Lacking my motivation :(

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1/18/12 3:54 P

BLNDARMYWIFE86,

It's not unusual at all for your weight loss to slow or even come to a stall when you begin a running program. The reason, when we start running ours muscles are making more mitochondria which allow for extra glycogen-stored glucose in the cells- therefore, your body hangs on to more water to help with the cooling off process for exercise and for helping process energy. Your muscles will also have an increase in blood volume in order to have better availability to oxygen and removing waste, especially lactic acid. These things coupled with eating higher fiber foods, such as fruits and veggies can show a gain, when in all reality it is just a shift in fluids.

I will also add that 1200 calories is the least amount of calories a woman should eat in order to keep normal biological functioning, however, the more active you are, the more food (or fuel) our bodies need to not only fuel your runs, but to aid in muscle repair and recovery following a run. Not eating enough can impair your running performance as well as your recovery which could leave you vulnerable for injury.

So much sure you calorie burn goal on your Start Page reflects the actual number of calorie you are expending per week.

I hope this helps!

RUN SPARK STRONG!
Coach Nancy

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1/18/12 1:19 P

I just recently started logging my food about a week ago when I found sparkpeople and I am coming in around 1200-1300 calories a day. I re-started my exercise and diet 4 weeks ago after taking a break for about 4 months and I lost about 6 pounds which put me to 189 where I am at, and I figured that running would be a better overall workout for my goals since I had lost my previous weight mostly on an elliptical. I am not really sure if what I'm eating is enough for the anywhere from 450-750 calories I burn in my workouts and I know that could be the problem. Would anyone happen to know how I could figure that out? As far as strength training it's been something I do occasionally and to be honest I'm not very organized about it because I'm not sure what I need to be doing for certain areas and it makes me nervous to take time off from cardio for weights. I lost the 50 pounds with virtually no guidance and now that I am in the 180's and wanting to still lose a decent amount I feel like I'm probably going to have to get some help..any suggestions for how to learn.. maybe I'm not using this site right?

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1/18/12 10:29 A

BLNDARMYWIFE86,

Congratulations on already losing 50+ pounds ! That's fantastic ! Why isn't the weight coming off now ? Hard to say since we don't know anything about you or what you've been eating.

When it comes to weight loss, what matters most is what we eat. Good nutrition is what takes the weight off and keeps it off. Exercise is what keeps our bodies fit and healthy. Have you been logging your food choices ? If not, I'd recommend that you set up your Spark nutrition profile with your current information. Start logging your food again. Studies have shown that people who log their food choices lose more weight than those who don't.

You mentioned that you started running. It's possible that you're not eating enough. I know this is going to sound strange, but eating too little and exercising too much can hinder a person's weight loss, not help it. Women, in particular, are notorious for drastically cutting their caloric intake and increasing their workouts in hopes that that will speed up their weight loss. Well, as I mentioned earlier, that can hinder our weight loss not help it.

What to do ? Stick with it ! If you continue to eat right, watch your portions and get some regular exercise that includes some strength training, you will lose weight with time.

As you know, weight loss is a slow steady process. thus the need for patience.

One last point, if you are not doing any strength training, I'm going to encourage you to start. Add lean muscle. Muscle burns fat and the more lean muscle you carry, the more efficient your body will be at burning fat. don't worry, you will not look like a body builder if you lift a heavy weight. that is a misconception.

Women benefit from strength training just like men. So, don't neglect your strength. That extra lean muscle will help your body to become more efficient at burning fat. AND... the added lean muscle will help you to drop clothing sizes. Muscle is dense and takes up less space on the body than fat. As such, while you might not lose any weight, you could lose clothing sizes along with tightening up your body.

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1/18/12 9:04 A

BLNDARMYWIFE86.

When you say you recently restarted your diet, how long has it been? Are you strength training? What type of activity are you doing?

Coach Nancy

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1/18/12 8:56 A

I have been losing weight now for almost a year and have lost 50 pounds even though we did a major cross country move in the middle of everything. I recently restarted my diet and exercise back up since I would still like to lost 45- 50 more pounds and I thought now would be a good time to start running. I am still tracking my calories daily and going to the gym, but the scale just stopped going down and I am stuck at 189. I know that I should be thrilled at what I have accomplished and be happy for the changes I see in my body but for some reason the fact that I have hit a plateau and I'm not losing weight is the only thing that matters to me. My motivation is seriously lacking and I feel like I'm killing myself at the gym and tracking all my calories for nothing. I have been reading the articles on her about plateaus and how to break them, but things don't seem to be working for me and I don't want to get so down on myself that I give up after how hard I've worked to get here.... what do I do?