What am I doing wrong?

[Liquid Sky]

Hello all,

My name is Mark. I am new to this site/forum. I just started working out Nov. 26th 2011. I have never worked out in the past at all. I am 31 and before I started working out I weighed 303lbs. 2 weeks later (today) I am 289.4lbs. Let me explain a little about my topic. I got a personal trainer (2 sessions) and a membership to my local XSport Fitness. They evaluated me to have 34.8% body fat. My body uses 3500 calories a day just sitting around. My trainer wants me to strength train and cardio. I bought a polar fitness watch and started to monitor my heart rate.

Zone 1 is from 125-132
Zone 2 is from 133-150
Zone 3 is from 151-169

and my max HR is 189. My trainer is awesome. He insists that I keep my HR at 151 and above as much as I can. That's all fine and dandy but I read on here Zone 2 is fat burning. My watch also tells me what % of calories are from fat. When my HR is above 151 only 10% of calories are from fat. When I keep my HR from 133-150 it goes up to 15-20% calories from fat.

Now for my diet. My diet has changed dramatically. I used to eat whatever I wanted till I was stuffed maybe once or twice a day. Now I eat every 3 hours. Here is the strict schedule:

9am - coffee w/creamer and a multivitamin
11am - 2 egg whites, slice of American cheese (for fats), and 2 carrot sticks (or celery sticks) about the size of my middle finger
2pm - protein shake
2:30pm - Work out
5pm - 1 Italian seasoned chicken breast (baked w/no oil), small side of blanched veggies (assorted w/no butter)
8pm - Protein bar
11pm - handful of raw almonds
1pm - bed

I have quadrupled my water intake as well. This diet I was told (by my trainer) will make my metabolism streamlined and effective. I am never hungry and I feel like a million bucks when energy is a factor. Now for my work out.

I am at the gym 5 days a week for 1hr to 1 1/2hr depending how drained I am. During this time I do:

- 30 min of the bike keeping my HR in Zone 2
I then use the free motion weights to strength train
- dead lift (30lbs 10 reps)
- ab machine (the one where you bend over holding the straps at 60-70lbs usually 20-30 reps)
- lats (30lbs 10 reps)
- curl (30lbs 10 reps)
- legs (2 machines - lifting up and down 60 up 70 down at 15-20 reps)

I strength train until I am worn out which is usually 30 min. Then I head back to the bike for another 30 min of Zone 2 HR.

My preexisting injuries:
- Left knee (arthroscopic surgery to fix my kneecap)
- Back (pinched nerves)
- Smoker (1/2 pack a day reduced from more than a pack a day)
- Heart (family history of heart disease)



I have kept this up for 2 weeks now and I have lost 14lbs!! Everyone tells me its water weight but I am ok with that. I feel amazing!! So here is my issue/questions. I made this really cool fitness tracker in excel and have a neat graph displaying my weight loss. This is mainly for a visual way for me to notice a plateau. I weigh myself daily before my workout. Each day I was dropping anywhere from 1 to 2lbs!! These past 2 days I have stayed the same at 289.4lbs. My questions are:

1.) Is this the beginning of my plateau? If so what do I do to get over this?
2.) Is eating all this protein the way to go? I am ok with it but am I on overload?
3.) Was the 14lbs I lost really water weight?
4.) Is Zone 2 where I want to be to lose fat or should I work for Zone 3 all the time?
5.) Is there anything else I can do to lose weight as fast as possible?
6.) Is there any other supplements I can use to aid in my weight loss?

I have searched around the forum as much as possible but nothing really pertained to my issue. I cant pay for a trainer like I would love to because he is expensive and I am not rich. I would greatly appreciate ANY advice you can give me on this. I really appreciate you taking the time to read this as well. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to ask.

 

[Goldfish]

1) I doubt it. So long as you stick with the meal plan, you probaby won't plateau for quite a few months, at which point it'll be time to increase your calories for a couple weeks to alleviate the hormonal challenges that arise from a calorie deficit, and then return to a moderate calorie deficit and continue on with weight loss.

2) Yes. Protein is your friend. It doesn't have to be in the form of shakes and bars - meat, eggs and dairy are fine - but you should be consuming probably 200g of protein per day, or more.

3) There's no doubt that at least some of it was water. But if you're suddenly losing water weight as a result of healthy activity, it's a good sign that you're also losing some fat with it. Even if it were entirely water, you're probably a teensy bit healthier now anyway, because it's still 14lb less load for your body to be constantly subjected to. Don't worry, you'll lose fat, too.

4) Zone 3 would be better than Zone 2, so long as you can handle it (dizziness, vomitting etc are not good signs, despite what The Biggest Loser might have you believing). There's no point in worrying about % of fat burnt during exercise, just worry about giving your muscles a good strength stimulus (so that your body doesn't treat muscle mass as expendable while losing weight - every pound of muscle mass that you lose is a pound of fat you've still got on you) and burning plenty of calories. You burn the highest percentage of fat while you're sleeping, but non-surprisingly, sleeping 20 hours a day is not the best way to lose weight.

Instead of thinking about which energy source you're using, think of bodyfat as a funnel or a cup with a hole in it that constantly has water (or energy, or I guess fat) being poured into it. It's not very easy to increase the size of the hole or the rate at which liquid pours out of the hole, even when you do all the right stuff to increase metabolic activity. It's much easier to limit the stuff getting poured into the glass/funnel in the first place, however. If you focus on trying to get a higher % of fat used in exercise, then you're trying to increase the size of the hole, which again doesn't work very well. But if forget about that and just burn a lot of calories, then that's a great big pile of energy that'll never enter into the cup/funnel. So, the fat cell (cup/funnel) will keep on pouring out through the hole in it at the same rate, but since there's less going into it, the content of the fat cell/cup/funnel will decrease. Make sense?

5) Keep on getting stronger. Deadlift more than 30lb. Replace leg curls and leg extensions with squats or leg press, if your knee's okay with that. Forget about bicep curls and the ab machine. Do bench press, overhead press, and seated rows instead.

Once you're able to do each exercise prioficiently, build up more speed with each exercise, and instead of doing, say, 3 sets of 10 reps, do something more like 8-10 sets of 2-3 reps at the same weight, focusing on speed, with short rest periods. But, re-read the first phrase in this paragraph again. Make sure you're good at each exercise before you start doing dynamic effort training.

6) I'm sure there are, but I wouldn't recommend them.

 

[Liquid Sky]

WOW thanks guys! I really appreciate the response! I am down to 288 today....but today was my cheat day....I had a burger with tater tots...them dollar drafts at the bar with some old college buddies. I hope that didn't kill it. I really appreciate you taking the time to write back and I will keep you updated on my progress if you wish. Time to get shredded!