Hey everyone,

A little weight loss advice would be very much appreciated. A bit of background, I started my weight loss journey about 3 weeks ago, and since then I've only lost 1lb as of yesterday. I'm damn proud of that one pound weight loss, but I would like to speed up my progress just a bit to about 2lbs. I'm not sure if it's my diet that's slowing me down, but I would like to hear everyone's advice.

When I first began my new lifestyle, I was getting in roughly 1,200 calories a day. But I realized that such a low caloric intake was no good for my body, especially since I work out two times a day, 5 days a week. So I upped my calories to somewhere in between 1,800 - 1,900 calories a day to compensate for all of the work I was putting in. I breakdown my calories into 6 small meals a day. I don't eat after 7, I drink around 100oz of water everyday and have almost eliminated all of my bad food vices.

My exercise plan consists of 1 and a half hours of cardio everyday. To make sure I'm really feeling the burn, I do interval training. I also get in 45 minutes of weight training. To give my body time to repair itself, I take 2 days off from my weight training program. Am I going at this the correct way, or should I scrap how I've been doing things, and work on a new game plan??

hey funky phantom it all sounds pretty good what you are doing and well done on making the choice to live healthier i was just wondering did you go to the doctor before you started your plan

Yep,

I went off to the doctor and he referred me to a nutrionist. She originally had me eating somewhere in the range of 1,500-1,600 calories a day; but that recommendation was based on not being as active as I am now. So I just added 200 extra calories to make up for all of the working out I was doing.

heya again u say u have only been following ur plan for 3 weeks are you doing measurements as it is a good idea to take measurements of ur waist hips thighs upper body etc as although you may only have lost one pound (which is great keep up the good work ) your measurements may be decreasing but if not its still early days and if you are at all concered go back to your doctor and see what he thinks hope this is helpful.

Your goal is to lose weight so lets explore how that works shall we? A pound of body fat is roughly 3500 calories, so that means you have to burn 3500 calories to drop a pound. How do you do that? Well most doctors don't recommend losing more that 2 pounds a week, thats 7000 calories over 7 days. Do I still have your attention?

So how do you lose 7000 calories in 7 days? Well you lose body fat by creating a calorie deficit for your body, that means you burn more calories than you take in. If you take in 2000 calories a day to maintain your weight then you could reduce your caloric intake by 500 calories to 1500 cal and work out and burn 500 calories, for a total reduction of 1000 calories a day. Is that making sense to you?

As far as weight training, you can't gain a large amount of muscle as you diet, but it will stop your body from catabolizing, or breaking down, your muscle tissue along with fat tissue. This means you could go lighter on your weight training, perhaps only 2 times a week so you don't injure or burn yourself out.

My opinion is that you aren't losing weight as fast as you could is because it sounds like you shocked your body right into a work out routine. This could have slowed your metabolism, you'll still lose, but as you get use to working out you should see results come a little faster.

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One word~overtraining. There is no need for 90 min sessions of aerobic training and 45 minute sessions per day. Though you said you take a 2 days off of weight training, why dont you take days off from aerobic training?

Depending on how long you were eating at such a low caloric intake could cause a weight loss stall. Your body is not used to all this new energy and nutrients.

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How Sweet It Is

Thanks for the replies guys.I totally get where everyone is coming from and will incorporate a lot of the advice you all have given. I'll also include adding in rest periods from aerobic training.

Once again,
Thanks a bunch