Anthony8858

I need some help.
I am so frustrated.

I'm 50 yrs old, 5' 11".

My original weight 4 weeks ago was 226 lbs.
I've been eating basically 4 egg whites , with chopped onions, and peppers for breakfast, with a small fruit.
I have a lettuce salad, topped with no more than 3 slices of fresh turkey, or a single grilled chicken cutlet, with a drop of olive oil and red vinegar for lunch.
My dinner is either a 4 oz piece of fish with grilled veggies, and / or salad greens with olive oil and vinegar.

I ride 3 nights a week for for 30-45 minutes, with a constant pulse rate in the 75%-80% range.

It's been 4 weeks, and I have lost a total of 1 pound! YES, 1 pound.

How much more can I do?

I'm disgusted with myself, and ready for a container of ice cream. I'm ready to throw in the towel.

Any idea why this is happening?

Jynx

In all honesty your diet seems pretty good. Try counting how many calories it is for a baseline. It seems like that is the amount of calories you need to maintain your current weight. Take that and subtract 500 calories and try to eat that much in one day. ( that would lead to a pound a week of weight loss)

How do you feel throughout the day? You should feel hungry at points but not starving. You should feel you are making a sacrifice with the food but not starving yourself. Maybe now you are eating a little to much? It is hard to find the balance of hunger/satisfaction.

Maybe just try mixing it up a little bit. Make slight changes to what you have now that will impact calories a lot and not the volume of food. Maybe do what your doing except have three egg whites instead. Try oatmeal some days too for a change. For lunch try a different dressings on your salad as oil is very calorie dense. For dinner try chicken instead of fish. Some fish is very fatty. Again try no oil on your salad.

If you cut out an egg white, some oil on your salads and eat some more chicken instead of fish I think you can easily cut 300 calories a day and not even feel. it. A Tbsp of olive oil is over 110 calories.

Whatever you do don't give up. It takes time and will be worth it.

Try cutting some oils and fats out. Good luck and let us know what happens.

Jarery

When i wanted to lose weight, i didnt START to see results till a month in. I also always had better results when i increased my water intake a lot.

kuan

Your calorie deficit from riding is only about 1500 calories per week.

Your diet seems extremely carbohydrate poor. I don't know if it's true or not, but your body may be going into starvation mode.

wzajac

I too went through the same thing as you except I gain 1 lb. After talking with a nutritionist I made the following changes and lost 7 lbs in 2 weeks. I was in starvation mode and not eating enough protein.
Give these a try"
Eat every 3 hrs. and have 5-6 meals a day. You show three meals try adding two light snacks, one in morning and the other in afternoon. Keep these to 200 calories and makes sure they contain protein ex 1 piece of fruit and 1 tbls of peanut butter.
Do not eat after 7:00 PM if you can.
Drink plenty of cold water
Every meal/snack needs to be balanced with protein, carbs and fats
Go for an easy walk after dinner
These all worked for me, hope you give it a try and don't give up
WD

surveyor

+1

Exercising only three times a week, expecting to see results within four weeks, and ready to give up? Either change your exercise habits or change your expectations.

You need carbs for fuel. Without adequate carbohydrates, your body will shift into survival mode, and you will have a very hard time losing weight.

Riding longer and slower will burn more fat than riding faster while maintaining a high HR.

jedflip23

also try to weigh the same time everyday because our body weight changes 1-2lbs. Try to intensify the work out by not going the same route everytime in order to avoid plateau by doing this it will help you burn more. Try all hills or mix both.

Zan

try drinking more water. drinking water alone may help you lose weight. i am not talking gallons and gallons. drink whatever you need + an extra L or something.

aham23

good advice, but i think the after 7pm thing is like an old urban myth (my opinion). as long as you control the number of calories it doesnt matter when you eat them. run calorie deficite and you SHOULD lose weight. its science. less in, more out, equals weight loss.

i suggest Fitday.com could help you. later.

ericgu

I agree with the others that you are carb light. Complex carbohydrates (whole wheat, brown rice, etc.) will help round out what you are eating.

If you are 75-80% of your maximum heart rate, you are exercising far too hard. With your fitness level, you are burning mostly carbs. Back off so that you can talk easily (or with just a bit of effort) the whole time you are riding, and see if you can extend the time that you are riding.

Also, you may be adding muscle at the same time you are losing fat. Keeping track of your measurements is a better way to gauge process than the scale.

Finally, a lot of people have good luck with a diet like South Beach, though if you are exercising hard it doesn't have enough carbs in it.

Jay68442

When I started cycling in April I thought by May I would have lost some weight but I still weighed the same. It wasn't until my second month in that I started dropping the pounds. I think in the beginning your body is changing and you are gaining muscle as well as losing fat so you stay the same weight. Just stick with it and you will get results. I have lost 14 pounds this season from cycling alone with no diet changes.

dbikingman

What's a good way to figure out how many calories I need? I went to this site, because it came up on search https://www.bcm.edu/cnrc/caloriesneed.htm I entered my info and it estimated my calorie needs at about 4300 calories a day, based on my current weight. I then entered my goal weight and it said about 3800 calories. Seems like a lot to me. Can I use this number as a starting point?

One diet that I read about years ago was say you wanted 2000 calories a day. One day you would eat 1800 calories and the next you would eat 2200. The logic was that you would keep your body from becoming accustomed to a low calorie intake and keep from going into starvation mode where it stored everything as fat. The body adapts I guess. By having more calories the next day the body starts burning carlories. I never tried this but it makes since to me. In the end the average calories burned in a week equals your goal.

aham23

^^^^ that site is high. when using these calculators you need to use the lowest "activity" choice. i would try caloriesperhour.com.

Anthony8858

OK, it looks as if I need to make some changes.
More water.
I'll try to slow my riding pace.
Is there a suggested pulse rate that I should be staying at?

I'm a little confused about adding "more protien and carbs" to my diet. (that seems to have gotten me into this mess) :-)


I've been eating alot of salmon lately (at least 4x a week for dinner with steamed veggies ans salad).
Could this be a culprit? I just read that salmon is fattening. For some reason, I thought that ANY fresh fish was OK.

Also, olive oil with every salad (approx 2 tbl spoons)

I can see where I might be doing wrong.

kk4df

2 hours of riding is about 1200 calories expended for a typical rider. 3500 calories is about 1 lb of body weight. If you're counting on just the riding to make you lose weight, it will be a slow process. Plus, your body my hydrate a little more with the extra exercise it's getting as you build muscle.

It sounds like your diet is good. Just keep at it, and maybe add a little more time/distance on the bike each week until you build up to at least 4 hours per week. Good luck, and keep at it.

nmanhipot

Can you push your sessions to 1 hour? You're still burning occult glycogen at 15-20 minutes. Essentially, with a 30 minute session, you're only having to metabolize fuel for 10 to 15 minutes, which, in my humble, uneducated opinion is not enough to ignite your metabolism. I commute 1:20 twice a day and my basal metabolic rate is about 2500 Calories. I recommend more saddle time and hopefully more often. Is commuting an option?

kuan

Yes. Slow enough so you can go nice and long while being able to get right back on the bike the next day. Four days a week, and one day of hard 30 minutes.

Moskau

Salmon is a good fish, it is 'fatty' which means it includes the good omega 3 acids. I highly doubt it's the culprit. I suspect you are not eating enough through the day.

I've been working on weightloss and been anywhere from 2lbs+ to plateuing per week and it's been a good lesson in how my body works. It's very tempting to just put it down to 'I'm just eating too much' and it works like that... up to a point. My toughest plateues were when I was eating very little (especially if I was exercising as well). Then I would up my intake of food and start dropping again. It's however a thin line.

You say you eat 4 oz of fish for dinner, and if the google calculator is correct then that to me feels very little. As a female I'd consider 5-6 oz a good amount of meat for dinner, for men 6-7oz is better. I think I out-eat you fairly easily and I've had a steady weightloss this summer with similar amount of exercise.

I think you should experiment more with your diet. Try to include stuff like pasta/bread/potatoes and perhaps eat more fruit through your day. Log what you eat and how it affects you. For example, you can try a small bread with your breakfast or lunch or eat a bit of rice with your dinner.

Maybe find some sugar free/low fat desserts to make to make your diet friendlier.

Personally I attribute most of my weight loss to diet over exercise. I exercise to stay phsyically healthy and eat to drop weight.

Cosmoline

When are you weighing yourself? If you're an active person you can get bad readings by weighing yourself during or near exercise periods, since you're either reading the intake of water (which weighs a ton) or reading the results after becoming dehydrated. I get my most accurate readings after a rest day when my fluid levels are back to normal, either before dinner or the following morning.

umd

There is the obvious question of whether you are losing bulk even though you are not losing weight. As you first start exercising after being sedentary, you will put on some muscle. Muscle weighs much more than fat, so you may not lose much weight initially as your body adapts to the exercise by increasing muscle. Are your clothes any loser? Do you look better in a mirror? One thing to do is to measure things like your waist, chest, arms, and legs and see if those are getting slimmer.

Dice

Water, makes losing weight easy drink 3 litres throughout the day. As soon as you wake up drink two glasses, than after that every time you go to the washroom down a glass. This way your body has time to register how much it needs, get rid of the excess, and repeat.

Pedalandshift

I'm also 50 this year. Four and half years ago I was 240, now I'm 178. That's a tad better then 1 pound a month. Diet's are BS, educate yourself about nutrition. I recommend Walter Willet's "Eat, drink, be healthy." Your choices don't seem too bad, but you might want to cutback the chicken/turkey in favor of whole grains or beans or fish.

BTW, I lost half a pound this week and am thrilled about it. At 170lbs my wife is taking me to our favorite pizza joint (I'll be doing 40 miles the day after that!) I'll be wearing jeans that I haven't worn since we met 12 years ago.

Best wishes

ericgu

If you are willing to do the field test in this forum, I can give you heart rate guidelines, but I don't really think you need to do so at this point. It can be hard to find a good place for some people, and there's a lot of pain to be had doing it.

My suggestion is that you go by perceived effort. For the majority of your ride, you should be able to talk in full sentences. It's okay to go harder for around 5% of the time you're out, but I wouldn't go much above that.

Most people find that level of effort to be easier than they expect.

MSchott

I recently started riding again after a long layoff and have gone from 230 to 215 in 5 weeks. I eat a high carb breakfast and increase my protein after a ride. Eat more whole grain cereal and oatmeal instead of the eggs. I think your problem is you don't ride enough and don't take in enough fuel. I'm 51 and ride 4 days a week for at least an hour each ride in which I average about 15.5 mph. I'm not grinding but still working pretty hard.

Thanks, Mike.

Dubbayoo

Cycle your calorie intake to keep your body guessing. Every 4th or 5th day up your calories to 250-500 cals above your maintenance level.