Alright...is it muscle?

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8/19/12 6:40 A

CRICKETKAT,

How tall are you ? Depending on your height, the reason you may find it so difficult to lose is because you might not need to lose. Women are really hard on their bodies. Many women at a healthy weight think they are fat and need to lose when they really don't. If you've been very active for a very long time, your body fat may be lower than you think. Have you ever had your body fat measured ? And not by a body fat scale or hand held scale. Those are notoriously inaccurate. I'm talking about something like a hydrostatic test where you're dunked in water. If you can't afford that (that test is expensive), go to your local gym. Ask a personal trainer to do a 9 point caliper test. they'll pinch 9 parts of your body with calipers. They'll take those measurements and plug them into equations. The result is your body fat percentage. It's a fairly accurate test. Yes, there is a small margin for error, but all tests have margins for error.

Your body fat may be lower than you think. So, consider having your body fat percentage to see where you are. As a generality, women depending on age and athletic ability should carry 20-29% body fat to be healthy. When a woman goes lower than that, they do risk a number of health issues. You may have heard of the female athlete triad. Too low of a body fat in a woman increases the risk of osteoporosis.

Also, what have you been eating ? When it comes to weight loss or weight gain, 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 healthy. In short, you can't outrun a bad diet with exercise. If you want to take the weight off, you have to eat right first. So, if you've been yo yo dieting, you can't blame womanly issues. Take a closer look at your nutrition.

One other point, the closer a person is to a healthy weight for their height, the harder and longer it takes to lose. Once again, if you're down to those last 5-7 pounds. It's going to take a long time to lose. Someone who is obese or morbidly obese could safely lose 1-2 pounds per week. Not so for someone at a healthy weight. Ask any member trying to lose those last few pounds and they'll tell you, it's slow going.

There is NO fast way to lose weight. From my own experience, I'll tell you honestly,"the faster a person takes the weight off, the faster it packs back on". You've got to lose the diet mentality if you want to lose the weight. This really is all about changing your lifestyle. Because what happens when you take the weight off with some fat diet ? all the weight packs back on with extra.

Take the weight off slowly with a lifestyle change and you'll never have to worry about your weight again.

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8/19/12 12:51 A

1

Edited by: SPECIALKTINERS at: 8/19/2012 (00:53)

current weight: 223.0

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175

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8/19/12 12:47 A

I hit the same stumbling block a few times. A few things that might be working against you... If you are working out harder and for longer periods of time then you actually need to up your calorie intake. If you don't then your body goes into a sort of starvation mode where it holds on to fat to have something to burn. So if you want to see the weight come off you need to increase the calories, or decrease the fitness. Also, I stopped going by the scale, and started taking my measurements each month, because I noticed I wasn't seeing the numbers on the scale, but all my clothes were fitting much more loosely. If you go by the recommended fitness hours per week, and eat the recommended calories you will see a lot better results. And remember even if you don't hit your goal the day you want to you will still eventually hit it if you keep working for it. The best goal is a healthier version of you! Good luck!

current weight: 223.0

275 250 225 200

175

SparkPoints: (1,771)
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Posts: 2
8/18/12 11:45 P

Oops, the 2000 number was how many calories I burned... I worked out for eight hours taking short breaks. I am over eighteen though. Me and my younger sister are trying to loose weight, its become quite the competion and she was the one who chose the date. We started around three months ago so...its perfectly healthy.

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8/18/12 6:49 P

I'm not going to preach about the benefits of muscle, but I think you have it backwards. Your question should be, "how can I get rid of the fat that's covering up my muscle?" You want to get rid of the muscle and leave only fat? I assume skinny fat is not the look you're going for. You want proper nutrition, full body strength training, and least important, cardio.

0 Days until:  Georgina 10 miler

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8/18/12 6:46 P

Hi,

How old are you? The reason I ask is you mentoned homecoming and SparkPeople does not permit those under the age of 18 on the SparkPeople.com site.

Secondly working out for 2594 minutes non-stop would mean you would have had to have exercise over 43 hours, which is not possible.

And lastly, losing 17 pounds in the time frame you mentioned is not safe nor healthy.

Coach Nancy

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8/18/12 6:22 P

Hi, I've been going hardcore about loosing weight for almost two months now and I've gained a bunch of weight. regularly working out at the gym, swimming, tennis, and running on a track. but as my original weight was 145.2 and i lost a lot of weight so i changed my goal to the lower number(135) and then... womanly problems occurred...and i gained all the weight back in a few weeks, water weight... so i thought i could loose it quickly again, but this morning i weighed the exact same as when these problems happened. and I've been working out everyday trying to push myself as hard as possible and eating less and less but that's not working...take today for example; i worked out for 2595 minutes non-stop and i weighed 142...my goal is 125 pounds before September 25 that way i fit into my favorite dress for home coming . i need to loose a lot more weight before them so my only question is, is it muscle and if so how can i make that muscle stop growing under fat?

thanks for your concern