Needing advice on weight loss. Would really appreciate it.

Hi all. Before I begin, thanks to any of you who are taking time out
of your day to read this to help me and give me good advice. I really
appreciate it.

Here's what I need advice on:

I am a 23 year old (in 2 days to be exact) female and am 5'6. I've
always been semi- thin, but over the past few years, I have slowly put
on pounds. I did work as a waitress and got down to 137 lbs two years
ago, then got pregnant and had a baby, leaving me at 160, as of last
May.

I desperately want to be 130 lbs, which would make me about a size 6.
This is ideal for me. Right now, I wear about an 11. Since May of this
year, I have been really working out, consistently. I work out about 5
times a week. When I say work out, I mean a mixture of cardio and
weights. I typically do a full body workout (given to me by a trainer)
about twice a week and the other days I am there, I do cardio for
about an hour. This type of activity is much more than I have ever
done before in my life. I never consistently worked out before now.

I have tried really hard to eat better since I started working out
consistently. I only drink water, diet drinks and ocassionally sweet
tea. My diet could definitely be better, though. I have my good days
and bad. Some days I stay right at 1,000 calories, while others I
don't do so well and eat a fast breakfast, like a biscuit and then eat
out for lunch and so on. I pretty much always keep a running count of
my calories, but food is definitely one downfall to my losing weight.
I am very busy so I eat what is easiest to get to and I love to eat
out, which I know is very bad. I also tend to gorge at my mother's
house when she cooks. She always has cabinets brimming with fatty
snacks too that I can't resist.

Obviously I have a really hard time dieting, so I usually do extra
cardio to try and make up for the extra calories I've had.

So, my problem is that I'm not seeing the results that I really want
to see. With as much as I work out and do cardio, I've only lost 12
lbs in 3 months. At first, it was slowly coming off, but it has been
at a dead standstill at 147 for about 5 weeks now, which is very
frustrating. I know that I am gaining muscle which weighs more than
fat, but I still think I should be losing more weight than I am. My
clothes are fitting a little looser, I feel more toned than I did
before I started working out, and my body fat has gone down from 28 to
24, but I still don't have results like I would expect for as hard as
I work. My goal is to be where I want by December, and I have been
told this is a reasonable goal.

I am considering spending a couple hundred dollars on a weight loss
clinic to get shots consisting of half lipo-dissolve and half B-12.
These are suppose to give you alot of energy and dissolve fat. You can
also buy diet pills from this clinic that work with the program to
help you lose quickly. I am considering doing the pills too. I will
still be watching what I eat and working out while I am on this plan.
This seems like my best option for losing the weight that I want to in
the time that I want.

Otherwise, it seems I will have to eat virtually nothing, stay away
from my mother's house ( ) and still keep working out all the
time to achieve the results I want.

Can anyone give me advice on what I should do at this point or tell me
what you think of my proposed next step?

Thanks a bunch!

On Aug 16, 8:10 pm, Shauhnathan wrote:
Hi all. Before I begin, thanks to any of you who are taking time out
of your day to read this to help me and give me good advice. I really
appreciate it.

Here's what I need advice on:

I am a 23 year old (in 2 days to be exact) female and am 5'6. I've
always been semi- thin, but over the past few years, I have slowly put
on pounds. I did work as a waitress and got down to 137 lbs two years
ago, then got pregnant and had a baby, leaving me at 160, as of last
May.

I desperately want to be 130 lbs, which would make me about a size 6.
This is ideal for me. Right now, I wear about an 11. Since May of this
year, I have been really working out, consistently. I work out about 5
times a week. When I say work out, I mean a mixture of cardio and
weights. I typically do a full body workout (given to me by a trainer)
about twice a week and the other days I am there, I do cardio for
about an hour. This type of activity is much more than I have ever
done before in my life. I never consistently worked out before now.

I have tried really hard to eat better since I started working out
consistently. I only drink water, diet drinks and ocassionally sweet
tea. My diet could definitely be better, though. I have my good days
and bad. Some days I stay right at 1,000 calories, while others I
don't do so well and eat a fast breakfast, like a biscuit and then eat
out for lunch and so on. I pretty much always keep a running count of
my calories, but food is definitely one downfall to my losing weight.
I am very busy so I eat what is easiest to get to and I love to eat
out, which I know is very bad. I also tend to gorge at my mother's
house when she cooks. She always has cabinets brimming with fatty
snacks too that I can't resist.

Obviously I have a really hard time dieting, so I usually do extra
cardio to try and make up for the extra calories I've had.

So, my problem is that I'm not seeing the results that I really want
to see. With as much as I work out and do cardio, I've only lost 12
lbs in 3 months. At first, it was slowly coming off, but it has been
at a dead standstill at 147 for about 5 weeks now, which is very
frustrating. I know that I am gaining muscle which weighs more than
fat, but I still think I should be losing more weight than I am. My
clothes are fitting a little looser, I feel more toned than I did
before I started working out, and my body fat has gone down from 28 to
24, but I still don't have results like I would expect for as hard as
I work. My goal is to be where I want by December, and I have been
told this is a reasonable goal.

I am considering spending a couple hundred dollars on a weight loss
clinic to get shots consisting of half lipo-dissolve and half B-12.
These are suppose to give you alot of energy and dissolve fat. You can
also buy diet pills from this clinic that work with the program to
help you lose quickly. I am considering doing the pills too. I will
still be watching what I eat and working out while I am on this plan.
This seems like my best option for losing the weight that I want to in
the time that I want.

Otherwise, it seems I will have to eat virtually nothing, stay away
from my mother's house ( ) and still keep working out all the
time to achieve the results I want.

Can anyone give me advice on what I should do at this point or tell me
what you think of my proposed next step?

Thanks a bunch!

The short answer is that you eat too much. Since the body is such an
efficient machine, it is very difficult to lose significant weight
from increasing your exercise level. You might have to spend 30 min.
on a treadmill to get rid of one bite of a fatty food, for example.
Calorie control is the key.

If some days you only eat 1,000 calories, other days you must be
eating 4,000 or more. My guess is that given your size and active
lifestyle, you probably burn about 2300 calories per day. If you start
counting calories and eat say 1500 calories each and every day....then
stop and don't go over that, you will start losing weight again at the
rate of about 1 pound per week. dkw

"lipo-dissolve" What the hell is that?

Your clinic might be run by snake-oil experts.


"Shauhnathan" wrote in message
ups.com...
Hi all. Before I begin, thanks to any of you who are taking time out
of your day to read this to help me and give me good advice. I really
appreciate it.

Here's what I need advice on:

I am a 23 year old (in 2 days to be exact) female and am 5'6. I've
always been semi- thin, but over the past few years, I have slowly put
on pounds. I did work as a waitress and got down to 137 lbs two years
ago, then got pregnant and had a baby, leaving me at 160, as of last
May.

I desperately want to be 130 lbs, which would make me about a size 6.
This is ideal for me. Right now, I wear about an 11. Since May of this
year, I have been really working out, consistently. I work out about 5
times a week. When I say work out, I mean a mixture of cardio and
weights. I typically do a full body workout (given to me by a trainer)
about twice a week and the other days I am there, I do cardio for
about an hour. This type of activity is much more than I have ever
done before in my life. I never consistently worked out before now.

I have tried really hard to eat better since I started working out
consistently. I only drink water, diet drinks and ocassionally sweet
tea. My diet could definitely be better, though. I have my good days
and bad. Some days I stay right at 1,000 calories, while others I
don't do so well and eat a fast breakfast, like a biscuit and then eat
out for lunch and so on. I pretty much always keep a running count of
my calories, but food is definitely one downfall to my losing weight.
I am very busy so I eat what is easiest to get to and I love to eat
out, which I know is very bad. I also tend to gorge at my mother's
house when she cooks. She always has cabinets brimming with fatty
snacks too that I can't resist.

Obviously I have a really hard time dieting, so I usually do extra
cardio to try and make up for the extra calories I've had.

So, my problem is that I'm not seeing the results that I really want
to see. With as much as I work out and do cardio, I've only lost 12
lbs in 3 months. At first, it was slowly coming off, but it has been
at a dead standstill at 147 for about 5 weeks now, which is very
frustrating. I know that I am gaining muscle which weighs more than
fat, but I still think I should be losing more weight than I am. My
clothes are fitting a little looser, I feel more toned than I did
before I started working out, and my body fat has gone down from 28 to
24, but I still don't have results like I would expect for as hard as
I work. My goal is to be where I want by December, and I have been
told this is a reasonable goal.

I am considering spending a couple hundred dollars on a weight loss
clinic to get shots consisting of half lipo-dissolve and half B-12.
These are suppose to give you alot of energy and dissolve fat. You can
also buy diet pills from this clinic that work with the program to
help you lose quickly. I am considering doing the pills too. I will
still be watching what I eat and working out while I am on this plan.
This seems like my best option for losing the weight that I want to in
the time that I want.

Otherwise, it seems I will have to eat virtually nothing, stay away
from my mother's house ( ) and still keep working out all the
time to achieve the results I want.

Can anyone give me advice on what I should do at this point or tell me
what you think of my proposed next step?

Thanks a bunch!

Shauna, a lot depends on what you are trying to do. You are focussed
on getting the weight off fast, but you aren't fixing the root problem
- which is that you eat excessive quantitites of the wrong things.

If you DON'T change your eating habits for the long haul, you might
lose the weight with pills and shots, but you will put it all back on
again - and when you get into that groove, iweight not only comes
back, it brings its friends with it....so your weight slowly starts to
ratchet upwards with every yo-yo.

The best results are getting into good habits you can sustain - and if
you ask me, some of your exercise routine may not be sustainable
either. You are knocking yourself out with exercise, and not dealing
at all with the food.

You have to control portion size, you have to steer away from the high
fat/high carb junk, and you need to up the fruit and veggie quotient.

Its not rocket science. You are eating too much, and you need to dial
back your intake - permanently, and no, it isn't easy to change
habits. You have to run a bigger deficit to lose weight, but in the
longer term, essentially you have to plan to eat a little less than
you plan to expend daily, so you have a bit of wiggle room (i.e. if
you have every single calorie spoken for in the plan - i.e. you know
your maintenance calories are 2000 per day and you are planning to eat
that much, you will end up gaining since there is no room for
occasional unplanned splurge).

Mary G.

On Aug 17, 11:05 am, wrote:
Shauna, a lot depends on what you are trying to do. You are focussed
on getting the weight off fast, but you aren't fixing the root problem
- which is that you eat excessive quantitites of the wrong things.

If you DON'T change your eating habits for the long haul, you might
lose the weight with pills and shots, but you will put it all back on
again - and when you get into that groove, iweight not only comes
back, it brings its friends with it....so your weight slowly starts to
ratchet upwards with every yo-yo.

The best results are getting into good habits you can sustain - and if
you ask me, some of your exercise routine may not be sustainable
either. You are knocking yourself out with exercise, and not dealing
at all with the food.

You have to control portion size, you have to steer away from the high
fat/high carb junk, and you need to up the fruit and veggie quotient.

Its not rocket science. You are eating too much, and you need to dial
back your intake - permanently, and no, it isn't easy to change
habits. You have to run a bigger deficit to lose weight, but in the
longer term, essentially you have to plan to eat a little less than
you plan to expend daily, so you have a bit of wiggle room (i.e. if
you have every single calorie spoken for in the plan - i.e. you know
your maintenance calories are 2000 per day and you are planning to eat
that much, you will end up gaining since there is no room for
occasional unplanned splurge).

Mary G.

I agree with your advice....but if someone is to change their eating
habits, one habit that is/was extremely important to me was to NEVER
splurge in the first place. Once you get to your daily quota, you stop
eating. The problem is of course that if you allow yourself to "cheat"
even once, then you do it over again and again. I suppose there are
rare folks who overeat only at Thanksgiving and thier birthday, for
example, but much more commonly is a lot of splurging...followed by
feeling guilty, followed by starving yourself, excessive work outs to
try to offset your indulgence, or the outright ending of your diet.
This is a kind of eating disorder, IMO, so I won't allow myself to do
it. Overweight people do not have good mechanisms to tell them when
they should be full and stop eating, so in that way, the extra
calories you get from overeating are STILL NOT ENOUGH. Once your
recognize this, it makes it easier to never do it. As an analogy, how
many people only cheat on their spouses once in a great while. They do
it a lot or not at all. Same idea. You also feel guilty, remorseful, a
failure, and out of control....and you go and do it again. Just don't
even go there. NO SPLURGING ever. That's my 2 cents anyway. dkw

On Aug 16, 10:10 pm, Shauhnathan wrote:
Hi all. Before I begin, thanks to any of you who are taking time out
of your day to read this to help me and give me good advice. I really
appreciate it.

Here's what I need advice on:

I am a 23 year old (in 2 days to be exact) female and am 5'6. I've
always been semi- thin, but over the past few years, I have slowly put
on pounds. I did work as a waitress and got down to 137 lbs two years
ago, then got pregnant and had a baby, leaving me at 160, as of last
May.

I desperately want to be 130 lbs, which would make me about a size 6.
This is ideal for me. Right now, I wear about an 11. Since May of this
year, I have been really working out, consistently. I work out about 5
times a week. When I say work out, I mean a mixture of cardio and
weights. I typically do a full body workout (given to me by a trainer)
about twice a week and the other days I am there, I do cardio for
about an hour. This type of activity is much more than I have ever
done before in my life. I never consistently worked out before now.

I have tried really hard to eat better since I started working out
consistently. I only drink water, diet drinks and ocassionally sweet
tea. My diet could definitely be better, though. I have my good days
and bad. Some days I stay right at 1,000 calories, while others I
don't do so well and eat a fast breakfast, like a biscuit and then eat
out for lunch and so on. I pretty much always keep a running count of
my calories, but food is definitely one downfall to my losingweight.
I am very busy so I eat what is easiest to get to and I love to eat
out, which I know is very bad. I also tend to gorge at my mother's
house when she cooks. She always has cabinets brimming with fatty
snacks too that I can't resist.

Obviously I have a really hard time dieting, so I usually do extra
cardio to try and make up for the extra calories I've had.

So, my problem is that I'm not seeing the results that I really want
to see. With as much as I work out and do cardio, I've only lost 12
lbs in 3 months. At first, it was slowly coming off, but it has been
at a dead standstill at 147 for about 5 weeks now, which is very
frustrating. I know that I am gaining muscle which weighs more than
fat, but I still think I should be losing moreweightthan I am. My
clothes are fitting a little looser, I feel more toned than I did
before I started working out, and my body fat has gone down from 28 to
24, but I still don't have results like I would expect for as hard as
I work. My goal is to be where I want by December, and I have been
told this is a reasonable goal.

I am considering spending a couple hundred dollars on aweightloss
clinic to get shots consisting of half lipo-dissolve and half B-12.
These are suppose to give you alot of energy and dissolve fat. You can
also buy diet pills from this clinic that work with the program to
help you lose quickly. I am considering doing the pills too. I will
still be watching what I eat and working out while I am on this plan.
This seems like my best option for losing theweightthat I want to in
the time that I want.

Otherwise, it seems I will have to eat virtually nothing, stay away
from my mother's house ( ) and still keep working out all the
time to achieve the results I want.

Can anyone give me advice on what I should do at this point or tell me
what you think of my proposed next step?

Thanks a bunch!

Hi,
You sound really frustrated and discouraged. I would like to help
you. Please visit my website at loseweightnowtips.com and check out
my story. I am in the process of developing the site but there is
information that can get you started. Also please feel free to e-mail
me at . It sounds as though your
metabolism has changed due to age, too low of calorie intake and
hormones associated with the baby. I am not a big advocate of fads.
Many are unsafe and very costly.

I look forward to hearing from you,

Georgene Dana Collins
I Care Because I've Been There

You haven't heard of lipodissolve yet? Do you live in a cave?



On Aug 17, 2:04 pm, "Cubit" wrote:
"lipo-dissolve" What the hell is that?

Your clinic might be run by snake-oil experts.

"Shauhnathan" wrote in message

ups.com...

Hi all. Before I begin, thanks to any of you who are taking time out
of your day to read this to help me and give me good advice. I really
appreciate it.

Here's what I need advice on:

I am a 23 year old (in 2 days to be exact) female and am 5'6. I've
always been semi- thin, but over the past few years, I have slowly put
on pounds. I did work as a waitress and got down to 137 lbs two years
ago, then got pregnant and had a baby, leaving me at 160, as of last
May.

I desperately want to be 130 lbs, which would make me about a size 6.
This is ideal for me. Right now, I wear about an 11. Since May of this
year, I have been really working out, consistently. I work out about 5
times a week. When I say work out, I mean a mixture of cardio and
weights. I typically do a full body workout (given to me by a trainer)
about twice a week and the other days I am there, I do cardio for
about an hour. This type of activity is much more than I have ever
done before in my life. I never consistently worked out before now.

I have tried really hard to eat better since I started working out
consistently. I only drink water, diet drinks and ocassionally sweet
tea. My diet could definitely be better, though. I have my good days
and bad. Some days I stay right at 1,000 calories, while others I
don't do so well and eat a fast breakfast, like a biscuit and then eat
out for lunch and so on. I pretty much always keep a running count of
my calories, but food is definitely one downfall to my losing weight.
I am very busy so I eat what is easiest to get to and I love to eat
out, which I know is very bad. I also tend to gorge at my mother's
house when she cooks. She always has cabinets brimming with fatty
snacks too that I can't resist.

Obviously I have a really hard time dieting, so I usually do extra
cardio to try and make up for the extra calories I've had.

So, my problem is that I'm not seeing the results that I really want
to see. With as much as I work out and do cardio, I've only lost 12
lbs in 3 months. At first, it was slowly coming off, but it has been
at a dead standstill at 147 for about 5 weeks now, which is very
frustrating. I know that I am gaining muscle which weighs more than
fat, but I still think I should be losing more weight than I am. My
clothes are fitting a little looser, I feel more toned than I did
before I started working out, and my body fat has gone down from 28 to
24, but I still don't have results like I would expect for as hard as
I work. My goal is to be where I want by December, and I have been
told this is a reasonable goal.

I am considering spending a couple hundred dollars on a weight loss
clinic to get shots consisting of half lipo-dissolve and half B-12.
These are suppose to give you alot of energy and dissolve fat. You can
also buy diet pills from this clinic that work with the program to
help you lose quickly. I am considering doing the pills too. I will
still be watching what I eat and working out while I am on this plan.
This seems like my best option for losing the weight that I want to in
the time that I want.

Otherwise, it seems I will have to eat virtually nothing, stay away
from my mother's house ( ) and still keep working out all the
time to achieve the results I want.

Can anyone give me advice on what I should do at this point or tell me
what you think of my proposed next step?

Thanks a bunch!

So it sounds like I should stick to around 1500 and make a daily
effort to stick to that and not go over. Will a person still lose 1 lb
a week while doing weight training 2-3 times a week? I know muscle
weighs more than fat, so I just want to make sure I am striving for a
realistic goal here and not expecting to lose weight when actually I
should be staying the same because of muscle gain.

Also, can any of you give me tips on how to keep from going over 1500
calories a day? I have tried a food log and that wore off. I don't
keep it anymore. Maybe I'll try keeping it on here, so I can get a
spat on the hand when I eat bad stuff or go over my limit. One big
problem is I love to go out to eat and I can never resist the free
appetizers, like the bread, chips and salsa, etc. I know that if I
took my lunch to work everyday or went to subway over going out to
eat, I would be saving many calories, but who wants to sit at work and
eat a packed lunch and not get out of the office for an hour?? It's
really hard to find the motivation to just sit at work for an hour and
eat a crappy meal to save the calories. I also need tips on how I can
go to my mother's house in the evening to pick up my son when she is
cooking a really good meal and not over-eat. I have tried eating
before I go there, so that I'm not hungry when I'm there, but I still
can never resist eating something there because she has so much good
stuff, so then I end up having even more calories.

I will really try my best to eat fewer calories and see how the
results go.

Thanks for the help.

dkw said NO SPLURGING ever. That's my 2 cents anyway.

Mary responds: I didn't express myself properly - what I meant by
splurge....was budgetting calories to allow the occasional spontaneous
little treat - so you have enough "give" to have a little frozen
yoghurt if the whole family is at the beach and decides to go for it,
or have a nibble of cake when its someone's birthday at the office. I
didn't mean going on a total blow out bender.

I've been maintaining about 3 years now, and if I have can't EVER have
a spontaneous and unplanned for treat, I end up feeling deprived,
particularly in social situations. I do keep them small, but because I
make my eating plan run about 100-200 calories lighter than I need for
maintenance daily, I have that little bit of freedom to let me have an
unplanned biscuit when you take me out for a coffee!

M.

Shauhnathan, I hate to sound negative, but this is not going to work
unless you commit. Think about what Yoda says...There is no "try",
there is only DO. You are looking for a way out of change - even short
term change - to get the desired effect, and sorry, that is just not
possible - we all wish it weren't so, but it IS hard, but there is no
escape. You have to change. You are doomed to fail before you start if
you don't get your head around that reality. If you are struggling
with this at 23, you'll be in deep by middle age, unless you take the
steps now to avert.

Start keeping your food log again. Pack a lunch and go for a walk
instead of going out and eating crap. Buy yourself a little scale
(here is a sample of a pretty good one for very little money
http://www.thekitchenstore.com/).
If you have to, take it with you to your mom's and weigh your darned
portion so you don't load up your plate.

Mary G.