I'm 25. When I was a kidlet I was extremely physically in shape. Around my 16th birthday it went downhill. I've struggled with my weight ever since. Eat eat extremely healthily and average between 900-1200 calories per day. It's rarity when I don't spend between 1 hour- 1 1/2 hours per day at the gym, in addition to the fact that at my job I'm always on my feet and moving around and walking. I've been doing this for five years. And yet, no matter what I do I cannot lose weight. I cannot drop below a 29 BMI. Anyone else have a problem like this? If so what can I do to drop the weight?
Hi, perhaps you have an under active thyroid gland in which case your metabolism would slow down. A blood test will reveal this condition. If you want to spike up your metabolism, out of the hour and a half you are at the gym do one hour of vigorous cardio exercise and a half hour of strength training with free weights or machine weights. Choose a cardio activity you enjoy be it aerobics class, treadmill, elliptical, or stairmaster. At your age you should raise your heartbeat to 130 to 140 beats per minute for at least a half our out of your hour workout. It may take you a few months to reach this goal so have patience and be consistant and you will be burning calories for several hours after your are done. This is called the afterburn and I have seen people lose massive amounts of weight using target heart rate training. Buy a heart rate monitor, you wear it like a watch and will give you your heart rate in real time, it is an invaluable training tool. If your problem is not your thyroid I just can't imagine what the problem is, I mean you are eating like a sparrow and are always on the move. I was wondering if your mother or father have a slow metabolism, some of this may be heredity also All the best......lenvegas
Also, depending on your frame size, you may not be eating enough. If you go too low on calories, your body will try to hold on to the fat. 1200 a day is as low as you should ever go. You may be able to go to 1500 and adjust what you are eating. What's your typical daily intake look like?
Sounds like you have reached a point of balance (or comfort) with what you eat over what you do to exercise.
I agree that you likely need to eat more, and more often. Five meals a day is usual and optimum, according to many fitness programs. But, the weight loss in these programs is not the goal, it just happens to be an effect of the diet and (increased) exercise. Combination of cardio and weights or resistance training is the answer.
You have to keep building on any program or you get back to this balance/comfort point and don't effect any more change. If that happens to coincide with the weight you actually want to be, its fine, but if not, then you will need to level up again.
By the way, as you do this (and you likely know) you will lose fat and gain muscle so might actually end up not losing weight so much as redistributing it!
