I am front and to the right - friends had taken me out last year
^ for
my 61st birthday in
October 2010. I can tell I have LOST a LOT of weight since then.
But my weight loss has been slowing down. Walking is not producing the loss it once did, my calories have crept up a bit. Now I found an article that explains logically why I have slowed down - and oh boy - I fit right into that pattern!
This is more of what I look like THIS
October 2011. I must apologize as I was very tired that day and make-up and hair wasn't done. But look at that skinney neck!
Bleach mistake photo:
Please EXCUSE
<- my hair. I bleached the heck
out of it -> one day while I was working away at the computer and had to have it all cut off - I really ruined it. It is gradually getting longer (and blonder - wonder how that is
happening???)
so the next photo will be better.
3 Reasons Why I'm Not Losing Weight
Why Weight Loss is Harder for Some People than for Others
-- By Dean Anderson, Fitness & Behavior Expert
ALL KUDOS TO SparkPeople!
and it is all free!
scroll down to read article...
You've been sticking faithfully to
your calorie range and
exercise plans
for awhile now, but you're not seeing the results you want on your
scale. Meanwhile, your weight -loss buddy is happily watching the pounds
melt away week after week. Not fair!
Or maybe you're losing
weight but not from the areas where you really want to shed some fat.
(Skinny feet are nice, but not so much when your muffin top is still as
big as ever.) And then you have that other friend who can eat anything
and everything without gaining a pound, while just watching him or her
eat seems to make you gain weight.
What's going on here? Why don't your efforts seem to be paying off while weight loss seems so easy for other people? Is there
anything you can do to get better results?
Sometimes there is a simple, general reason why one person loses weight faster than another. For example,
men tend to lose weight more quickly than women,
(THAT I knew!) mainly because most men naturally have more lean muscle mass (thanks to
their higher testosterone levels), and more muscle translates into a
faster metabolism.
(THAT is new to me - strength training produces a faster metabolism!!!) WOW!) Men and women also tend to store excess weight in
different places—men in the abdominal area ("apple" body type), which is
usually easier to lose; women in the hips and thighs ("pear" body
type), which is usually harder to take off.
People who have more
weight to lose may also drop the pounds more quickly in the beginning of
a weight-loss program. This is because the more you weigh, the more
calories you burn during any given activity. (Walking with an extra 50
pounds on your frame is harder than walking with 20 extra pounds of
weight.) A person who weighs more can also cut more calories from his or
her diet without jeopardizing the body's ability to function
efficiently. If you weigh 300 pounds, you may need 3,500 calories per
day or more to maintain that weight; cutting 1,000 calories from your
diet (down to 2,500/day) will let you safely lose 2 pounds per week. But
if you weigh 150 pounds, you may only need 1,800 calories to maintain
your weight, and if
you try to cut the 1,000 calories from your diet (down to 800/day), your body won't have enough fuel and your
metabolism will slow down drastically,
making fat loss harder, not easier. Therefore a person with less weight
to lose needs to aim for a smaller calorie deficit, which will
translate to a slower
rate of weight loss.
(SO - if I am eating too little, I will lose at a SLOWER rate??? Didn't know that!)Likewise, factors like age and body type can affect how fast you can shed extra pounds.
Older people,
for example, often lose weight more slowly, perhaps because of hormonal
changes and/or because they have less muscle mass or may be less
physically active.
So, if you're comparing your weight loss to
someone else's, make sure you're not comparing apples to oranges (or
pears)—that's just go ing to be frustrating and won't tell you anything
useful about your own efforts.
Sometimes, though, people who seem
to share a lot of these factors—similar body size, weight, age and
activity levels—just don't get the same results, even when they do the
same things. A lot of individual factors, including your individual
genetics and quite a few medical conditions (like
hypothyroidism,
PCOS,and
insomnia) and medications (like
corticosteroids, or
antidepressants),
can make weight loss difficult. If you're in this boat, you may need to
work closely with your health professional to find an individualized
approach that will maximize your weight loss results without
jeopardizing your health.
But more often,
slow or non-existent weight loss
can be traced to very common problems that can be identified and
overcome with the right kinds of changes in diet, exercise, or daily
activity patterns. That's what we'll be looking at below.
The No. 1 Problem: Your numbers aren't right.In
a healthy, "normally" functioning body, weight loss occurs when you use
(burn) more energy (calories) than you take in from food. This calorie
deficit forces your body to take fat out of storage and turn it into
fuel that your cells can use to maintain necessary body functions. A
pound of fat represents about 3,500 calories of stored energy, so you
can predict that
a calorie deficit of 3,500 will translate into one lost pound, give or take a little.
By
far the most common reason why weight loss seems to be going slower
than people expect is that their calorie deficit is not as large as they
think it is. Either they're not burning as many calories as they think
they are, or they're eating more than they think they are, or a
combination of both.
The formulas
used to estimate how many calories people need to maintain their
current weight aren't accurate for everyone—they can be off by as much
as 30-40%, especially if your body fat percentage is pretty high, your
physical activity level is significantly higher or lower than average,
or you're counting almost everything you do (e.g., light housework,
grocery shopping, walking up one flight of stairs) as "exercise" even
though it doesn't actually meet the
parameters of what counts as fitness
(a high enough intensity to elevate your heart rate to an aerobic
range; a duration of at least 10 continuous minutes for the activity;
the moving of large muscle groups in a rhythmic way).
You can have the same problem on the other end of the energy equation: calorie intake. It's
very
common to underestimate how much you're actually eating, even when
you're tracking your food consistently. If you just eyeball your portion
sizes instead of measuring them, or if you tend to forget the little
"extras" you eat during the day (like licking peanut butter off the
knife while making your sandwich, or tasting your pasta sauce while
you're cooking it), you can easily add a few hundred uncounted calories
to your daily total.
To fix this problem, make sure your calorie numbers are as accurate as you can get them.
Track your calorie intake carefully and diligently, until you can
recognize portion sizes of the foods you eat often without measuring. And don't count the regular activities of daily
life you've always done as part of your "exercise."
Remember
that fitness trackers and cardio machines only estimate how many
calories you truly burn, and these trackers and machines tend to
overestimate how much you're really burning. For a more accurate
reading, you could invest in a good
heart rate monitor that better estimates your calorie burn based on how hard you are actually working during exercise.
The Second Most Common Problem: Excess muscle lossWe'd
like to think that every pound lost is a pound of fat, but in reality,
all weight loss involves some combination of fat loss and muscle loss.
To get the best results from your weight-loss efforts, you want to
maximize fat loss and minimize muscle loss. The best way to do that is to include adequate
strength training
in your exercise routine. Without strength training, a substantial
amount of the weight you lose could be muscle (lean tissue), which can
reduce your fitness and lower your calorie burning capacity. To avoid
these problems (and make it much easier to keep the lost weight off), be
sure to include at least two full-body strength training
workouts in your weekly routine. You can get plenty of strength-training ideas from SparkPeople's
workouts,
videos and
fitness resource center.
The Final Problem: WHAT you eat may matter almost as much as HOW MUCH you eat.How
your body handles the food you eat is governed by a very complex set of
biochemical interactions that determine when and where any excess
calories are stored, and how easily this energy can be retrieved for
later use. For some people with certain genetic predispositions, a diet
high in
fast-digesting carbohydrates
like refined sugar and refined grains can make it easier for their
bodies to store excess calories as fat and harder to get that energy
back out of fat cells later on when it's needed. It can also lead to
increased appetite and more
cravings for high-sugar foods.
There aren't yet any easily available tests that can identify people
with this problem, but if you've been significantly overweight for a
long time and you struggle with appetite, carbohydrate cravings, and
slow weight loss, it may be worth your while to experiment with a diet
higher in protein and healthy fats, and lower in refined carbohydrates
and sugar. Be sure to discuss this with your doctor first, especially if
you have any medical conditions/medications that can be affected by
your diet.
Weight loss seems so simple on the
surface:
Eat less than you burn and your body will drop pounds. But for many
people, there's more to the equation than counting calories in and
calories out. We are all an experiment of one; you cannot compare your
results to someone else's, just as you can't expect to have the same
results as another person, no matter how similar you may seem to be.
Think of your weight loss as a continuous journey. There will be bumps
in the road, along with times when the sailing is smooth, but no matter
what, you'll just have to pay attention to the route and be open to
making changes in your approach or direction along the way. When you
follow those guidelines, weight loss will become that much easier!
