High School Fatty Needs Help, please respond

M

MysticCat89

New member
Ok, I am currently a high school senior, and I have gained weight due to lack of control. I stress a lot, and I have been taking meds that cause an increase in appetite. I am about 5'2", and I weigh 134 lbs. I was on a mini-starvaton diet for about two years, and I added overexercising with DDR for about 4-8 hours every day for about a month, which worked well for me. When I finally got down to about 120, people kept telling me how gross I looked, even my boyfriend. So, I gave in an started eating between 1000-1400 calories per day. I eat very healthily. I have large, "muscular" legs, but the main thing is that I have a large ribcage that pokes out like a chicken's. I don't have time to exercise for hours a day because I leave for school at 6:30 (wake up at 5), don't get home until 4:00 if I ride my bus home, 5:00 if I ride home with my bf because my bus is annoying. I find it difficult to exercise alone. I had been doing some of the Jillian Michael's exercises, but they take way too long. I was doing about an hour to an hour + 1/2of cardio almost every day. I can't get this weight off; I'm sick of my appearance. I probably will never look like some of the more attractive beanpoles, but how can I effectively lose 10-20 lbs? Is the only way really to go back to a starvation diet? I've already screwed up my metabolism, so I may have to. Can someone please help me? Oh, I've also tried doing weight watchers, but it isn't working for me...
 
1000-1400 cals isn't enough for a 17-18 year old. A starvation diet is NOT the way to go---you will only end up weak and malnourished. Perhaps visiting a nutritionist would be a good start to getting the body you want.

The way to effectively lose 10 to 20 pounds is to eat a wide variety of foods and get plenty of vitamins, minerals and macronutrients. Cardio and resistance training are also important. Hope I helped a little bit.
 
But like I said, I know I don't get over 2000 calories, but I still gain weight. I have a feeling I'd get yelled at if I saw a nutritionist... Cardio is useless to me, though. All it does is make me hungrier. As far as toning, would 30-60 mins. every day be enough if I did a wide variety of exercises for different parts? How can I eat a variety of foods without overeating my daily calorie intake? Should I try like the multivitamin supplements? I appreciate the response.
 
How long ago did you do your mini starvation diet? Your metabolism needs time to reset itself, then you will be able to eat a healthy amount of calories (1500-1800) and still lose weight. You might have to move backwards a little before you move forwards, but if you want to keep the weight off for the long run, that is how you will have to do it. Try increasing your calories by about a hundred each week until you are up to about 2200, then see what your weight is doing. If you are still gaining, then you will probably just have to wait it out and do a little extra cardio to help fend it off. But in the meantime do whatever kind of cardio you prefer, but you dont need to do it for 4 hours, 30 minutes to and hour is fine. You could also try HIIT which there should be a thread about on here. It keeps your metabolism way up for a long time after you are done working out. Also start doing strength training. Dont use the little puny weights though, use some serious weight, you won't bulk up. You want to retain your muscle as you lose weight or else you won't look "toned" and you might not be as happy with your results as you could be.

The key is to do this the healthy way. You cant stay on a mini starvation diet forever, so if you do lose weight that way, you will only gain it back and probably more and you will make it harder for yourself to lose weight the next time.
 
MysticCat89 said:
But like I said, I know I don't get over 2000 calories, but I still gain weight. I have a feeling I'd get yelled at if I saw a nutritionist... Cardio is useless to me, though. All it does is make me hungrier. As far as toning, would 30-60 mins. every day be enough if I did a wide variety of exercises for different parts? How can I eat a variety of foods without overeating my daily calorie intake? Should I try like the multivitamin supplements? I appreciate the response.
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oh i didnt see your other questions. Cardio might make you hungrier, but if you are hungy, then eat something healthy. I always eat an orange after I exercise...lol its become a habit for me. Toning isnt actually an action you can do. You cannot build muscle while you are losing weight. Your body is expending more energy than it is taking in when you are losing fat, therefore it cannot use energy to build more muscle. "Toning" is essentially losing the body fat that covers the muscles underneath, making you look more "toned". If you do some good heavy strength training it should help you retain this muscle as you are losing weight, otherwise your body will start to use the muscle as energy as well as the fat....therefore no "toning". Multivitamins are good as far as I know. I don't personally take one, I just take fish oil capsules and vitamin B-12. I will probably start taking a multi-vitamin as well though. Just make sure its a good one.
 
It pretty much started after my 8th grade year because people always teased me about being fat. I tried exercising and just eating healthy for a little while, but I just wasn't satisfied. So, basically, somewhere between my 9th and 10th grade year. I tried a few times to go back to that eating style last year. The only bad thing about that is we don't have the equipment, and I can't join one of the clubs. We have a bowflex, but some of the components got lost in the move, so I can't use it. The best I can do it 8lb. dumbbells in use with circuit training, or a barbell with I think 50lbs on it (25 ea. side) with other random stuff (creating my own routine). With circuits, would my own body resistance (and sometimes the barbell/dumbbell for extra resistance do any good). I know this isn't an easily answered question, but how long could this take? I know it can't be done in like a month or anything (I wish...)...Thanks for the help.
 
There are plenty of exercises you can do that dont involve expensive equipment. Heck even picking up furniture and moving it around the house for an hour would suffice if you were into that.
You definatly dont sound overweight from the stats you've given. Probably just more muscular.

If you need ideas for workouts - check youtube - lots of people posts exercise stuff on there and workouts. Up your calories, but make sure your % of veges meats and dairy etc is nicely portioned (ie the ).
Are you evenly spacing the meals? or eating one or two huge meals at the end of the day? doing exercise/cardio isnt just for weight loss - its good for increasing your metabolism. This is why you are hungry. Try a soup to settle the hunger pangs, or fruit/veg or water. All these things are low cal and help speed up the metabolism.

Wishing you well with your goals :)
 
I have plenty of workout ideas, but it's gotten to the point where I can't do anything. Every time I try to exercise, people think I'm overdoing it or am just in a bad mood and then just get mad at me (mainly my parents). You're right about the muscular thing, I guess, but It doesn't look like muscle/toning... just fat. I may be "normal" for my stats, but I'm being obsessive because it's not good enough for me. I have hardly any shape, either....just squish. My meals are pretty ridiculous...I eat a breakfast to cover both breakfast and lunch, unless I just decide to eat a smaller breakfast. If I eat a smaller breakfast, I come home and eat a small snack and a smaller dinner later.(I am eating more than it sounds like). I don't like eating at school, so I don't. I eat starches for breakfast (oatmeal, cereal, toast) or yogurt and fruit. I go easy on red meat. Well, I appreciate all the tips guys, but I don't think there's any point to this anymore. If I'm just going to get fussed at and make everyone angry, I might as well go back to what really works for me. Again I appreciate it; I wish you all luck with your goals too.
 
Hi sweetie! Unfortunately, there's no getting round the fact that our bodies do require energy to function, akin to gas in a car. Once there is nothing left to feed off of, and probably long before that, we die. Similar to a car simply not being able to run once its gas is depleted. So starving is clearly not an option and it should never be regarded as such.

When you talk about your body being squishy, that's because your starving caused your body to canabolize a lot of your muscle to use as energy. And it is impossible for your body to BUILD new muscle when you're working out without sufficient fuel/protein/carbs to grow the new muscle. Its just impossible to grow muscle without these elements, which is a why a lot of body builders drink those protein shakes after a work out.

You will never reach your goals by starving or by creating a calorie deficit that is too high. Your body WILL go into starvation mode and your metabolism will slow down. And given what you've told us, it sounds like that's already the case.

I agree that you should start eating more and more each week until your eating 2200 calories a day for a little while. During that time, when you get to eat all those calories, do your exercise but dont be obsessive. Work to burn around 2000 calories per week with exercise.
 
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