Any day now the scale MIGHT move.....

[Debbie-k]

Okay, I work out 30 min a day 6 times a week. My SPM is 24, trying to get faster and go longer but I am not exactly fully awake that early in the morning to really pull it off.

Anyhow..... I have been doing this for 3 weeks now, watching what I eat (lots of salad, fruit, high fibre foods etc) yet I haven't lost ONE SINGLE POUND!

Granted my main goals are feeling better and the love to row but it would be nice to see the dial on the scale wiggle a bit instead of my tummy and thighs.

It's not like I expecting to lose 20lbs a month, heck, I am looking to lose only 10-20lbs. I'm stumped as to why nothing has happened. My clothes fit the same, no change in measurements blah blah blah.

I am starting to get a bit down that there has been no change. Ok, I can now have a shower without breaking into a sweat.

Tried doing the various weight loss plans Concept has but they are boring or I spend more time on watching the clock to get the 15/45 sec reps than actually paying attention to form. Truth be told I love doing a solid 30 at 24-25 SPM.

HELP! Any suggestions? Currently 160lb I'd be happy with 150lb but a dream is to be 140lb.

[BobD]

Three possibilities:

1- Your healthy foods are still more calories going in than you are burning. Try a calory count.

2- You really aren't eating enough and your body has dropped into Starvation Mode and is conserving all it can instead of burning it.

3- How much are you drinking? If you don't drink enough your body retains all the water it can...and that is weight too.

[Debbie-k]

1- typically around 1600 than before I started excercising yet quality calories (veggies). Previously 2200 of garbage.

2- I eat if hungry and make sure to schedule snacks through the day instead of huge meals.

3- Between juice, green tea and water I'd say I'm close to, if not more, than the 8 glasses recommended a day.

It's weird, back in January I would walk (glorified stroll) on the treadmill 30 minuntes 3x a week and row 20 minutes 2x a week and I lost weight. Eating the same as now.

Maybe I just need to be patient... I am older now no longer have the metabolism of a 14 year old girl

[paul s]

You also might be losing fat and gaining muscle mass. The weight on the scale might not change that much. Have you noticed your clothing getting looser?

Paul Salata

[parishd]

When I ramped up my rowing at the beginning of the year to start losing some weight, it was a good 4-5 weeks before my weight actually began to drop. In fact for the first 1-2 weeks my weight actually went up! If you keep at it and control your diet, the weight will start to come off before long.

[tiredboy]

For what it's worth, whilst I was under the impression that rowing was good for weightloss, the pounds burnt off (based on the calorie output from the rower and 3500cal=1lb) are not great. Luckily I've seen some i improvement in weight (and trouser looseness) but based on my figures, 5 sessions a week for 30 minutes at 2:10 works out at about 0.6 lbs of weight loss a week. As daily fluctuations with hydration and meals can be almost that (and a harder row can result in over 2lbs lost through sweat). Another figure to think about is 30 mins at 2:55 works out as less than 0.1lb a session.
The fat-muscle conversion is probably also happening - don't bother with scales that show fat% though as they don't seem worth the money (based on personal experience)
As others have said, over the long period it will show improvement so don't be disheartened (that's what I keep telling myself!).

[BobD]

For better or worse running is the best calorie burner, burns about twice the calories for the same time period. It does nothing for your arms and upper body however. I have to get my weight back down to where my knees can take it

[dszil]

A few things to note IMO:

1) It sounds like you're primarily doing 30 minute LISS Cardio (low intensity steady state) sessions. Assuming this is the case...it takes the typical body 20+ minutes of steady state exercise to convert over from burining glycogen to fat stores for energy. So for the first 2/3+ of your session each day...you are doing nothing to burn the CURRENT fat on your body...you're mainly ensuring you won't add more. This being the case...you would get far more bang for your buck by turning your total weekly minutes into fewer longer sessions. In other words...you will burn far more of your current fat stores in a week doing 3 60min sessions of LISS (~120min running off the fat stores) than 6 30min sessions (~60min running off the fat stores)...all other things being held equal of course.

2) Don't get too concerned with "starvation mode". It is a largly misunderstood concept. First of all...you need to be at a 60%+ calorie deficit for an extended period to even approach converting over to it. That's a huge deficit that most people don't have the will-power to maintain even if they wanted to. But the key point is that even if you do...you will still lose weight. It will just be done less efficiently and will include the loss of lean body mass as well. I'm in no way advocating running in starvation mode...just pointing out that entering starvation mode will not cause you to stop dropping pounds. That's why you will find anorexic men/women checking into hospitals in the 60-70lb range. The pounds dropped off slower near the end...and are mostly muscle at that point..but they still continue to come off.

3) Unless you're actually weighing all your servings, etc...it is quite possible that you're taking in more calories than you realize. Most people (including myself) tend to under-estimate their serving-sizes when they are trying to count calories. Just something I thought was worth noting. No idea if it applies in your scenario...but calories in vs calories out really is the key!

[Nosmo]

For better or worse running is the best calorie burner, burns about twice the calories for the same time period. It does nothing for your arms and upper body however. I have to get my weight back down to where my knees can take it

Where do you get this idea? Without some evidence I just don't believe it. Unless you are taking it easy on the erg, you are using approximately the same amount of O2 per unit time, which indicates that your calorie consumption is more or less the same.

I can row much longer at higher intensity then I ever could run. My body never could not handle more then about 30miles per week without getting injured.

[BobD]

Why silly me I got it from the Mayo Clinic:

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/exercise/SM00109

My very smart Polar 625x pretty much agrees with this, if I run for 30 minutes with a pulse of 150, I burn nearly twice as many calories as when I erg for 30 minutes at a pulse of 150. I guess lifting your entire body weight into the air with every step does do something.

[Nosmo]

Why silly me I got it from the Mayo Clinic:

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/exercise/SM00109

My very smart Polar 625x pretty much agrees with this, if I run for 30 minutes with a pulse of 150, I burn nearly twice as many calories as when I erg for 30 minutes at a pulse of 150. I guess lifting your entire body weight into the air with every step does do something.

The chart lists running at 8mph at about 900 calories per hour for someone of my weight. This is typically a bit less then what I do on the erg. So if you believe the chart and the calorie calculator on the PM (neither of which can be very accurate for most people), then at least for me it is more or less the same.

I assume the Polar heart rate monitor calculates Calories from heart rate alone. In which case there are a lot of assumptions that may or may not apply to you. Do you have to tell it what sport you are doing? If so can it distinguish between a typical row boat and a racing shell or erg?

Given what I know about Physics and exercise, it just doesn't make sense to me.

[Nosmo]

Also, I neglected to consider that your heart rate will be higher running because you are standing up then when rowing. So 150 bpm running is not really equivalent to rowing at 150 bpm, but it should not be 2:1 difference in Calories

[BobD]

For me heart rate is the best indicator of how hard I am working no matter which sport. If you reach HRmax running or erging it is still HRmax.

VO2 measurement is more accurate but that is not too convenient for most. The Polar bases it's calculations on your age, sex, your exercise intensity level (low, medium, high) and weight. It is the training measurement device of choice for most of the world's endurance atheletes so I imagine their trainers get good info from it.

Obviously the Docs at the Mayo Clinic used rather more sophisticated measurement methods than the Polar, but their clear conclusion is that for a given exercise interval and weight, running burns the most calories of any sport. And that by quite a bit.

[Nosmo]

For me heart rate is the best indicator of how hard I am working no matter which sport. If you reach HRmax running or erging it is still HRmax.

VO2 measurement is more accurate but that is not too convenient for most. The Polar bases it's calculations on your age, sex, your exercise intensity level (low, medium, high) and weight. It is the training measurement device of choice for most of the world's endurance atheletes so I imagine their trainers get good info from it.

Obviously the Docs at the Mayo Clinic used rather more sophisticated measurement methods than the Polar, but their clear conclusion is that for a given exercise interval and weight, running burns the most calories of any sport. And that by quite a bit.

Yes but your max heart rate will be higher running then erging.

I'm sure the Mayo Clinic uses very sophisticated instruments but without a lot more information one how the tests were made, one can not assume they apply to a given individual. For example two 150 lbs people, the same size and the running the same speed could burn vastly different calories. One runner can be very efficient and his body will hardly move up and down, and another will move up and down a lot.

The number for cycling Mayo provides is about 500 calories per hour. One a hill climb timetrial, I'm sure I'm over 1000*, but on a slow flat 150 mile ride, I may be below 400.

*based purely on energy required to lift me and my bike to a certain height and assuming the efficiency of the human body is about 20% (a fairly safe assumption)

[elfm]

I've had the same experience as Debbie-k. I row about 12000m five or six times a week. It takes me about an hour and ten minutes with theoretical calorie burning of about 650 cal. There's a little bit of weight loss, but if I spend the same amount of time on the treadmill just walking at a rate of about 17 minutes/mile--albeit on an incline--there's way more weight loss. I'm wondering if this is a common experience with women. I'm thinking of basically just counting my rower as a stress reliever which is easy and mindless to use and going back to medium/high impact aerobics for weight control and body shaping.