Feeling discouraged
So I’ve been trying to get rid of my stubborn belly fat. I’ve made lots of mistakes like cutting my calorie intake too low and I’m trying to reverse diet. I’ve been doing a lot of home training because I don’t have access to the gym and weights. I’ve been relying on body weight and calisthenics workouts. I try to do them for an hour but I usually only can manage 40-50 minutes and 25-30 when i feel too fatigued. Im trying to push myself harder. I see everyone doing hours of work and it makes me feel like my workouts just aren’t working or aren’t long enough and I’m not pushing myself enough. I’ve been trying to eat protein and increasing very very slowly due to my low calorie intake. I know it takes months to see results but everything feels so inconsistent especially the physical changes that I can clearly see. My weight is about the same and stable but my stomach looks more bloated and larger than before. I want to get healthier and not gain back everything I lost.
Posted Sep 13, 2022, 1:22 PM UTC
Ignore what others seem to be doing, ignore your belly fat, ignore feelings that aren't facts and only maybe truths. Ignore your goals for now (those are long-term visions) and focus on today.
Questions: (please answer)
Are YOU losing weight in a healthy and sustainable way? One that doctors and registered dietitians would surely approve?
What does "My weight is about the same and stable" mean? It's the same for how long since your last change in effort? Is it exactly the same or have you lost/gained a little? How much in how much time?
Does it make sense that you are too fatigued based on your low calorie intake?
I lowered my calorie intake down to 1000 and even more under there. I cut my calories like that for about 2-3 months and lost a significant amount of weight before realizing that it was too unhealthy. I’m a 5’2 female. But I never really necessarily felt weak, but my body temperature was always cold. I started to eat more while getting into muscle exercises instead of cardio to concentrate on getting stronger. Which apparently is something known as “reverse dieting.” So I could eat more and sort of recover my metabolism. It’s been about 3 weeks and my weight on the scale seems to be the same, however when I look at my body compared to before it looks like I gained weight. I know I should focus on the end goal and not focus on these little things but it makes me think I should just quit :(
Thank you for that.
So even at 5'2'' adults should keep above 1200 and teens 1600+ unless guided lower by an educated and qualified expert who is actively involved. That's said not just for your benefit, but for anyone passively reading this.
Sorta, but reverse dieting is one of those loaded fancy terms that people tend to see in their own way.
By now you should be above 1200 (or 1600+ if a teen).
Don't worry about the scale weight yet, since you started lifting recently. The scale will 'catch up' later, after the muscles start to calm down.
Starting or increasing a weight-lifting routine can cause your weight to plateau or increase. Don't worry, it's okay, you are probably still losing fat at a rate according to your deficit! Inflammation caused by weightlifting temporarily slows your weight loss but not your fat loss.
When we start or intensify lifting, we're creating micro-sized tears in our muscles. Muscles swell (water) and become inflamed (water) during a muscle-repair process that takes several days. This additional water added offsets our fat loss. BF% still going down but Water% going up can cause the weight-losers total scale weight to slow, stall, or even temporarily go higher.
Keep lifting. The water weight from lifting can take 3-5 weeks to calm down. After that, the added water weight still happens at smaller amounts because the lifter's muscles become accustomed to the workloads and the amount of inflammation is reduced. By then the weight-losers fat loss has outpaced the water weight remaining and the scale graph is back to its normal downward slope.
Neither. Focus on eating as you should and exercising as you should. Have an appropriate and safe/sustainable long-term plan that you can comfortably do for along time. At some point, at goal weight, you'll still need to keep eating appropriately and exercising to maintain that new goal weight.
So this focus is on your habits and tuning them so that you will reach and maintain your goals. Focusing on the scale can lead you to unhealthy behaviors if you don't safeguard against that. Focusing on fancy new terms and gimmicks we read about on the internet can cause to lose focus on the long-term lifestyle that we need to learn and keep.
This is a life; we can't just quit. Our problems will remain. We may have to change tactics and strategy as we learn more and decide that what we're learning is very sound, but we also have to stay our good course if the information we're hearing is too intense, short-term, or whatever. Like you said in your first post, "I see everyone doing hours of work" -- and that tempts you to behave intensely. Don't buy that! Stay the sustainable, reasonable good course.
Thank you so much for this encouragement! I really appreciate it. Sometimes I really feel like I’ve just hit a wall and nothing is working. But this gives me the strength to try my best and work through it!
[removed]
[removed]