Rowing and Dieting, loose clothes and no weight loss

[samklr]

Hello everyone.

I have been training for two and half months now, rowing four times every week. Mostly doing long session of 5k-7k, either non stop, or using intervals of 1k or 500 meters.
So far my splits are improving, went from 2:30 (I 'm a beginner) to 1:49 this week. And Doing 5k in 22 minutes using intervals.
I also do a lot of strength training, like 45 min twice a week, and I'm clearly seeing the results, as my body is changing, and my clothes have clearly become too loose for me. I went from being tight in XL shirts, to being loose in L sized shirts.
But, stepping on the scale is depressing, I was 113 Kg for 1,80m height to 109.5 Kg this morning.
What am I missing here? Is building muscle keeping me on this high weight? Should I do more cardio, and more rowing?

Thanks for your input.

[hjs]

Hello everyone.

I have been training for two and half months now, rowing four times every week. Mostly doing long session of 5k-7k, either non stop, or using intervals of 1k or 500 meters.
So far my splits are improving, went from 2:30 (I 'm a beginner) to 1:49 this week. And Doing 5k in 22 minutes using intervals.
I also do a lot of strength training, like 45 min twice a week, and I'm clearly seeing the results, as my body is changing, and my clothes have clearly become too loose for me. I went from being tight in XL shirts, to being loose in L sized shirts.
But, stepping on the scale is depressing, I was 113 Kg for 1,80m height to 109.5 Kg this morning.
What am I missing here? Is building muscle keeping me on this high weight? Should I do more cardio, and more rowing?

Thanks for your input.

Nbr 1 is diet, training is fine, but people overestimate how much energy that takes.
The most easy way to really drop overweight is eating low carb. No cal. counting or anything.

[Ripples]

Agree that diet is #1. A few years ago I eliminated ALL processed foods from my diet. Dropped 40 pounds the first year. I continue to eat clean (primarily organic), fresh, and simply. Fruits, veggies, lots of legumes, poultry, olive oil instead of butter. Red meat only occasionally. Water and green tea throughout the day. But I do enjoy my own sourdough bread made with whole grains. Those carbs I won't give up. Only problem now is in the summer, when I get back into my daily paddling routine, I have to increase my calorie intake so I don't lose weight.

[Palle]

A tape measure would probably give you a more realistic picture of your progress than does stepping onto a scale. You will gain some muscle mass, and that is denser than fat tissue. So you kind of owe it to yourself not to focus too much on your weight and more on e.g. your waist measure and how your clothes fit in general.

[Anth_F]

Yeah diet is key, and very crucial really. Good point made about tape measure... check that waistline. I went from a 38 to now 33!!

Once you get a good diet under way, stick with it for a good while before thinking about the eating junk stuff. I found by eating completely healthy for 4 or so months i slowly started having a treat now and then. Now i find i can have several treats now and then including beers and don't pile on any unwanted pounds Of course, each individual is different from the next, not to mention the variety of training they do to one another.

[edinborogh]

i Erged for 6 months without any weight lose. i use to do short sessions with max hear rate.
ever since i started erging at 80%-85% of my max effort and do it with longer sessions ( 2K after 2k... for a total of 10K per day, 5 days a week ) i lost 12 Kg in the past few months without any change to my diet.
so paying attention to my heart rate and prolonging my sessions did the trick for me. from 83Kg to 70Kg.

[kmcelligott]

Diet is key. Need to track calories and eat at a deficit if you want to lose weight. Go to reddit.com and check out r/loseit group. I started rowing regularly last August. Didn't track calories and didn't lose weight. Found the r/loseit sub at reddit on 15 December. Since then I'm down from 120kg to 105kg. my method is I calculate my TDEE excluding exercise. That's my food calories limit. Then I row to burn the fat, knowing the exercise is creating a calorie deficit that will reduce my weight. Tracking calories isn't hard now there's a bunch of good free apps that make is fairly hassle-free.

Good luck. You're doing the hard work already. Just need to do a bit of record-keeping on the food intake, and there will be no stopping you.

[jamesg]

What am I missing here?

Nothing.

As you've seen, erging gets us fit, and it takes surprisingly little effort.

However getting fat takes surprisingly little effort too. My favorite belt sent me plenty of warning signals, when I shifted up from 82 to 88 kg.

Maybe the grub mass balance (or even the number of dishes or pints of beer) would be simpler to follow than the energy balance, must try it one day. It's all relative, unless we suddenly switch from ham and eggs to spinach.

[James_Chelt_UK]

I hear you buddy, I am same same

I had a drastic shake up of my rowing programme two weeks ago and already I am seeing the benefits.

There are two battles to overcome:

500m split and varying ones fitness programme.

THE 500m SPLIT:

I see you have gone from 2:30 to 1:49, while that is very impressive in a short space of time it is hiding a bigger problem 500m split addiction.

This is a problem because you will
Find you require high amounts of calories to maintain, I find my body dictates what I eat I know I am taking on many more calories when I see my split time is reduced from 2:04 down to 1:55 doing the same 22 strokes per minute over 2 months of training. Everything feels better and I'm slimmer but water retention and muscle is a key problem when it comes to getting on those scales.

VARYING FITNESS PROGRAMME

I love to row, it is a great routine but I realised recently during a game of tennis that simply rowing to improve 500m split times was damaging my fitness in other sports.

I took the big step to walk away from my 6x per week interactive programme where I would average 11000m per workout including 2km warm up 9minutes average and 2km cool down 8.45 average.

I now do the Insanity 45/48/59 minute sessions followed be a varying 10-15minute concept 2 session at UT1 and dropped my UT1 range 2:04-1:58 22spm by 2 seconds on splits to 2:06-2:00 22spm. This has allowed me to balance my overall workout and give my body the full workout.

I no longer row for Ryde Rowing Club so the demand is not there to kick in 1:40 AN (26spm) - 1:58 UT2 (18spm) splits day in day out.

I have since seen a weight loss in real terms how?

Firstly Insanity allows 'do what you can do' based on what you have eaten that day (as many breaks as you need) the concept 2 interactive training does not (set times and set split range. So if you have cut down your daily calorie intake with Insanity you can stop but with rowing you cannot and so for me it is a mental challenge my mind always wins because I know my calorie intake is not sufficient for the workout.

With the Concept 2 I know include 'the calorie burn' at the end of each insanity workout I get my heart up to a decent rate and push through the barrier. This has allowed me to lose weight faster than ever before.

Everyone has a different approach so no right or wrongs

[Ombrax]

I bet if you had something like a Tanita scale (or other similar device) that could tell you your % body fat you would find that it's been decreasing steadily.

Weight by itself is meaningless. For example, I'd much rather be 220 lbs of muscle than 180 lbs of fat. (right now I'm neither)

If you really do want to track your progress get something like this and weigh yourself before bed once a week and keep a log. This can also serve as a motivational tool, because you'll see the gradual improvement, with will cause you to keep at it.

http://www.tanita.com/en/consumer-full- ... mposition/

[samklr]

Hello all.
thanks for all your inputs. really insightful and helpful.
For the past two weeks I changed my training, and managed to get my diet under control (as much as I can) with eating 2000-2300 cals per day and tracking using MyFitnessPal.
In the meantime I changed my training routine. I stopped rowing for 500m intervals, and went for 2k intervals fo 6 or 10k. This is taxing and painful for me. But I'm managing to go throug hit these days. I have been doing this three times every week. I have added some 15-20min Hiit with Kettlebells, almost every day.
And finally the stupid scale is moving again, and this morning I weighted 106.8 Kg. And I'm wearing some old T-shirts of M size again.

Thank you guys, this has been helpful, now the struggle will be to maintain this rythme. Wich looks like a real challenge.

[samklr]

I bet if you had something like a Tanita scale (or other similar device) that could tell you your % body fat you would find that it's been decreasing steadily.

Weight by itself is meaningless. For example, I'd much rather be 220 lbs of muscle than 180 lbs of fat. (right now I'm neither)

http://www.tanita.com/en/consumer-full- ... mposition/

Thanks. I have one of those, the body cardio from Withings. Not sure how accurate it is. I don't buy their metrics, they're easily fooled. Nevertheless, a few weeks ago I used to be 38% body fat, and this morning I was 31%. As far I'm concerned it's nothing more of an indication, but it points in the right direction so far

[Ombrax]

Thanks. I have one of those, the body cardio from Withings. Not sure how accurate it is. I don't buy their metrics, they're easily fooled. Nevertheless, a few weeks ago I used to be 38% body fat, and this morning I was 31%. As far I'm concerned it's nothing more of an indication, but it points in the right direction so far

Congratulations - keep at it.

As you said, the important thing is that it's showing you that you're moving in the right direction. The absolute accuracy of the reading is not as critical as the trend it's showing.

One thing that does affect the reading (at least on the Tanita, or similar devices that measure body impedance) is how well hydrated you are. That's why it's a good idea to do the measurements at the end of the day (assuming you drink enough water during the day). If you do it first thing in the morning your body will certainly be dehydrated, which will artificially increase the % body fat as measured by the device.

Good Luck