This has never been an easy journey for me.

Before I ask my question I need to vent a bit. My Entire life was always filled with activity. I was NEVER a lazy fat person (not implying that we all are just that i was extremely active). At my largest 360 pounds I was running 4 miles every day. I was always exercising for exercise & just for fun. I was known to be the one who never sat. With that said I still was fat & losing weight was Hell! After month 3 of my WLS my weigth loss slowed alot. I exercised every pound off after my first 60 lost. I was obsessive about exercising. I will give my WLS this much credit...for the last year I maintained my weight without exercising and that has never happened to me before. Ook know the reason for my rant. I have been working out daily for 4 weeks and avoiding sugar (my addiction ) like the plague. I can honestly say i have been making heathly choices with my life. HOWEVER I have been unable to lose even 1 single pound. I am beyond discouraged!!! The gym says" Muscle weights more that fat and I am obviously building muscle". Im sorry but I just dont want to hear that EVER again. I was not expecting a miracle but girl a girl something. And before you ask I did lose inches. 1 in my waist and 1 in my neck. I do believe that is false though because I was crying by the time of those measurements and I dont think the girl measuring me could have pulled the tape any harder. I know the responses will be dont give up. I know muscle weighs more. I have felt so tired and deprived for the last 4 weeks that I was soooo needing to see a loss Diana RNY 9/17/03 360/205 & obviously holding

First off, everything weighs the same (it is the space they take up that is different) therefore a person who weighs 160 5'8'' that works out can be a size 6, whereas a person of the same weight and height who is sedentary would be a size 14. Do not measure your success by the scale (you should know this by now). Secondly, having worked with a trainer for the last 16 months I have learned to adjust my eating habits according to my workouts. I fuel on a small protein and complex carb before a workout, and feed my muscle on protein after a workout. This is so important in the scheme of things. In my workout I have been trained to start with 30 mins of cardio then go to my weight training (alternating upper and lower body (muscle groups on different days)), and end my workout with another 20 mins of really hard cardio (this is what allows fat to burn). I workout out 2 days on, 1 day off. I eat 6 meals a day consisting of a LOT of protein loading on my workout days (about 1200 calories). On the off days I cut my calorie intake to about 950 calories. If you are interested email me and I will give you a fantastic website where you can ask important questions of professionals in the body building arena (very valuable). V.

ANT check your mail box.

Hey, Ant, If you are interested, Rich and I did metabolic testing in Manassas with a trainer. He does the metabolic testing and can also have the computer print you a cardio workout to alter your body to burn fat at a higher heart rate. We've been doing it for a while and need to get retested one of these days. Definitely found lots of differences doing it. I burn fat at a heart rate in the 70s, I think. I have a very low resting heart rate. Hopefully that has improved quite a bit. Kathy

V~question for you? I do 30min of cardio and then weight train afterwards, but I haven't been following up with another 20min of cardio~do you do this only if you want to lose weight or should I be doing this even if I'm in "maintainence mode"?? Thanks in advance! Tracy B

It is approx 45 minutes of sustained , increased heart rate activity, until you started to use your stored fat? I believe as long as the heart rate is within fat burning zone (this will vary on peoples weight) you are reeping the benefits of that exercise regardless of what kind it is, or how you are doing it. As long as your exercise causes your heart to be exerting enough to be in the fat burning zone for your weight, it should be beneficial. By default, simple carbs are the ones that are readily available for energy. If you consume enough simple carbs to get you thru your workout, then you wont have your fat stores kick in. The fat stores are used when the body needs the energy from them, you wont need the fat if you have enough from the excess energy...carbs. Complex carbs are different. We all know they digest much slower , therefore the body may not have enough of them readily available for your energy needs for your workout. If so, then the body will be more likely to use your fat stores when the complex carbs are not readily available. You can have complex carbs in your system still waiting to be digested, yet exercising like mad and those complex carbs are not right away available to be used for needed energy. So its then that the body will burn a bit of its own fat. Then we got glycogen. That too will be burned after the energy from carbs is not available before fat is used. But glycogen is easily depleted. This is why its a good idea to workout on an empty tummy regarding cardio. sometimes there are so many twists and turns with this topic its hard to pin point exactly. Example: Someone may want to go to the gym on an empty tummy for cardio. Yet they had a massive amount of simple carbs the day prior. You may, or may not, have used them all yet for bodily functions. Or you have someone who does nothing but only eat complex carbs. Yet they have eaten a massive amount of them. Hard to say given everyone is doing different things with their days, if those complex carbs are used up yet or not, before exercise. You may have someone who has some insulin resistenece or yeast issues who by default hold onto their carbs of any nature, longer than someone who doesnt. Their bodies dont regulate the carbs or insulin properly, they may have a harder time burning their fat than the rest of us. Ive been studying nutrition and still , sometimes its so confusing to figure out what exactly is happening with said person regarding their own carb intake. Everyone is different. In a nutshell, Carbs are the main source of energy for the body and the body usually wont ever tap into its stored fat as a secondary source unless it has to. The body is greedy and it doesnt like to tap its fat stores unless it absolutely has to. If enough carbs are readily available in your body, it will stick to using them first, until depleted. Carbs do stay active in your body for 48 hours. But, if you are the person who is constantly refueling yourself of alot of carbs, they will always be active because the body never runs out of them and they are in great supply. On the flip side. If you are a person who is doing low enough carb to where your body considers it carb deficient, yet you are still obviously consuming them, then it will always use your fat stores instead as a MAIN energy source, because the carbs are just too low, even tho you are consuming them. So I suppose if you wanted to take the guess work out of it and know you are always using your fat stores during your workout, then consume only complex carbs and keep them at a point of moderation. Where they are not the main source of energy. If you get too tired, then up them a bit. It also takes more energy to burn fat than it does to burn carbs. Hope this was helpful

Thank You! That was very helpful! I may have to read it over a few times b4 I can get it to all sink in, but I think I get the point of it all. Losing or maintaining is such a process of trial and error! I appreciate your response! Tracy B

Diana, I'm so sorry. I know how disappointed you must be. But please be proud of yourself and your accomplishments! You're doing all the right things, you're healthy, you look wonderful! You said this is the first time you've been able to maintain your weightloss so that's a HUGE thing right there! You have had to work harder than anyone I know to lose the weight~you've paid your dues and I have faith that all your hard work will pay off in the end! Vent away anytime~that's what we're here for! (((((((Hugs)))))) Tracy B

Tracy, If you are trying to avoid losing any more weight then I would avoid this. With that being said, I have been doing this and maintaining even with a higher calorie intake. The last cardio tends to burn and sugars in your system. Hope this helps.

"The gym says" Muscle weights more that fat and I am obviously building muscle". " I hate this statement, as it is a load of feel good crud. The reality is, you can only put on a small amount of muscle weight in any given -year-. The most for men is about 20lbs.. in a year. You are not going to put on enough muscle in a month to slow your weight loss. In line with that, as you lose weight, your body has less fat to lose. Simply put, if you know that 3500 calories is 1lb of fat, then you need to burn that off to lose the pound. However, your body can only burn so many calories in a day. When you get to certain fat levels, you are only looking at supporting 300 or so calories per day. That means 10 days or more per pound, no matter how much less you eat. WLS sucks like that. In the beginning, our bodies can burn 3500 calories a day of fat (or more), so while we take in very little food, our bodies make up for it from the stores we have. As we get close to goal, we have less stores, so we cannot burn as much as quick..this leads to the illusion that our weight loss has slowed or stopped. As a suggestion, I say simply to find your maintenence level..that sweet spot where calories in does really equal calories out. Once you have that, then reduce your intake by 200 calories (if you want to lose more.) Once you do that..stay off the scale. measure your progress by how you look, your measurements, and body composition (body fat measurements).