Eating well and training hard but not loosing body fat

[markinnb]

I'll leave it for others to point out that it is nigh near impossible to GAIN weight when in a Calorie deficit.
you can gain muscle while losing fat - this is true. it is also quite difficult although it has been done.
so what you are doing is not working - you can't gain weight and have it be muscle when in a deficit.
a person can change their PERCENTAGE ' lbm and bodyfat... but that is something else.. and it would be at a lower bodyweight.

unfortunately, many young women have been put on such diets by their boyfriend who doesn't really know what's going on. they just see a low number of calories and tell their gf to stick to it. and then may go bonkers on the gf when their special diet doesn't work in reality as it does on paper. they accuse the gf of cheating excessively or whatever. on paper, the numbers look fantastic. it just doesn't work out that way though.


your diet has probably resulted in a excessive loss of muscle which would have reduced your caloric requirement.
and the excessive exercise has robbed you of gains in muscle- you are highly overtrained.
if you are on stims, then you may be able to keep at it, even when you shouldn't have.
if you are not taking stims, then you should be exhausted and starving.


of course, everyone I have ever met who has done something similar as you has denied all of it completely. " all top notch Mate! never felt better !"
but then... here we are.

I know youre trying to better understand my situation and try find the 'truth' , but I think it would be more helpful if you just thought what I should change ? e.g what my calorie intake should be , how much training is too much etc.

you're just making numbers up. the 50-30-20 spiel is just crap. completely made up. YOu may not intend to mislead but you don't know how important some things are so you are a bit mushy about the facts.
you dont' know how much chocolate you're eating , as an example. you said 70% of the time I eat well ( so 30% not well ) but then we discover that its' only 1 day . 1 day is not 30% of the time. so maybe you eat ~ 400 calories from chocolate as that would be about a 30% overage of yoru daily calories.
we have no idea how much you are eating as you don't know.

it's impossible to tell you the number of calories to eat or how to train, when to train.
you need to take 5-10 days off training completely.
how about getting a myfitnesspal account or something and use that to keep meticulous track of your food intake.
how about going to get a scale and measure out your food.

someone is bound to tell you to do squats, deadlifts and rowing on your off days . maybe OHP. maybe some assisted dips . but not all of them on the same day.
but a coach should be able to do that as you are training with the rowing club.
ask him/her what they would suggest to you.
you are standing right there in front of her. .she can do an assessment and help you out.
people who offer suggestions on this site without knowing much or anyting more about you are merely stating what everyone does.

you definitely are overtraining for your goals. you thought that more would be better and get your results faster. it doesn't always work that way.

how about telling us how you are rowing? do you know any of the vocabulary and theory behind rowing? what program do they have you on with that rowing club?

for example , are you doing intervals or long slow steady stuff ?

you dont' know how much you don't know.


as for food, you have to start thinking of yourself as an athlete.

[markinnb]

2000 Calories / day. 125 grams of protein ... split it up however you want with fat and carbs for the remainder calories

row low intensity & steady for 30 minutes at rating of 24-26 for 4 times per week.
find a pace that allows normal conversation/ breathing throughout the activity.
work on increasing the time but not exceeding 60 minutes.
train with weights 3 times per week , focusing on deadlifts, squats and bent over rowing. don't stay in the gym more than an hour.
do 4 sets of 10 on each exercise. rest 2 minutes between each set
learn technique on all the exercises.
never sacrifice technique form to hit a target number.
stretch for 30 minutes every day. google this topic to find the proper stretches for you.
30 minutes minimum and hopefully up the stretching.
look into taking yoga classes
take a dance class at least once per week. this actually is soemthing I find important and useful

add another activity in there once in a while.
as you get better with rowing, you will find yourself looking up different training styles and whatever else. intervals for one thing.

get lots of rest.
good luck

[Rower4001]

2000 Calories / day. 125 grams of protein ... split it up however you want with fat and carbs for the remainder calories

row low intensity & steady for 30 minutes at rating of 24-26 for 4 times per week.
find a pace that allows normal conversation/ breathing throughout the activity.
work on increasing the time but not exceeding 60 minutes.
train with weights 3 times per week , focusing on deadlifts, squats and bent over rowing. don't stay in the gym more than an hour.
do 4 sets of 10 on each exercise. rest 2 minutes between each set
learn technique on all the exercises.
never sacrifice technique form to hit a target number.
stretch for 30 minutes every day. google this topic to find the proper stretches for you.
30 minutes minimum and hopefully up the stretching.
look into taking yoga classes
take a dance class at least once per week. this actually is soemthing I find important and useful

add another activity in there once in a while.
as you get better with rowing, you will find yourself looking up different training styles and whatever else. intervals for one thing.

get lots of rest.
good luck

Thanks for your help .

question about the stretching , is this to improve flexibility for rowing peformance?

[Bob S.]

There is plenty of controversy about many aspects of diet, but one item is a sure thing: Drink plenty of water - just plain water. At least 2 quarts a day - up to 4 is not overdoing it if you live in an area of low humidity. The intake should be well spread out through the day and it should be ingested in moderate volumes (like about 8 oz or 25 dl) at well spaced intervals. Too much in a short time can result in a loss of too much sodium.

With regard to resistance training. At age 16, it is best to avoid those exercises the inhibit bone growth, specifically deadlifts and weighted squats. The same must be said for any upper body work that puts a lot of excess pressure on the spine. Doing scores of reps with very light weights is probably OK. The resistance work of rowing is essentially that in itself. Since rowing does not do much for certain muscle sets (particularly triceps and pectorals), it is worthwhile it is worthwhile doing a lot of high rep, low weight to work the muscle sets that don't get much work in rowing. Pushups are excellent for that.

Bob S.

[hjs]

I'll leave it for others to point out that it is nigh near impossible to GAIN weight when in a Calorie deficit.
you can gain muscle while losing fat - this is true. it is also quite difficult although it has been done.
so what you are doing is not working - you can't gain weight and have it be muscle when in a deficit.
a person can change their PERCENTAGE ' lbm and bodyfat... but that is something else.. and it would be at a lower bodyweight.

your diet has probably resulted in a excessive loss of muscle which would have reduced your caloric requirement.
and the excessive exercise has robbed you of gains in muscle- you are highly overtrained.
if you are on stims, then you may be able to keep at it, even when you shouldn't have.
if you are not taking stims, then you should be exhausted and starving.

of course, everyone I have ever met who has done something similar as you has denied all of it completely. " all top notch Mate! never felt better !"
but then... here we are.

Breakfast : porridge made with water + cinnamon

Lunch : 2 brown crackers with tuna

dinner: 3 egg omellete with peppers and mushroom

snacks: fruit .

thats a typical day for me.

and on this you train? Its 100% impossible you eat way to little, and not enough protein and fat.
You should forget the scale a bit and look in the longer run, 3/6 months. Eat certainly a bit more, get rid of the 30% days and make every meal around protein first. Also fruit? A few is ok, not more.
First get a good routine going which you later can tweek a bit. At the moment you on a hunger diet which is not helping your training and makes you cheat.

Also, l hear nothing about your goal, where do you want to go? What is your current%, where do you want it to be? How much fat do you need to shed to get there. In which timeframe do you want to do that etc.

Really loosing fat is not difficult, if you have some discipline. But you need a good plan and forget the short term.

[markinnb]

Thanks for your help .

question about the stretching , is this to improve flexibility for rowing peformance?

you don't seem to understand a bunch of basic things. you are also revealing some things: you say that you row with the rowing club yet you don't now about stretching and flexibility issues. There is no coach there or a trainer or are all the athletes just let loose in a gymnasium ? So you have never seen anyone stretch after their training? no one has ever spoken about the benefits of being limber/lithe agile flexible or whatever. ?

There's videos about this very basic thing. youtube.com . As an example, there are videos made by a rowing coach where he talks about stretching as well as having an athlete demonstrate the proper form for these stretches. There are stretches specific for rowing as well as general stretches. There's more videos but another one was of some Xeno guy ( look it up ) for proper form on the rowing machine. Then there was another video of Matt Miller ( I think that is his name ) who is an absolute monster at 2 m tall yet only ~ 100 kg. Quite tall and relatively lean.

Breakfast : porridge made with water + cinnamon

Lunch : 2 brown crackers with tuna

dinner: 3 egg omellete with peppers and mushroom

snacks: fruit .

thats a typical day for me.

breakfast... no protein maybe 5 grams maybe. there's no quantity given
lunch...... 25 grams of protein
dinner ........18 grams of protein
snacks------- 0 protein

48 grams of protein.. this is ~ 190 Calories. lets up it to 200. out of 1300.. that is 1/6th so about 17% protein ... you said that it was 50% .
you don't know what you are talking about and just made up numbers.

lets double it and round up... 100 grams of protein... that is 400 Calories out of 1300..... so it's not 50% , it's 33% . at the most. you are eating probably 16% protein.
you're eating next to nothing.

the weight training: the emphasis is never of the amount of weight. if you can do 10 kg bent over rows, 10 kg ohp and maintain good form and not try to show off you'll be fine. there is no need to do ass to the ground squats with heavy weight. just start slowly . this is not powerlifting. finding balance is hard enough. you have to have good ankle and hip flexibility to do squats. Rowing is going to make your muscles grow and potentially become tight. Many people find that their upper back, rotator cuff/rhomboid etc area becomes exceedingly tight. it's the nature of the beast for some people. mild stretches progressively increased in small steps will ensure good functionality.

you haven't mentioned what you actually do in the gym for your workouts but I'd guess that you don't know what you are doing there.

take a week off to recover.
if you are taking stimulants, drop them.
get some rest from the gym
look into taking dance lessons.

[Anth_F]

That diet

I love porridge, but with water? uggghhh no thanks Full fat milk or nothing for me

Also start eating bananas & drinking several cups of green tea per day

[Alissa]

At age 16, you're still growing! You need to focus on fueling growth w/ adequate sleep, nutrition and exercise. At 5'9.5" already, you're a tall girl, and may well be getting taller. Which would only be good for rowing. At the same time, you need good nutrition to fuel your training.

Twenty stone (168 pounds?) is not necessarily too much for a girl as tall as you are. You will, however, want to sort out how much of your weight is fat, and then work on developing more muscle as appropriate.

There are so many different factors in flux for you that I would recommend asking your pediatrician or coach for a referral to a dietitian who specializes in junior atheletes. I am concerned that you are limiting your diet so severely.

Best wishes,

Alissa

[Rowan McSheen]

At age 16, you're still growing! You need to focus on fueling growth w/ adequate sleep, nutrition and exercise. At 5'9.5" already, you're a tall girl, and may well be getting taller. Which would only be good for rowing. At the same time, you need good nutrition to fuel your training.

Twenty stone (168 pounds?) is not necessarily too much for a girl as tall as you are. You will, however, want to sort out how much of your weight is fat, and then work on developing more muscle as appropriate.

Twelve stone, not 20! Same height as me and same weight. Definitely not too much, for a 16-year-old female or a 56-year-old male

[Alissa]

At age 16, you're still growing! You need to focus on fueling growth w/ adequate sleep, nutrition and exercise. At 5'9.5" already, you're a tall girl, and may well be getting taller. Which would only be good for rowing. At the same time, you need good nutrition to fuel your training.

Twenty stone (168 pounds?) is not necessarily too much for a girl as tall as you are. You will, however, want to sort out how much of your weight is fat, and then work on developing more muscle as appropriate.

Twelve stone, not 20! Same height as me and same weight. Definitely not too much, for a 16-year-old female or a 56-year-old male

Exactly right. I confused the conversion factor when I was replying. Thank you! (I'd correct it above, but apparently it's been long enough that I'm no longer allowed to edit/correct my earlier post.)

Alissa

[mdpfirrman]

The suggestions about knowing exactly what you're eating is important. I dropped 60 lbs four years ago and have gained back 10 (in muscle). I use Loseit.com (like myfitnesspal.com). I know exactly every day what I eat, what my macros are and if I'm eating too much or not enough.

[lovelyevi]

What you need to do is eat healthy foods that will not make you gain weight, stay away from carb and sugar, those are two main culprits that make us fat, especially the
refined carb which will turn into sugar in your body and then store as fat. Eat healthy, clean foods, super foods that will give you nutrients but not load you with calories.

Eating nutrients dense foods is a good way to meet our nutritional needs, get healthy yet not load up with calories. Do you know high intensity interval training exercise? It's very effective in helping you burn calories, and the exercise only requires about 20 min to do each time.

Don’t be discouraged if the pounds are coming off slowly because eventually all those tiny pounds will add up to a big number and you will be very happy with the results.

[Parky]

From your initial post you give the clue as to why you're not losing weight.
You say you eat well for 70% of the time. It's probably the other 30% that's letting you down.
I don't drink beer 95% of the time, but when I do, the weight goes on.

Cut out the drinking, sugars, bread, spuds and your crackers and eat mainly protein, but do eat some carbs.

If I want to lose fat by rowing, I do a 12500 pyramid at a steady pace. Start with a 500 and 30secs rest, then add 500 and 30 secs rest until you reach 2500, then down by 500 until you're back down to 500.

I cool down with 30 mins on a bike. If I put enough effort in, I can lose 2lbs a day, but not every day.

I know their are a lot who will say this won't work, but "don't knock it till you've tried it."

[Brewster]

.....I cool down with 30 mins on a bike. If I put enough effort in, I can lose 2lbs a day, but not every day.
I know their are a lot who will say this won't work, but "don't knock it till you've tried it."

2#/day? Yikes! Is that even safe? Do you make a point of eating so that you put it back on and stay relatively stable? Can you sustain that weight loss/day level without running into problems?

[hjs]

.....I cool down with 30 mins on a bike. If I put enough effort in, I can lose 2lbs a day, but not every day.
I know their are a lot who will say this won't work, but "don't knock it till you've tried it."

2#/day? Yikes! Is that even safe? Do you make a point of eating so that you put it back on and stay relatively stable? Can you sustain that weight loss/day level without running into problems?

2lbs is roughly 7/8000 cal energy. For that you need to row 7/8 hours at 2.00 on such a day. Not 100% impossible, but almost.
2lbs of fat per week in the longer run is already a good bit. Only when you are very heavy more is wise.