Training & Nutrition - Interesting diet delima...

History first. Former fatty...300 pounds four years ago. Lost darn near 100 pounds with diet and exercise. Then it stopped. Completely. Two years no weight loss at all. In fact, it's started to creep up on me again. Okay...so I've ridden this "but at least I'm not 300 pounds anymore" pony as far as it'll go. My friend started Weight Watchers and convinced me to join with her. I've been on the "points" program for a little over a week now. I'll weigh in again on Monday and it'll be two weeks since I started. Anywho...I've been sticking with it. Here is the delima. I am always hungry! I never feel totally satisfied. And my husband says to me "of course you are hungry, you are on a diet designed for fat people who don't move much". Hmmm...very interesting. Astute, even. I am highly active (weight train 2x week plus 4x strenuous cardio). That doesn't include riding. Granted, this first week has been very light cardio because I was recovering from a century ride last weekend. But now that I am back to my normal schedule, I don't think I'm fueling properly and it's only Wednesday! What are your thoughts?

History first. Former fatty...300 pounds four years ago. Lost darn near 100 pounds with diet and exercise. Then it stopped. Completely. Two years no weight loss at all. In fact, it's started to creep up on me again. Okay...so I've ridden this "but at least I'm not 300 pounds anymore" pony as far as it'll go. My friend started Weight Watchers and convinced me to join with her. I've been on the "points" program for a little over a week now. I'll weigh in again on Monday and it'll be two weeks since I started. Anywho...I've been sticking with it. Here is the delima. I am always hungry! I never feel totally satisfied. And my husband says to me "of course you are hungry, you are on a diet designed for fat people who don't move much". Hmmm...very interesting. Astute, even. I am highly active (weight train 2x week plus 4x strenuous cardio). That doesn't include riding. Granted, this first week has been very light cardio because I was recovering from a century ride last weekend. But now that I am back to my normal schedule, I don't think I'm fueling properly and it's only Wednesday! What are your thoughts?
get your RMR checked. Try and calculate all the calories you take in every day. Add. Then subtract from that based on how much weight you want to lose.

Example:
RMR = 1700
Daily Calories Burned (total) = 3400
You take in = 2900

= 500 deficit

get your RMR checked. Try and calculate all the calories you take in every day. Add. Then subtract from that based on how much weight you want to lose.

Example:
RMR = 1700
Daily Calories Burned (total) = 3400
You take in = 2900

= 500 deficit

I had a test like that done when I was working with my personal trainer. Is that where they put the mask on your face and you breathe for 20 minutes or so? If that's the case, it was 2100 calories, but that was a year ago. And it cost $50! Good idea though...do you know where I can have it done cheaper?

That is great with the weight loss. And great that you are going to continue. Your body (and mind perhaps) may have been catching up to the weight loss during the plateau.

You are active. I would suggest mini-meals. It's the only thing that works for me. Otherwise, I feel hungry. When I am around others they say, 'you eat constantly. How do you stay so small?' Actually, my calories are around 1500 to 1800 (I am in the process of losing 20), but I pack the calories in wherever I can find them (For example, I add an eggplant to my tomato sauce, I add a grated apple to my oatmeal). Anything that adds fiber without very many calories is ok for me.

It's possible that your body is just reacting naturally to a decrease in calories . . . it will adjust and you will not be hungry with the same amount of food . . . just make sure you have something to get you through the hunger pangs (drink water, fix a nice cup of tea, have a sugar-free mint, eat an apple, have a handful of nuts, write a letter, write in a journal, clean a room).

I've talked to many who have found success with the WW program . . . several were men who were afraid of diets. One I know did it on-line, another went to meetings, another, at goal, now invests the money into a personal trainer.

Keep up the good work.
Sandy

Lost darn near 100 pounds with diet and exercise. Then it stopped. Completely. Two years no weight loss at all....
...My friend started Weight Watchers and convinced me to join with her. I've been on the "points" program for a little over a week now. I'll weigh in again on Monday and it'll be two weeks since I started. Anywho...I've been sticking with it. Here is the delima. I am always hungry! ...

Problem with the WW program is that it's a low-calorie diet designed for sedentary people. If you have any type of fitness regimen at all in your life, the WW will be woefully inadequate as far as calories go. Low blood-sugar is what causes the hunger-pangs. If you burn off just 500 calories in exercise a day, 45-minutes of biking at medium pace, your muscles will have burned off all the carbs in the WW meals. Your muscles will have absorbed any free-floating carbs in your bloodstream to convert to glycogen. Having a low blood-sugar will make you constantly hungry

There are two dangers to this. One is that you'll be tempted to eat more, and eat fatty foods like chips and bacon and other no-no's. The other danger is when your body is so depleted, it'll take apart perfectly good muscle and convert into carbs to store as glycogen energy. This reduces your muscle-mass and increases your body-fat%.

The plateau you're at is similar to the "set-point" idea which is a balance of body-weight/body-fat% vs. food-intake vs. calories expended in exercise. To break out of this plateau, you need to change something. So... the idea of eating through constant snacking is good, it'll maintain an even level of blood-sugar so you don't feel hungry and get tempted to binge. The other idea is to burn off more calories. If it takes you longer than 1 day to recover form a century, you need to incorporate more intensity into your training. Meaning sprints and interval training. This will have many benefits:

- increase VO2-max efficiency (you can burn more calories per minute, per hour)
- increase muscle-strength, quality and tone
- improved aerobic recovery time
- higher overall metabolism, even at rest
- lower resting heart-rate

By incorporating intervals into your training, you'll improve your average speed on the bike. So that 45-minutes of biking will let you burn off 700-calories instead of the earlier 500. You'll be able to burn off more with the same amount of exercise time, and this increased expenditure of calories will result in further weight-loss, assuming your intake does not increase by that much. Good forumlae to follow will be to increase your calorie intake by 1/2 of the increased amount you burn.