July/August Weight Loss Challenge

[redrhodie]

It seems like a lot of the people here who have had successful weight loss have worked out with a personal trainer. How much do you think that has helped, and why?

[Veronica]

I honestly hadn't thought about how much sugar and unnecessary carbs I was eating. Prior to working with a trainer, I had been doing and training to ride double centuries - really how fat could I be?

I kept a diary of my foods and we pored over it and that really helped me drop the last ten pounds.

Additionally the added muscle - I've gained 5 pounds of muscle in three years - burns more calories. And I haven't added to my calorie count.

I really don't know how many calories I'm eating a day now. But here is a typical day:

B: 3/4 cup Great Grains cereal on top of 3/4 cup non fat Greek yogurt mixed with a serving of Brown Cow yogurt.

S: an apple with 4 (?) TBS peanut butter. I don't measure it, so I'm guessing

L: a bunch of fresh spinach with about 6 oz grilled chicken, some cherry tomatoes, some almonds, 5 croutons (I count!) and 2 TBS balsamic vinaigrette - always measured.

S: nuts, or a protein bar, or trail mix

D: basically a plate of meat, chicken or fish


I should eat more veggies, but I really don't like them.

Days I'm doing two cardio sessions I do eat more carbs - cinnamon toast and some pasta usually.


Veronica

[chryss]

It seems like a lot of the people here who have had successful weight loss have worked out with a personal trainer. How much do you think that has helped, and why?

I worked with a personal trainer during my last months in London, between October 2010 and January 2011. When I started, I had been cycling to work most days (a bit over 3 miles / 5 km one way), and was eating what I thought was not badly (well... it wasn't, quality-wise, but the portions were too large and there were occasional excesses on sweets beyond what I could afford), but hadn't seen any weight loss from a start at nearly 230 lbs. I hadn't done any organised sport in maybe 20 years, had never been to a gym, wouldn't know where to start using the machines, thought fitness wasn't for me. I'm also not naturally coordinated.

So when I signed up for a gym I also took a special offer of a few sessions with a trainer. The gym (a large Virgin Active in London) hooked me up with a young man called Jason, and it was a great match. (First important point: you need to be comfortable with your trainer's style.) He was immensely helpful: he pushed me more than I would have, set me a reasonable but doable strength training program and *simple* effective cardio. During the time with him I went down nearly 30 pounds, and he was very proud of me.

What I didn't work on with Jason but have seen others benefit was nutrition. My frank opinion -- and the following is full of assertions I'm not backing up by much -- is that it is really quite hard to eat the right amount of calories and the right stuff. Most overweight people don't seem to overeat by very much, so like myself it may be hard to see what's wrong with the eating. And almost worse, once people decide to lose weight, I see a lot go for an excessively low 1000-1200 calories and strenuous exercise. I also think it's harder for a woman as our margin of error tends to be smaller. I used (still use) Myfitnespal for calorie counting, read about BMR, listened to the (slightly dogmatic but useful) Fat2Fit Radio podcast, and ate 1400 calories or thereabouts, plus a little extra on high exercise days and once-a-month occasions for about 8 months before upping the calories a little. I've seen others do similar programs supervised by a trainer with great success.

[chryss]

Sorry, forgot Friday, but would like to join back again now after my surgery.

Starting out at 142.6 lbs, goal for end of October: 140.