The Fat Loss TroubleshootThis is your place to troubleshoot your fat loss problems from nutrition to training. This section is led by Leigh Peele, author of "The Fat Loss Troubleshoot," the ultimate fat loss manual. If your results have slowed or stalled this is the place to come for advice for all your fat loss needs.
i don't post much but lurk a lot over the years. This question is for my Fiancee. I have tried to help and encourage her but she is losing faith. For years and before we met she was always about 125lbs at 5'2". This is what she was when we first met. Well over the last couple of years she has gained 10 pounds and unable to fit into her jeans anymore. While I don't see it she notices it and it has affected her self confidence. She is 30 now and when we met she was 28. I tell her it's because of her metabolism changing with age.
She has always eaten fairly healthy and I will admit when we started dating we ate out more then we do now, but that's because I lived in a small apartment downtown and now we have a house together where we can eat well prepared meals. Everything she makes is mainly chicken as she doesn't like beef.
Anyhow she is getting discouraged from exercising, mainly cardio based (turbo jams tapes) which make her sweat a lot and get her heart racing. In the morning I make her a protein shake with soy milk and iso-whey. Is this a mistake? She then also has a small fat free fruit yogurt with granola. usually fruit as a snack, homemade leftovers for lunch and then another healthy meal.
Her problem is that no matter what she has still to lose a pound. She takes a multi with CLA and a few other vitamins. Any suggestions would be wonderful.
So, what you're saying is that this could be a likely scenario:
When she was younger, she was a relatively active person. Then she got older, didn't really change her eating, and got less active, and gained a few pounds. Then she started exercising to lose them, and eating less. The exercise she chose was mainly high intensity, and she's prolly bonking and reducing her activity the rest of the day, thereby lowering her total expenditure and not losing. She's spinning her wheels, not getting anywhere, and is getting no improvement for her efforts. But, she's taking her supps like a good girl.
Her metabolism isn't slowing down. She's eating more than she's expending, perhaps due to the fact that she burns out on her exercise and it leaves her doing less the other 23 hours every day.
She needs to track her food, weigh and measure everything. She needs to log her workouts. And then she needs to seriously look at what the rest of her day is like. If she's on her ass for the rest of the time, there's her problem. Then she'll either need to pull back on the workouts (likely make less intense) or increase her food if she's eating too little.
Too often people fall into the trap of too much intensity and bonk because of it.
Aoife's answer is right-on. Another thought to add - the whole "metabolism slows as you age" is a semi-myth, as any slowing is due to a loss of muscle mass. It doesn't HAVE to slow because you don't have to lose muscle - what about adding 2-3 days of strength training to improve/maintain her metabolism? There are tons of good solid programs available - read this forum more if you need ideas...
See that's what I thought but she hasn't always been super active, going to the gym type activity. She used to just go for a brisk 45 minute walk when she was younger and do nothing in the winter months due to ice and cold. One would think that if she went a few months with doing nothing and then a few months of doing exercise you would think she a change of some sort, but not even a pund or inch. I will get her to count her calories better, but was just wondering if anyone had any suggestions. Thanks for the input.
there are many things that can happen in two years (not age-related per se though) - change in jobs and living situations and therefore activities, she could have started on a different birth control than before and have a little weight gain as a side effect - she could have stopped bad behaviors that you never knew about -
she needs to log her food strictly for a few days or a week to see where she is really eating and where her activity levels really are (without trying to restrict or be "good" - lets take an honest look at what that looks like) - once you know that, you can determine how and what to change to make the changes she wants to see.
I didn't say super active, just relatively, and I said nothing about the intensity of her activity. It was a generalized scenario that has happened many times, to varying degrees to a lot of people. Didn't say it WAS what is going on. Hence that what really needs to be know is what is going in and what is coming out.
Either she's eating more than she thinks, or she's not doing as much as she thinks, or there's something actually wrong (which may suck, because that becomes harder to fix).
Dissapointed
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