Every Gym’s Nightmare

Hi Kelly-
I have a question for you. I do Zumba and kickboxing 3-5 times per week and strength train twice weekly (with a trainer) and have been on this schedule since May 2009. I was eating 1300-1500 calories daily but switched to 1500 daily the beginning of October. I’m 5′2 and 176. The thing is this: I have not lost any weight. From May until now, I’ve only lost 6 pounds. My body fat percentage has gone down 8% during this time as well, but I’m really discouraged. I’ve been honest with myself and I know I’m right on with my eating and workouts. I’m just confused as to what is going on. I’m working out and eating right to be healthy, but at the same time I would like to lose some weight as I know that’s part of being healthy. I’ve talked to my trainer and she seems to be just as unsure about what is going on as I am. Any thoughts?

Thanks so much! By the way, I love your blog!
Bekah

Yeah, this is a hard one, because obviously your trainer has a better idea of what you are doin than I do, and if she’s stumped, Im probably not going to be much help.

To have your body fat go down 8% (which is huge- congrats!) and there be little weight loss is odd, but not unheard of (and definitly frustrating.) 6 pounds is still a loss, though. I’m not going to be able to give you definite answer, but your weight for your height is quite high, and being at that weight, for what I assume is an extended period of time cause do some damage to your body and your metabolism. It might just take a while for your body to adapt to the changes, or there might be something going on.

The only things I can think of are:

- Are you weighing at the same time everyday- on an empty stomach?

- The calories (as long as they are within reason) aren’t as important as what you are eating. If you are eating a lot of starchy carbs- those stick with you for a while, or salt, which can cause water retention (which is usually in processed foods as opposed to the salt you are putting on top of you food- but that has a big effect, too)

- If you have any medical conditions, those may be a factor

- If you are on any medications, those may be a factor

Like I said, 6 pounds is still a loss. Its only been since October that you have upped your calories to 1500 (good job, 1300 is pretty low) so perhaps the switch will kick up your weight loss a bit. It takes a while for your body to adjust to a calorie change, but I would expect you should see some results soon.

If you trust your trainer, (that’s not a dig at her, some people really don’t think their trainers know what they are talking about, but stay with them anyway) I would go see a doctor just to make sure their aren’t any problems, but if you think your routine might not be intense enough, or the focus you are looking for, then see a different trainer to look over your routine and diet to make sure that its the right program for you.

Don’t beat yourself up,- you are probably doing most everything right, and by picking up an exercises habit, you are already way ahead of the game. Be happy you are making improvements on your body and try and focus on the other positive things that are changing, even if it might not be the fast weight loss you are looking for. Sometimes it takes a while for your body to respond.

Hi Kelly,

thanks,
Jenny

To read Jenny’s first Q and A she is referring to, head to Q and A: Over Doing It

your body IS slowed- you dont want it to slow down, you want it to speed bak up. over trained means it stopped working on you to protect itself, so even if you force it to workout, you arent going to get any of the benefits from it because it has slowed and stopped all of your body processes.

when it is able to rest- ie. not made to work out, it will start to trust you again, and start your body processes back up (burning calories, building muscle, etc.) Your bodies job is not to die, so if you make it work too hard, it thinks you re trying to kill it, and will do everything in its power not to let you. So it holds on to calories to preserve the energy (fat, calories) you are so desperately trying to burn off it.

Id keep your calories the same, because once your body kicks back in, its going to need them (you arent burning as many calories when you are over training, but when your body starts to work again, it will need those calories because it will be burning them) so you might lose weight by eating the same. If you find you arent, then I would lower them slightly, because you may be working out at such a high intensity/frequency, that even your slowed state is burning a lot of calories.

That was confusing.

Leave your calories alone, because you will need them when your body kicks in, but if you dont notice loss, I would re-do The Harris Benedict Formula and then figure out how many you need for your activity level. It takes a bit for your body to respond to rest, but not too long, so you should be able to do the equation and have it be accurate, because your body will be responding fully to the level of exercise you are doing.

Hey, Kelly. I have a tough one for you :).
I have love handles and they drive me crazy. They are pretty much the only part of my body where I have excess fat. I’m 19 years old, 5′5″ and 108 lbs. I do cardio 6 days/week for 40 minutes, keeping my average heart rate at about 180 bpm (I also do strength training 3 days/week). But the love handles won’t go away! I try doing lower back exercises and oblique exercises but nothing works! Any suggestions? Thank you so much!

Ari

Tough one- HA! You can’t phase this….

First of all- your average heart rate is 180? How does your heart not explode? Not trying to scare you- some people’s heart rates run differently, but holy crap that’s high. I can’t even get my peak heart rate past 175 let alone sustain it.

I think this might be one of those things where if I could actually look at you, I would call you crazy. 108 pounds on a 5′5″ body leaves little room for any extra body fat, but Ill give you the benefit of the doubt.

First thing- make sure you are wearing a bra that fits. If it cuts into you, it makes fake love handles- the same way too small pants creates back fat where before there was none.

Ok- fitness advice. Obviously cardio is going to burn excess fat, but since you probably have very little, lets talk strength training.

Love handles are not in the oblique area, although a lot of people make that mistake. The muscle right underneath your arm pits and run down the side of you back, that on really buff people make that nice little V of the upper back, are your lats. Do lat pulldowns till you can’t do lat pull downs no more and barbell rows. Preferably with a weight that maxes you at about 10-12 reps (I like how I can’t make colloquial comments like that, because people take me seriously.)

Keep up with the obliques and lower back, too, because a strong core is very important to getting a sleek back. And preventing injury, and good posture and blah, blah, blah…..

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Hi Kelly,

Thank you
Annonymous

You kind of answered your own question in the question. You have to stop the binges first, then the urge goes away- you have to fight. It would be easy if it were the other way around- if you didn’t feel compelled to binge, you wouldn’t have to do it.

You have to fake it till you make it. White knuckle it. All those other cliches.

Of course its easier said than done. The first thing you have to do is decide that you have a choice. You always have a choice. Each bite of food that you put into your mouth is another opportunity to decide to stop. I used to have the mentality that, “well, I already started binging so I might as well finish it up because I blew bit already” but this is the wrong way of thinking- its just making excuses for yourself. Each step is a success, so if you stop one bite into the binge, or one bite

So what happens? You start to binge, and try and stop, but you get anxious. All you can think about it finishing your binge, and you won;t be able to calm down until you do. You might physically get shakey, or your heart might beat fast and your head spins (sounds like drugs, no?) but guess what? That feeling goes away. Research shows it goes away within an hour, but mine usually didn’t take that long.

The trick now is to distract yourself. You can go about it one of two ways: you can tackle it head on and try and sort through your feelings, or you can ignore them completely. Generally, in the beginning its best to just distract yourself, and do anything you can to pass the time: call a friend, go for a walk- but its usually best if you get out of the house and away from food until the urge goes away. Then, when you get better are resisting the urge, you can use your anxiety to try and figure out why you respond to food the way you do: why do I want to binge right now? what happened that is causing me to react this way? journal about it. talk to yourself out loud. Lay on the floor and stare at the ceiling and just listen to all the thoughts racing through your head and shoot each one down. No i dont need to binge. No it wont make me feel better. No this isnt going to solve anything. No this is not the person I want to be.

The urge will go away when you stop giving into the binges. You are binging because its the only way you know how to deal with your anxiety, but when you dont let yourself do it anymore, you will naturally lose the need to. The clearer your mind gets, and the better you feel about yourself after resisting a few times, you’ll start to realize exactly what triggers you and find a way to deal with it head on- not in a self destructive way. Good luck.

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Hey Kelly!

-Amy Hansen

Amy- there are a few things to consider:

1) The Harris Benedict formula is to figure out how many calories you need to maintain your weight. In order to safely lose weight (about 1 pound a week) you want to subtract about 500 calories from that (500 calories equals 3,500 over a week: 3,500 calories are in a pound, so viola!) so in order to lose, you should be eating around 1,800-2,00 calories a day. Bleh, math.

2) 1,200- 1,500 is way too low. You aren’t going to drop weight if you don’t eat enough- which makes all that exercise you are doing a waste. I say it over and over, but if your body is starving, not matter how much you make it work, it isn’t going to burn calories, so you definately shouldnt be anywhere under 1,600, especially for the weight you are at.

3) Your body only needs a day in between to heal from strength training so you can split your strength training up a number of different ways. You can do full body each time, you can alternate upper and lower (which means one week you will do upper twice and one week you will do lower twice) or you can split it into random muscle groups, or you can do full body one day, then abs and core the next- it really doesnt matter. As long as you give your muscles one day of rest in between workouts (at least) you’ll be fine. Remember: We give our bodies too much credit. Weeks are a man-made thing, your body doesnt think in terms of weeks, so dont worry so much about being even. However, 2 times a week isnt bad, so don;t fret too much

4) Some good sites to check out for exercises are: Youtube.com (just type in the body part you want to work) PTontheNet.com (you have to search a bit for free stuff, but if you sign up for a membership- that’s what my work uses when we aren’t feeling creative), Workoutz.com. There are a million. Just search free workout videos and you’ll find anything you could ever want.

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Kelly,
I have a question/want your opinion. I eat the same thing for breakfast, lunch, and snack everyday. I do different workouts each night (cardio/strength training). I would like to lose a few pounds but I am at a steady weight. Do you think that eating the same thing everday has some sort of affect on the body? Should you change up what you eat? It doesn’t bother me (I actually enjoy it), but what do you think?
Thanks so much!
p.s. I love your blog! So informative!

I’m not a nutritionist but I did a ton of research and was not able to find anywhere that says eating the same foods is bad, as long as the foods you are eating are healthy, and you are getting enough calories. A well balanced diet is important, so if any of those foods you eat everyday are deficient in any nutrients, you’re diet is going to be completely lacking in that area. If you are nervous about that, consider varying your intake, or as long as it is safe for you, take a daily multivitamin.

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Kate

Hi Kelly,

Ally

First- congrats on your recovery and doing so well. 8 days may not seem like much to other people, but for a binger, that seems like an eternity.

I can’t give you specific advice, because everyone that suffers from an eating disorder responds to different treatments differently, but what I can do is tell you how I handled food during recovery, and tell that for your specific situation only you are your psychologist are going to be able to figure out whats best for you.

Generally, for bingers and bulimics, strict in terms of food is your friend. Generally, a binge (and purge, if applicable, as in my case) is caused by feeling like you ate too much and “blew it” already, triggering your anxiety. Once that anxiety is triggered and burning in the pit of your stomach and clogging your brain, you do the only thing you know how to make it go away: eat more. That seems stupid to people that dont understand, and even to me now as I am recovered, but food is what bingers use to make them feel good- either numb or calm.

The only way I could explain a binge/purge episode to someone that didnt understand an had it make sense was this:

I would start out eating a normal meal, doing my best to eat healthy. Suddenly, I would feel like I ate too, much and the anxiety would set in. I had that full stomach feeling, which equalled weak and fat, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it, obsessing about it, beating myself up, and I could not stop the anxiety, it consumed me. I knew that the only way I could stop thinking about food, was to not want food anymore, so I would eat everything insight until I was so full I couldn’t walk. Right after a binge was the only time I felt calm because i didnt want want food- and every other second of every day I always thought about food. I knew i was going to purge afterward so the calories didnt bother me, so I would sit for about 5 minutes enjoying my clam, and then the fear of digesting the calories sets in and I have to go purge. The calm, or high, whatever you call it, only lasts a few minutes, which is why bulimics binge and purge over and over again, up to 8 times a days.

My counselor made me eat strictly- but under my own terms. I had to keep a food journal, and he gave me a calorie goal and as long as I stayed there and didnt purge, we called it a good day. eventually, we incorporated more healthy foods and slowly upped my intake to not trigger me. The first hurdle is to stop the binges, and the only way to do that is to stop before you get to far which takes more self control than anyone can imagine, but eventually it get easier.

Your counselor and you will come up with strategies to stop binges and eat healthily. You wont have to go it alone, and you will find some thing that will work for you but might not for anyone else. The binges are the first thing to tackle, so dont over obsess about your everyday calories- thats what sends you into a binge episode in the first place.

Good luck!

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Good Morning Kelly! I have a question for you I’m 30 (omg I can’t believe I said that out loud!) and have three children. I am in pretty good shape, run 5 or 6 mornings, along with some ab workouts, light yoga..and so on. But, I can’t seem to get rid of the “pouch” on my stomach. I am sure you have heard this before..the little belly from having three kids kind of pouch! Do you have any suggestions or workouts that I can try!

Thanks!
Donna

Here’s the deal: if you are talking about loose SKIN, you can’t really do anything about it. Its a skin elasticity issue, and its part of being a mommy and making 3 beautiful kids (i’be never seen them, but Im assuming.) Some extra muscle tone underneath can help tighten the appearance, but won’t bring the spring back. Its a sucky fact of life.

If it is excess fat, you simply need to burn the fat. The only thing that blasts belly fat, or any fat really, is cardio. You need to be doing at least 30 minutes of moderate intensity cardio exercise (elliptical, walking at a fast pace, jogging, bike, spin class, etc) 5-6 days a week. That will get rid of the fat around your middle, and everywhere else. There really isnt a specific workout that will help more than another- you need to up the intensity of your workouts. If you do the 5-6 days of cardio consistently for a few months and still don’t notice a change, then I would look to your diet. Diets high in saturated fat cause people to gain weight around their middle more than anywhere else, so you should be conscious of that as well. Ab and core exercises are of course important, but you can;t show off your muscle tone if you have residual fat covering it up, so cardio, cardio, cardio.

Here is a good list of exercises to try to target your abs.Ab Stuff. ‘Nuff Said.

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I joined a gym 5 weeks ago and have been training with a female trainer 2 days a week, doing 30 minutes weight training sessions. I’m so sick of people in the business saying women can’t get bigger because I am. I told her I don’t want to be any bigger in terms of total size. I want to be smaller but firm! Now, my jeans are so tight in my thighs that I really can’t wear them, even though I see fat loss around my belly and firmness everywhere. What is happening? Is this just not for me? Should I be doing pilates? Is my genetic makeup for getting muscular more easily? I want to give this a fair chance, but I’m so annoyed that my clothes aren’t fitting! It’s very inconvenient to say the least. Any thoughts?
Caroline, Sacramento, CA

You didnt give me the specifics of your routine, so without knowing what you are doing, I can only make general suggestions.

The first thing I would point to is that you aren’t doing enough cardio. I dont know if you are or aren’t, but you should be getting in at least 30 minutes 5 days a week (or an hour 3 days, etc- you can slice it up however you want.) Lifting weights is given too much credit in the calorie burning department, even though yes more muscle burns calories at rest, and you CAN get your heart rate up high enough during weight training that it can count as cardio, but you really have to work at it and basically never let your heart rate drop. You have to burn calories to drop weight (or prevent weight gain), and you have to do cardio in order to do that.

You also might be eating too much. If you have adjusted your intake because of your workouts, primarily to eat more calories, this can be the culprit (especially if not doing cardio.) Again, people overestimate calorie burn, and unless you are burning more than 500 calories a day, you usually don’t need to eat more (this is a general statement for the average exerciser- athletes are different.)

2 days week, 30 minutes of weights is not enough to be gaining enough muscle size. You can be gaining muscle, especially if you weren’t lifting weights prior, but you shouldnt be gaining size- you are gaining strength. If your rep range for your exercises is around 10-15, this is definately true. If you are lifting weights heavy enough that you can only do 6-8 reps, then lighten the weights. Some women are more easily able to get muscular than other women, its a hormone thing, but even for them, they have to be doing a lot more weight lifting than that- thats barely the recommended amount of strength training just to be healthy (medical and fitness professionals recommend 2-3 days of strength training per week.)

Be honest with your trainer- thats what they are there for, and that’s why you are paying them. Tell them you are uncomfortable, and you want answers. Ask why you are doing everything you are doing- and tell them the results you want. Something is missing- my guess is its cardio or food, but they may have you lifting too heavy of weights. Tell your trainer you want to switch it up, try more cardio based exercises (which you can still do while lifting weights- like doing circuits or cutting the weights down real low and doing plyometrics, or full body, fast paced movements with weights to get your heart rate up.) If you arent exercising beyond your two day a week sessions, you really need to be. Get in some cardio, try a pilates class, which developes muscles differently (longer and leaner) or find something else, but you really need to be working out 4-5 days a week.

I know thats a frustrating answer, but I dont know your workout routine- your trainer does. If you dont trust them, or if they cant answer your questions to your satisfaction, or you feel like they dont listen to you- you need to move on from them. Training isnt really a “Im the prfessional, do as I say” type relationship, its a “im here to help you, tell me what you want, Ill do my best to get you there, but we are probably going to have to make some changes along the way.” They should be responsive to that, so if not, again, move on.

I like to track my workouts but don’t know of any good online resources that are free. Do you use one?

Thanks!!
-Ashley

I don’t track my workouts, and I don’t really know of any sites to find them for free, either. What do you guys use?

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