Frustrated with Weight Loss (or the lack thereof)
Morning all,
I wanted to get some feedback from the peeps about weight loss and training. Let my start by saying that since I got into endurance sports a year ago I have dropped just over 40 pounds. I am still a big guy (6'4", 235) but I still have room to improve, especially after I did a body pod composition analysis a month ago (18% body fat)
About 7 weeks ago I got really serious about tracking calories and watching what I ate. I tracked every calorie through the "Livestrong" app on my iphone and really changed my diet to add in lots more fruits and veggies. Up until this point losing weight hasn't been a goal, which is part of what made the training so rewarding, it just seemed to happen.
My frustration is that the first 5 weeks or so of really watching my caloric intake and my diet I dropped about 2 pounds a week. I'm now at 235 and have been there for the last two weeks. In fact, after the weekend training routines I have started the week up a couple of pounds.
My questions are:
- Is it normal to plateau and do I need to do something different to jumpstart my system?
- I have been using my BMR as the daily caloric intake target. (2300 calories)
- To offset my training intake I have been eating more to offset whatever I have burned. (for example, I burned 2,250 calories this saturday and ate most of them either on the bike (750) or in recovery)
- Is there a better way to do this?
Thanks for any insight you can give me!
dusty
Comments
I think its normal to plateau. I'd focus more on the body comp(%fat) as opposed to weight. More muscle can be more better. More fat not so! Also in this heat, you have to stay hydrated and its easy to have swings of 2-5 lbs there. Do the work, watch the intake, let the rest sort itself out. In 2004, I raced Great Floridian at 160,(down from 208). Nice weight to run, but no power. Did LP a week ago at 172, so 12 lbs heavier and PR'd by 30 min despite walking 10 miles due to stomach shut down. Tougher course too. You've already made huge weight gains, it will get slower and harder to achieve going forward. If you can get down 10 say 10-12% BF, you will be in great shape for Florida. Getting lower than that would add some risks I think. Slow and steady progress, you've got plenty of time.
I'm 6'1" and 205lbs right now. My "ideal" racing weight, I'd love to be down to 195ish, like I was at IMFL2006 (first IM), but I had a lot less muscle then too. The EN high-intensity work (esp the OS) for many of us does nothing but build muscle.
Like Dave said, the focus should be on losing body fat weight and not muscle weight (altho I'm sure some of that will disappear with overall weight loss as well).
Yes, your body will plateau, somewhat quickly as it happened with me, I imagine. You just have to keep chipping away at it. I don't know of any way to jumpstart it.
You can try a few things like:
-doing any workout ~2 hours with nothing but water intake. I've worked my way up to a bike ride up to 3.5hrs with nothing but water (and NUUN for electrolytes). It's challenging, but doable.
-Running first thing in the morning in a fasted state, no breakfast. For me, this was mostly a mental hurdle to get over. I always eat breakfast! Well, no longer (for runs up to 75ish minutes).
Both of these stoke my metabolism (at least a placebo effect).
Your body will find its natural homeostatic state where it wants to be - even with all the training - and there's really nothing HEALTHYyou can do to it after that to make it go less.
Paging Dr. Penny...
EDIT: By the way, my usual 'diet' is about 80% paleo, nothing but produce and protein. When I first started it, I lost a little bit of weight, but not a whole lot. If you think about it, paleo-esque/ish is pretty much what weight lifters choose, lots of protein to build muscle. But my lab test numbers (cholesterol, iron, etc) are fan-freaking-tastic. What I'm trying to say, I guess, is that your weight and/or body fat % isn't your only guage of health.
Al T posted this link in another thread, and I found it very telling. I have had an extremely hard time losing weight the last few years even while training for an IM, but in the last few months I've pretty much cut out potatoes and refined carbs except for a few times here or there. I've been shocked that it's really made a difference in getting over the plateau that I've been stuck on for some time. Like Dave said, eventually you have to focus on body comp because weight won't be telling you the real story.
Dusty,
Here's what I have learn about my body, your results may be different.
1) I do seem to hit plateau's particular when I am cutting to many calories. I can usually get 3-4 weeks sometimes 5-6 of weight loss if I am cutting more than 500 calories/day. After that my body realizes that I'm cutting too much and seems stop. For me what tends to help jumpstart my system is going back to an even caloric balance for a few days to a week. Sometimes I extend this out to 1-2 weeks. Then I find that I can start losing again.
2) Make sure that the application you are using is calcluating your daily target for your weight correctly. This extends to workout estimates of calories burned. If either of these are off up or down it can cause problems.
3) For shorter workouts I don't offset just go with water. For the longer bikes if you got most of it on the bike then watch you are not taking on too many calories on the recovery side. I'd probably lower the amount ate on the bike some and have the recovery after. Of the 2250 calories how many did you eat on the bike? how long was the ride?
4) You just need to keep adjusting things as you lose weight you body needs a little less and it also adapts just like training. The problem I find with weight loss and training is that you are at a caloric deficit so you may get a few more days where you feel sluggish and tired. Finally thing for me is that I can lose weight in the OS easier that during IM as I tend to eat everything in sight when the distance increases. Other have trouble losing in the OS and need the distance to help out with weight loss.
Gordon
All good to points/tips. To add:
Thanks everyone, this is really good feedback. My goal is to get down to 10-12% body fat by IMFL. Certainly doable, just got a little frustrated with no progress over the past two weeks. I think I overreacted to the "plateau" and cut my caloric intake back too far because some of my mid-week workouts have been tough. A couple of tips that I am going to work on based on the feedback from everyone:
I am racing twice this weekend, international on saturday and sprint on Sunday so next week will be my first back on the long weekend bike rides. Be interesting to see how these changes help me feel during the middle of the week.
BTW, after I get out of the pool I am hungry enough to eat a side of beef, having plenty of good nutrition around is key for me or I will just devour anything in sight. That happen to anyone else?
dusty
Read this:
A Practical Strategy for Improving Body Composition, describes what I do and have learned. You have soooo much time until IMFL. 1lb per week should be easy, as long as you're disciplined about logging everything. I've found that when I log everything, the act of logging a failure keeps me from making the failure in the first place. When I don't log, I tend to lose my mind, like I did yesterday at the Mexican market when I tossed a bag of peanut M&M's in the cart (500cals) and had eaten them all in about 3 minutes...
Dusty,
I would echo the coaches comments on the long bike. There's no need to get light headed on either bike and it's about getting to the next workout as well.
Gordon
1) Remember weight does not give you information about body composition. You could be losing fat and gaining muscle. If you are serious about changing body comp, get re-bodpod'ed every 3 - 4 months.
2) DO NOT cut your pre-workout, during workout calories or post-workout. You want to be sure your workouts are the best they can be both for training and calorie burn purposes. If you can eat something before and have an awesome workout you may burn more calories and work harder than if you skipped the pre- and during workout foods. If you cut recovery food, you may compromise the quality of your NEXT workout.
3) Here is how I work out calorie for people. BMR x activity factor for non-workout activity. If you sit at a desk all day then use 1.3. Here is a link to a list of activity factors. Think only non-workout activity when you pick one. http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/harris-benedict-equation/ Then subtract 500 calories per day. DO NOT go below your BMR. If you consistently eat below your BMR you will slow it down. That is how much you need to eat to lose 1 pound per week if you did not work out. Then, add the calories for your workouts. You need to cover the calories for your workouts. Yours would look like this:
- 2300 x activity factor - 500 + workout
4) Our bodies are excellent at adapting to what we do to them. You may need to mix up your workouts or calorie intake, but I don't think this is the issue for right now.
I hope all of this helps.
Do what Penny says, she has helped me and is still helping me. Losing weight and still feeling good about it.
I also wanted to mention that I've found it very important to add some strength training into my weekly workout routine in order to keep my body comp going. It's actually not anything big, just a series of various pull up and push up sets and some lunges and knee strengthening exercises for my ACL, and some core work (probably takes me a total of 30-45 minutes 2x a week), but I've found it makes a difference in comparison to last year when I wasn't doing it and was struggling with my body comp. Just a thought.
During IM training, I weighed myself every Wednesday morning. Took those long weekends of riding out of the equation. Helped me keep my sanity. Body comp was great, even when the scale didn't move. Clothes were falling off. My muscles had muscles. Sadly, this is not an IM year for me...
I can sympathize with you. I was religiously logging in everything I ate for 8 weeks, with a sum weight loss of 0. I also used to weigh myself everyday (yes, I am obssessive here) but it drove me crazy so I stopped that too. Ive about given up on the idea of hitting that perfect number for my race weight and trying to focus on eating the right things and getting all the EN workouts in. I really dread stepping on that scale when I'm in that registration line for IM Wisconsin!!!
Joanna
All,
The quality and depth of experience in these replies blows me away. What an incredible difference having a team of athletes working together and sharing their knowledge makes of the entire EN experience.
@Penny thank you for the very specific advice. Now I have a caloric target that is based on science and not an "app." When I did the math I found that I have definitely been in a 1000 calorie/day deficit for the past three weeks. Going to be fixing that! One additional question, is using the calories burned from my Garmin HR an accurate method capturing how much I am burning in a workout? I wasn't sure how accurate those numbers were. Also, is there a good metric to apply to get calories burned while swimming?
Thanks!
dusty
If you have been eating 1000 calories or more under your needs, I would bet your body has gotten unhappy and has gone into what I call "stingy mode." It is holding on to what you are feeding it because it isn't sure you are going to give it enough to do the work you are asking of it. Once you start giving it more food, it will start getting happier and less stingy.
Keep us posted & good luck!
I think you may have found the reason for the plateau. Eat a few more calories, or better yet, drink a few more Southern Tier Imperial IPAs! Great beer. Love it.
Good luck.
I can't imagine there's an easy formula to add in this 'extra', much less a standardized formula that would apply for everyone.
I do think that for a lot of people, restricting or timing starches (not the same as carbs). Sometimes, I have people put starches around workouts only. Pre- and up to 2 hours post-workout. This seems to work well for people whose bodies do not process carbs as well as others. By eating them before a workout, your body will use them during. Then, by eating them after, your body is still in that starch-burning mode.
So if your power meter says you used 1000kJ, that is roughly 250 calories. 1000/4.184~250. Since the body is ~20-25% efficient we get back to that 1,000 calories. So the majority of the calories burned are Basically excess heat.
Is that incorrect? It seems that is how the TdF teams look at it.
I got totally geeked out and downloaded a pedometer iphone app, to track cals when I walk the dogs :-)
Endurance work and weight loss (or lack thereof) stumps me.
My quick story. Had a thyroid meltdown. Gained 7 lbs in as many weeks and it stayed on for 2.5 years. Once I got the meds straightened out, I figured I could now lose the weight. I counted calories, had my metabolic rate tested, I watched every single flippin' thing I ate--and as long as I was training long I did not lose 1 lb. I went into IMWI the heaviest I had been in decades. Could not figure it out. Happened during marathon training years ago too--weight refused to go down during high volume times. I have no theories on it, but it happened to me all the time.
This is my rebuilding year, and I am doing nothing long unless I feel like it. I did a complete functional strength rebuild and did not run a step for six months--only biked and swam. But during that time of NO running, I lost 8 and am the leanest and strongest I have been in many, many years.
Starting on April 1, I cut out refined carbs, potatoes, white bread, sweets save for an occasional bite or treat. Like Scott I eat fruit, veggies and lean protein (now I don't want to eat any other way). It took me a number of months, but it slowly came off (I'm 53 so that makes losing weight even harder).
Another big change is how I eat AFTER the bike. I make sure I have a major dose of calories BEFORE the ride so I have something to "ride off of," if you know what I mean. I eat what I need to during a 2-3 hour ride. Then that's kinda it. I'll have some L-glutamine and a piece of fruit/raisins when I'm done, but I've stopped the major "recovery" eats after. I was taking in TOO much food, no doubt about it. I'll eat a few hours later when I need to. That, I believe, made the biggest difference in my abaility to get the weight off. Gaining weight after big bike days was killing any effort to get pounds off consistently over time.
I also no longer give myself license to raid the cookie jar in the name of training--except on occasion. Damn you Nutella!
Thanks, Tucker. You reminded me of this calorie calculator from Saris:
This conversion ranges from about 1.05 Kcals per Kjoule for the most efficient athletes to about 1.15 for our least efficient athletes. It’s important to note, that a number of factors like training status, temperature, and biomechanics may change a person’s efficiency.
To estimate the number of Kcals being burned simply multiply the Kjoules of work done by 1.1 or just add 10 to every 100 Kjoules of work done. For example, if a person rides 2.5 hours at an average power output of 222 Watts, they would do about 2000 Kjoule of work and burn about 2200 Kcals.