Why can't I lose weight?

[Kibi146]

Hi, I am somewhat new to the concept 2 world. I got my rower after my 3rd child was born and my husband took a job in another part of the country. I stayed in New England to finish the school year - I am/was a high school teacher. Due to lack of time and energy (working, selling the house, raising 3 children under the age of 4, and daily life) my rower accumulated lots of dust instead of meters. We finally got relocated 5 months later in Madison Wisconsin. I got on my rower the week we moved into the house and I have been rowing 10K at least 5 days a week for the past month. I am desperately trying to lose the rest of my baby weight - about 30 lbs. The scale keeps going up rather than down. I am getting frustrated but don't want to quit. Does anyone have any thoughts or advise. My diet is okay. I sneak at least 2 servings of candy in a day and have a beer at night, but other than that, I am pretty careful about what I eat. I appreciate any thoughts or advice.

[jamesg]

You look fine on the Output side, so maybe have to think about the Input. Try replacing the candy and the beer with apples and oranges, or vegetable soup.

[michaelb]

I have a couple of thoughts. If you are rowing a 10k 5 days a week, you are doing great. Don't you feel better and feel like you are in better shape? I don't see how you can't be improving, so listen to your body.

There have been other similar reports over the years of people who start rowing to lose weight but find they don't lose weight at first. I don't know if there is really an official answer, but I suspect that rowing has enough of a weightlifting aspect to it that for some people, particularly women, they may put on muscle mass as a result of lifting. The muscles that may get bigger rowing, the quads, butt, back, etc, are the "body core" and are the biggest muscles in the body. So you could be gaining some muscle weight in your core pretty easily.

Obviously to lose weight you need to burn more calories than you take in. 5x10k a week has to be 2500-3000 calories in exercise, so if you can figure out your basal rate, and just eat that many calories (including candy snacks if needed), you should lose 2 lbs every 3 weeks over the long term. When I row to lose weight, I find rowing an hour makes a big difference, so you might want to stretch out to an hour every now and then

Good luck.

[Ducatista]

Kibi, welcome to Madison!

Most people underestimate their caloric intake. Have you thought about keeping a food diary, either old-school or online? I really like myfooddiary.com, a subscription site. I like the interface and features (and the fact that "MFD" in my bookmarks bar could be read as an anti-diet expletive), so I actually use it, which makes it worth the fee to me. But I've heard good things about some of the free online diaries, too.

Veggie soup, a substitute for beer? No way. But I've decided to eliminate beer from my diet until I'm closer to the shape I want to be. So Kibi, if you decide to cut out the beer, know there's another Madisonian sharing your deprivation—during Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale season, no less. I hope to be out of the woods before Maibock season arrives.

[jprisbrey]

If I've been away from rowing and then start again, I almost always gain weight for a period.

I've read on this forum before that when you are not working out you often do not have the same level of hydration, and that when you start to work out a bunch and drink the fluids the workouts require, you can increase weight as your hydration level improves. If you can keep up with the workoust, though, after a point you will stop gaining hydration weight and start to lose weight overall.

At least that's the story I've heard.

Best,
Jeffp

[Kibi146]

Thank you for all of your thoughts and ideas. I actually tried rowing an hour today instead of just the 10K. I was amazed at the difference it made in how I felt. I also think that you were all right on not realizing what my input was. I think I really underestimate what I eat. With your insight, I think I am going to really concentrate on my input and enjoying my rowing. Thank you again for taking the time to give me your ideas. I really appreciate it.
Fondly,
Kibi
P.S. As someone new to Madison, what is Maibock???

[johnlvs2run]

My diet is okay. I sneak at least 2 servings of candy in a day and have a beer at night, but other than that, I am pretty careful about what I eat. I appreciate any thoughts or advice.

I agree with the others here. Your diet is key for weight loss. It is important to eat foods that have a low caloric density, i.e. a high water content, and avoid high caloric density foods. Candy and beer have a high caloric density. It is also important to drink plenty of fresh, pure water, before, during, and after your meals.

[Ducatista]

P.S. As someone new to Madison, what is Maibock???

Ahhh, 'bock. Maibock (May bock) is a light bock beer brewed to celebrate the coming of spring. Our local Capital Brewery does an awesome version—sweet, clean, packs a whallop, and really does taste as if spring is on the way. It's available February through April, go figure.

It's tough to go wrong with Capital brews, and you'll find them everywhere in these parts. They have a stellar lineup of year-round beers and some fantastic seasonals. You might still find Atumnal Fire on the shelf (careful! 8.5% alc), and we've entered Winter Skål season. Cheers.

[anomad]

I have a small digital scale that I weigh my food on. Its amazing once you REALLY start counting every single calorie how little food you really need.

I am 34 6'2" male. At 2500 calories a day is about right for me with normal activity levels, I'll stay very lean at that level. If I exercise more than one hour a day I increase the calories a bit without worry. I actually divide my daily caloric intake into 8 250 calorie feedings and one 500 calorie meal when I am serious. Spaced every two hours from 8 am to 8 pm.

To lose weight comfortably without losing energy you should only operate on a 100 calorie/day deficit. That is only one light beer!

Good luck. With your high output level I think you will have great success if you start seriously tracking input.

[Ducatista]

To lose weight comfortably without losing energy you should only operate on a 100 calorie/day deficit.

Maybe I'm doing the math wrong, but doesn't that equate to a 1lb loss every 35 days? At that rate it'd take close to 3 years to lose 30lbs. Who's got that kind of time?

On the other end of the spectrum, I watched The Biggest Loser for the first (and last) time the other night. A couple of the men on the show were logging double-digit weekly weight loss, and one woman dropped 9lbs in a week. One guy had lost 100lbs in less than three months. In the episode I watched, the woman who lost "only" 2lbs that week was devastated. WTF? Talk about setting up unrealistic expectations.

[michaelb]

when I was dieting, I found that a 2-300 calorie deficit daily was managable in terms of how I was tracking calories and exercise (diet and exercise assistant on my palm). 500 calorie deficit days were pretty lean. +200 or so and I was fat and happy.

But when I looked back at the numbers over 3 months, I found I lost about twice as much weight during that time as I should have when I added up the daily calorie deficit. So either I had my basal metabolism wrong (possible), or rowing hard on a C2 is more calories than you get credit for in the calculations (also possible). Other people have said this here, and based on that I suspect that you continue to burn calories after you work out at a higher rate than your basal rate, and so that may also explain my "extra" weight loss.

[Rocky]

I also am having trouble dropping weight after having a kid. I'm now tracking what I am eating, and am trying to row very regularly-- like you, 10K a day.

My DH is working out in the morning with me, and is dropping weight much more rapidly. And he eats desserts. I know that his metabolism is higher than mine, but I also wonder if mine has slowed down a bit after having the kid? So, I've had to adjust my expectations and my caloric intake downward.

I have found that SLEEP is a big factor. If the kid gets sick, and I am up with her for several nights, I find myself pretty wrecked during the day. On those days I either have to decrease the length of the workout, or I lose the workout altogether. I also find I eat more calories to stay awake.

I gained a couple of pounds back in just 10 days where I had very poor sleep, high stress, and interrupted workouts. Worse, I thought my caloric intake was not far above my usual metabolic rate. I'm convinced now that lack of sleep actually increases my body's tendency to store fat. So, I'm trying to prioritize the sleep and the workouts, and to watch the calories.

I can't wait until the kid gets older and is past this stage of getting a cold every three weeks. This is miserable!

[medved]

Hi Rocky.

Men tend to lose weight more quickly because they have more muscles (in percent).

Try to eat only cooked food (vegetables, poultry, fish) and fruit excluding bananas.
Eat wholegrain pasta and bread.
Be careful about oil, some olive, pumpkin or line oil is beneficial to you.
Take fruits or dried fruits instead of the sweets
Peanuts, walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds contain non saturated oils which is good to your cardio vascular system.

It's recommended that you eat more meals a day (a piece of fruit is a meal )
So that you metabolism is conitunally active, no starvation period where
you body sets up the alarm.

[BobD]

You said it yourself "Except for a couple of candy bars and a beer". You simply must start counting calories. If your Input is greater than the calories you burn, you can not possibly lose.

No matter what diet or exercise you use, it is a simple equation and the
Summary is: "Eat Less, Move that Bippy More!!"

[Roywhite]

Kibi. I just started rowing also. I have high blood pressure and need to get my weight down and my b.p. back to normal. Im on a 'low level' medicine and my Doctor wants to up it to something with more side effects. I weighed 220 (When I started) and am 6 foot tall. Fat tends to pack onto me like a walrus so I dont look fat but am. I went to my local 24 hour fitness and joined up 2 months ago. I use all the machines there and try to go into aerobic debt. I discovered the rowing machine and started in.

I liked it. I loved it.

I usually do an hour 3 times a week and sometimes 30 minutes with 30 minutes on an eliptical trainer or treadmill. I began gaining weight!!! Frustrating as heck really! However. my pants felt looser and I began feeling ALOT better and best of all, my B.P. started dropping! (From an average of 148 over 92 down now to 135 over 82)

I've noticed that when i drive (I work as a courier for FEDEX) and go around bumpy corners in my truck I dont have to tighten my torso up to keep vertical in my trucks seat and my upper back and lower back doesnt hurt as much either. Feels much looser and relaxed. I usually cover around 13700 Meters in an hour and am going for the million meter club!!!

After 2 months of daily workouts (I only started logging my rows (Sorry ERGING?) about a week or two ago so I'm up to 70 thousand meters)) I FINALLY started losing weight. I got up to 225 and stayed steady there for a month. Now I'm at 213 and dropping about a pond a week. I feel good and am REALLY excited about FINALLY taking some positive strides and direction toward better health. I love scuba diving and my air use has improved tremendously. My resting heartrate is around 50 now. So. just keep it up and dont worry too much about your weight. The main thing is cardio vascular health and I'm certain I was putting on muscles in my entire body since the rowing machine works EVERYTHING OUT!

I think I'm the only person in the entire club who uses the rowing machine because its such a difficult and painful machine but I have a masochistic streak in me.

Im hooked!