Jeannie Sanderson said:I am a 39 year old woman at 5'1" and 140 lbs. My doctor said I should
wegh under 100 lbs to be good size with my small stature. I begin to
eat under 1000 kkal a day Monday 6-13. I use a postal scale to verify
all quantities, and only water is not recorded. I used a elliptical
trainer 6 days a week and it reads 250 kkals when I stop. Every other
day I a;lso have a triner push me on universal machines until I am
exhaused. About 90 minutes. This seems liek a lot of work and little
food and I am 140 lbs still. I don't understand.
Good for you deciding to work at this. I can't answer why you haven't
lost weight yet, but I think you'll want to adjust your mindset to the
long haul.
1000 calories seems pretty low, as does being under 100 pounds. My
little BMI calculator says that at 5'1", you should be 110 pounds, and
that at that weight, your maintenance calories should be about 1600
calories (assuming light activity). To lose weight, you generally would
eat about 500 calories less per day, so that would be 1100 calories per
day.
But leaving those kinds of specifics behind, my other concern for you is
that you don't exhaust yourself by overdoing it and give up. 90 minutes
of cardio a day, plus weights until your exhausted sounds like a recipe
for quitting within a month. As many people have probably told you, this
needs to be a lifestyle change, and to have a lifestyle change, you need
to have something that you can keep at (both diet and exercise) for a
long time.
Other random thoughts:
- track your food intake with fitday.com or some similar software. If
you are at this for a month to six weeks and don't seem to be losing,
drop your caloric intake GRADUALLY.
- ignore (or at least don't get hung up on) what the elliptical machine
is telling you you've burned in calories
- don't focus so much on your weight. Look at yourself in a mirror, and
if you need measurables, consider using a tape measure or bodyfat
calipers. A more general measure: how do your clothes fit? If they're
getting looser, you're making progress, no matter what the scale says.
- don't eat more because you're exercising; the idea is to create a
caloric deficit, and that doesn't happen if you "reward" yourself with
pie or cookies after a big workout.
- it's nice to be walking this journey with someone else who is dieting
and exercising; it provides accountability and encouragement for the
"down" times.
- a suggestion: consider taking "before" photos of yourself. They'll be
fun to look at after you've melted off about 30 pounds.
Good luck!