VSG Maintenance Group
Why is my goal so elusive?? Long rant!
Frankly, if you have been working out with weights, you may have develop more lean body mass, which weighs more. The more muscle that you have, the higher your metabolic rate. I would get a bod pod test or some type of hydrostatic body fat testing, before dropping your calories. How tall are you? 1100cal/day is even a bit low for someone of my short stature, if one includes exercise in the mix. I think getting your body fat tested, would give you more information to base your decision on whether or not, to drop your calories. At this point in time, 900 cal/day might be too low, especially with the exercise that you do. You may even need to increase them a bit. Have you spoken with a dietician?
Hopefully, your body is just taking a rest and weight will come off.
Btw, many muscular people have higher BMI's due to muscle mass.
Gail
Hopefully, your body is just taking a rest and weight will come off.
Btw, many muscular people have higher BMI's due to muscle mass.
Gail
" 
Ok, I'm still not going to advise you to decrease calories just yet. I'll give you some IF info tomorrow (getting late) but was just reading something and immediately thought of you. The basic idea of these discussions is that working out too much with too few calories hinders weight loss and causes a lot of water retention. I believe you are still losing fat but retaining water - which bloats you (did you see my pics? I was a heiffer with the 10 lb of water weight I gained from my period!)
an article on raising calories to promote fat loss
http://www.3dmusclejourney.com/2011-05qa.php
A post by leigh peele (sorry it's long)
How can you gain or not lose weight with proper RMR burn?
How long does it take to reset this problem?
How do you reset this problem?
---
In general when it comes to metabolic problems the factors and causes vary. Sometimes it is thyroid, sometimes it is cortisol, sometimes your RMR is lowered and sometimes your RMR is fine.
If say your RMR is lowered then what is a surplus to you is lowered, if you by all account in your head are in a deficit, but your body sees it as a surplus then you will gain weight. If you have a medical problem (which is rare) your deficit will be lowered and lowered and a surplus easier and easier to reach. The highest drop I have personally recorded is 52% of what someones RMR should have been but this was with a 89 pound girl who had lost her hair due to anorexia, THAT is what it took for that dramatic of a RMR lowering.
In the instance of a high expenditure of energy but no lose of actual weight or actual gain of weight this usually comes with not high cortisol levels per say but high cortisol accessing. Meaning that due to your overtraining and undereating, due to your high stressing of your system and hormone levels, you are causing a fluctuation of natural steroid releases in your body. With the release of these types of steriods in the body mixed with a womans already naturally sensitivity to water hormone inblance , you can see massive weight gains in water alone and I am not talking just 5-7 pounds here. Through in the fact that this is the type of condition that can build visual fact and add in one more dandy of the ease in creation of muscle mass and you have yourself and league of thick, higher body fat, obsessive trainee women who's very obsessions with low body fat have caused the exact reverse effect of what they were going after.
Let me give you a case example here.
Client Case-Christine M.
160 pounds at 5'4
Ate 800-1200 calories a day for 5+ years
Aggressive lifting and aerobic program
Little to no rest or breaks.
Moderately aggressive daily activity.
By all accounts burning 2300-2700 calories a day.
We upped her calories slowly, some initial gain and water/hormone transfer occurred. Leveled out after 5-6 weeks. Everything pretty stalled and normal, no gain, no loss for 12-14 weeks. When we hit 1800 calories, like a lightening bolt she started to lose weight. Then it stalled. We moved up to 2000 and she had a slight gain for a matter of 1 week and then bam a drop. By week 18 she was 153 pounds and eating 2150-2250 calories a day. We stayed there for 2 more weeks, she lost another 1lb. We upped it to 2500 calories and she gained back 4 pounds very quickly. It stayed for about 2 weeks then went away. She was back down to 152. We stayed there for 2 more weeks. She stayed at 152. That was what I considered her maintenance. Now it was time to take it off.
During this whole time activity and training had been very mild, nothing aggressive. We decided to cut calories to a small degree and increase workout intensity to give a shock to the body. Lost 2 lbs.
We then bounced rest and calories and basically kept things guessing. Lost 8lbs. Now at week 24 she was down to 142 pounds and eating on average 1800-2000 calories to lose fat and losing it quickly.
Christine has since achieve her fat loss goal and is now training to be a powerlifter, not my expertise but I still give her nutrition advice and she checks in from time to time. She is 5'4, 134 pounds and is ripped and eating 2000+ calories a day.
When all is said and done there are some absolutes, no matter what the cause the fixes are are the same.
Feeding and resting are the main fix.
Overtraining and undereating are the main causes.
Water retention and hormone balance are big indicators.
People need to calm the **** down.
Carbs are needed and those who neglect their use in aggressive training end up with the most problems from my experiance.
Now this is a vague post as Lyle can tell you himself this is one hell of a subject *****e why I am completing a book on it). While the causes and reasons are complex again avoiding it is really simple and if you can wrap your mind around the possiblity of gaining a little to lose a lot, the take home point is...
eat and rest.
an article on raising calories to promote fat loss
http://www.3dmusclejourney.com/2011-05qa.php
A post by leigh peele (sorry it's long)
How can you gain or not lose weight with proper RMR burn?
How long does it take to reset this problem?
How do you reset this problem?
---
In general when it comes to metabolic problems the factors and causes vary. Sometimes it is thyroid, sometimes it is cortisol, sometimes your RMR is lowered and sometimes your RMR is fine.
If say your RMR is lowered then what is a surplus to you is lowered, if you by all account in your head are in a deficit, but your body sees it as a surplus then you will gain weight. If you have a medical problem (which is rare) your deficit will be lowered and lowered and a surplus easier and easier to reach. The highest drop I have personally recorded is 52% of what someones RMR should have been but this was with a 89 pound girl who had lost her hair due to anorexia, THAT is what it took for that dramatic of a RMR lowering.
In the instance of a high expenditure of energy but no lose of actual weight or actual gain of weight this usually comes with not high cortisol levels per say but high cortisol accessing. Meaning that due to your overtraining and undereating, due to your high stressing of your system and hormone levels, you are causing a fluctuation of natural steroid releases in your body. With the release of these types of steriods in the body mixed with a womans already naturally sensitivity to water hormone inblance , you can see massive weight gains in water alone and I am not talking just 5-7 pounds here. Through in the fact that this is the type of condition that can build visual fact and add in one more dandy of the ease in creation of muscle mass and you have yourself and league of thick, higher body fat, obsessive trainee women who's very obsessions with low body fat have caused the exact reverse effect of what they were going after.
Let me give you a case example here.
Client Case-Christine M.
160 pounds at 5'4
Ate 800-1200 calories a day for 5+ years
Aggressive lifting and aerobic program
Little to no rest or breaks.
Moderately aggressive daily activity.
By all accounts burning 2300-2700 calories a day.
We upped her calories slowly, some initial gain and water/hormone transfer occurred. Leveled out after 5-6 weeks. Everything pretty stalled and normal, no gain, no loss for 12-14 weeks. When we hit 1800 calories, like a lightening bolt she started to lose weight. Then it stalled. We moved up to 2000 and she had a slight gain for a matter of 1 week and then bam a drop. By week 18 she was 153 pounds and eating 2150-2250 calories a day. We stayed there for 2 more weeks, she lost another 1lb. We upped it to 2500 calories and she gained back 4 pounds very quickly. It stayed for about 2 weeks then went away. She was back down to 152. We stayed there for 2 more weeks. She stayed at 152. That was what I considered her maintenance. Now it was time to take it off.
During this whole time activity and training had been very mild, nothing aggressive. We decided to cut calories to a small degree and increase workout intensity to give a shock to the body. Lost 2 lbs.
We then bounced rest and calories and basically kept things guessing. Lost 8lbs. Now at week 24 she was down to 142 pounds and eating on average 1800-2000 calories to lose fat and losing it quickly.
Christine has since achieve her fat loss goal and is now training to be a powerlifter, not my expertise but I still give her nutrition advice and she checks in from time to time. She is 5'4, 134 pounds and is ripped and eating 2000+ calories a day.
When all is said and done there are some absolutes, no matter what the cause the fixes are are the same.
Feeding and resting are the main fix.
Overtraining and undereating are the main causes.
Water retention and hormone balance are big indicators.
People need to calm the **** down.
Carbs are needed and those who neglect their use in aggressive training end up with the most problems from my experiance.
Now this is a vague post as Lyle can tell you himself this is one hell of a subject *****e why I am completing a book on it). While the causes and reasons are complex again avoiding it is really simple and if you can wrap your mind around the possiblity of gaining a little to lose a lot, the take home point is...
eat and rest.
5'8" - 40 years old
For bodybugg/bodymedia accuracy...see this link, post #3:
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=128911381
for IF info, see this link:
http://www.leangains.com/2010/04/leangains-guide.html
I follow only the very basics of IF (I don't do the recomposition part - this is too much hassle for me, I would rather bulk and cut), which is to say that I simply stick to a feeding window. I prefer to eat from 1:00pm-9:00 or 10:00pm but you can choose any window you like.
I still have trouble eating enough and also getting in my fluids with my VSG, so this is perfect for me. I can really concentrate on fluids in the morning, and food later. I find with this method I am not stressed about rationing out my food to last the whole day and I don't have to worry about running out of calories. The downside is that sometimes it's hard to fit enough in the 8 hour window, so I may extend it to a 10 hour window, which is also fine.
Anyway, it's just something to consider. Some love it, some decide it's not for them.
When I'm bulking I just eat whenever. I just like this for cutting.
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=128911381
for IF info, see this link:
http://www.leangains.com/2010/04/leangains-guide.html
I follow only the very basics of IF (I don't do the recomposition part - this is too much hassle for me, I would rather bulk and cut), which is to say that I simply stick to a feeding window. I prefer to eat from 1:00pm-9:00 or 10:00pm but you can choose any window you like.
I still have trouble eating enough and also getting in my fluids with my VSG, so this is perfect for me. I can really concentrate on fluids in the morning, and food later. I find with this method I am not stressed about rationing out my food to last the whole day and I don't have to worry about running out of calories. The downside is that sometimes it's hard to fit enough in the 8 hour window, so I may extend it to a 10 hour window, which is also fine.
Anyway, it's just something to consider. Some love it, some decide it's not for them.
When I'm bulking I just eat whenever. I just like this for cutting.
5'8" - 40 years old
