Okay, need advice on my program!

amyamyamy

amyamyamy

New member
Hey everybody, I would love some advice on my exercise/diet program! Here are the details:

I'm 5'1", 164 lbs. My body is pear shaped, where I hold most of my weight in my belly, hips and thighs (but MOSTLY my belly!!!).

I am eating a low fat diet, taking in 1500 calories a day. For breakfast I usually try to have most of my daily allotment of complex carbohydrates, most of my protein during lunch, and an apple and some thin cheddar cheese slices for "dinner". I'm a waitress and work nights, so I don't get home until 9pm or so...and I can't eat at work...so even though I'm usually pretty hungry, I try not to eat very much at all when I get home from work. So basically, the general idea is that my breakfast is medium-sized, my lunch is the largest meal, and dinner is small.

Right now, I am doing 30-minutes of interval training 6 days a week, and the 20-minute Winsor Pilates DVD 4 days a week.

I also take the One-A-Day "Active" Vitamin supplement.

These are my main questions:
1) Is 30-minutes of interval training long enough, or should I do more?
2) Do I have the right idea as far as my diet goes?
3) Do I need to add in weight training too, or does the Pilates cover the strength training aspect?
4) Is my daily vitamin good, or is there a better type I should take?

Also, if anyone has any other tips, I would greatly appreciate it! There is so much information out there, and I feel so confused and scrambled about what I should do and what will work for me!!

Thanks everyone :)
 
Hi

You didn't mention how your program is working. Are you losing weight and/or inches?

IMO it is a good idea to lift weights regardless of whatever else you do. But if you haven't done it before I'd go to a gym and have somebody knowledgeable help get you started.

As far as your diet goes, it looks okay to me, you aren't starving yourself. I'd sneak a couple of snacks in to keep your blood sugar level more constant throughout the day. Especially while you're working.

Drink lots of water and get plenty of sleep.

It'll take some time, but you'll get to where you want to be!

David
 
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Total agreement with DCarr10760.

Just my opinion:
On the Cardio, if you are losing weight at an acceptable rate don't increase it. The body adapts to it really fast so you will end up doing more and more to get the desired effect. So maybe increase it just a bit when weight loss slows down or play with one of the other variables like dropping the cals or carbs a bit before you start putting in marathon sessions doing cardio.

About the Vitamins, I am not big on them and for the most part you are only making expensive pretty colored pee when they come out because you body casts off what it doesn't need. So any good brand will do.

Water, Water, water.
 
Thanks for the advice guys!

As far as the weight loss goes, I've been on this plan for a month and a week...and have lost 1.2 lbs. The last time I did an exercise program, I was losing about 4-5 lbs a month doing strictly cardio for an hour and a half with a 1200 calorie intake every day. But after reading some posts on here, I have seen a lot of people saying that 1200 calories is borderline starving. Is this true even for my body type at 5'1" 165 lbs? I can't help but wonder if that is true, because I was losing 4-5 lbs a month for about two months, then it seemed harder to get it off. I've also heard that you have to be careful not to burn off too many extra calories during exercise either, because it can have the same starvation effect. Is it really that touchy of a thing?

I definitely feel more confident this time around because I know not to expect a big loss every month, and that it will take time. But 1.2 lbs in a month seems kind of light, doesn't it? I want to do this safely and as effectively as possible, but I feel like such a layman! lol

What has everyone done that works for you? More weight training than cardio? Vice versa?
 
Well, don't worry about it going slow, worry that it might stop and come back if you don't keep on the path you're on now.

As for cardio vs. weight training you could alternate every other day with a day off for rest. That way you would benefit from all of it.

The important thing is that you keep on challenging your body, adding more weight to your lifts, running faster or stair stepping, keeping on building.

Rather than keeping to an arbitrary number of calories each day you might want to use some of the calculators available here and on other sites to get a sense of the number of calories that a person the size that you want to be must eat to maintain their weight. To see if you are eating enough. Then using FitDay.com or something like it, keep a food diary to make sure that you are really accurately assessing the amount of calories you eat, to make sure you're being honest. You don't need to keep the diary forever, just until you can accurately judge portion sizes, and calorie content.

David C
 
Okay sounds good!

As far as calorie count, I used the calculator and it said I should be taking in about 1500 a day...but I calculated it using the weight that I am currently at, and subtracting the 400 calorie deficit.

Should I be calculating instead at the weight I WANT to be in order to be more accurate?
 
Well I'm no expert, but that's exactly what I am doing and here's why. I have literally been on dozens of diets in my life, each time losing anywhere from 10 to 60 lbs of weight. But I put the weight back on.

Besides all of the emotional and psychological reasons I might have to deal with the plain fact of the matter was I was returning to a baseline eating pattern that was too much for me. So my strategy this LAST time is to eat what a man of my ideal weight needs to eat to maintain weight. Now that is a considerable calorie deficit already, given the weight that I am.

Any extra I get from exercise.

The benefit to this is that it is training me to eat the way that I will for the rest of my life, rather than to doggedly adhere to a diet that lasts until it ends and then return to past bad habits.

That's my thinking, in my case it works out to roughly a 500 calorie per day deficit, and so is in line with various recommendations.

The mistake I see too many people make is to eat far too few calories and starve or have to deal with constant hunger or just give up too soon because the self denial is unmaintainable long term.

You will need to eat a certain way for the rest of your life to maintain a healthy weight, why not start eating just that way now with exercise, your body will become what you want it to be. That's my thinking.

David C
 
hahahahaha- I love it. It's such a basic idea, but I never thought of it that way!

Thank you so much for posting that- I think I'm going to follow your idea as well. It makes total sense, and seems so much easier than having to
re-evaluate your caloric intake every time you lose a few pounds.

What a great idea!

Thanks again :)
 
Weight training>intervals>slow cardio

Do you only eat 3 times per day? Do you not get a break at work? Sounds kind of like you are on a low fat & carb diet. How positive are you that you're eating 1500 calories per day?
 
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