end of my senior year.  My family moved during my senior year and I spent the whole summer bored and working a data entering job before entering college.  my weight sky rocked to around 185ish, I stayed at that weight for a few years, and then fell into a depression about my future and body image.

 

I decided to take a year off collage and went to my parents house to make money.  My mother and father were just starting the new fad diet HCG (including the hormone treatment) (my father has already had gastric bypass surgery btw)  and asked if I would like to try.  To witch I responded any diet that bans the eating of bananas and all bread can not be a real healthy diet.  I decided to try using a calorie counter to prove to them that crazy diets are awful and only lead to yo-yoing back your weight when you can finally eat like a normal person again.

 

I counted everything I ate and began planning my meals the day before.  I dropped 55 lbs in 9 months by eating a very low calorie diet (at around 900 cal per day I dropped from 190lbs-135lbs) I was able to maintain the weight for about 8 months when I got married to my amazing husband.  About those fat genes mom....

 

However marriage to a boy tends to make ones eating a problem (they get to eat more than you)  and I found it difficult to stay thin. ( I really don't eat that much...) on year 2 of my marrage I am now 150 lbs and trying to lose weight again.  I have had no success because the food temptation is always there.  (There was a lot less food in a house full of dieting parents than there is with a hubby whose metabolism is a bottomless pit and who is terrible at cooking)  The memory of constantly being tired and low on energy during my diet makes me believe that what I was doing probably wasn't the right thing. 

 

I was one of the few females who took weight lifting classes during high school.  Recently my husband and I got a rec center membership to the new rec center a block away, and we have been going every other day to work out (about 6 weeks).  I lift weights for about 30 min and run 20 min, but am still having a hard time loosing the weight without seriously cutting back calories.  I do not want to go this route again.  I was skinny, but the skinny fat type.  When I lost weight my body had eaten a ton of my muscles along with my fat (I missed how strong I use to be... my max at squats in high school was 395) 

 

I want to loose weight and gain muscle mass, (cutting) however all the articles I have found on weightlifting have started with people who had already lost the weight and then gained the muscle.  Is there any way I can loose weight and at least maintain muscle mass without severely under eating?  ( I'm eating at around 1200 cal a day) I would like to lose weight till I'm 135lbs and maintain the weight while transferring more of it to my muscles?  

 

(ps I'm following the couch to 5k running plan and it's working great, but I am still not losing weight)

 

 

[aevans410]

Here is my take of your situation from your post, please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

1. At 5-4, you're ideal weight for your frame would be 119-135, that's only 15 pounds (on the high end) off of where you are now.

2. Calorie intake is the bottom number you should be eating, so if that amount satisfies you, go for it. Examine your sources of calories however, try to keep them as clean and whole (not processed) as possible.

3. You had said you were a weight lifter in high school, so I'm going to assume you had some atrophy since then. If that was the case, sometimes our body rebounds quickly after restarting weight training if you had previously trained. You may not be losing weight, but you could be losing fat. 

 

All that being said, you may be making progress but the scale isn't showing it. The scale is a funny thing. It can be your best friend or worst enemy. Scales lie, and if you can start to realize that, this journey becomes easier.  Don't pay so much attention to the number on that scale. Pay more attention to how your clothes fit, track your body fat percentage, look for visible changes.

 

Most importantly, pay attention to the fact that you have taken control of your life and decided to get healthier. If you can run 2 and a half miles, that's 2 and a half more than you ran 6 months ago and 2 and a half more than most of your family and friends can run.