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journi167 New Member
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I live in Germany. I had a tummy tuck in October of last year. I am happy with it overall. My belly looks better than ever before in my life. I am 40 years old. Prior to my surgery I lost 130lbs and maintained for a year. After the surgery it took a while for me to recover and I had a bout with a house without a kitchen (long story). I gained 25-30lbs. No biggie. I worked out like a horse and ate 1300-1500 calories day for 2 years to lose 130lbs. I know how to do it. It is a lifestyle of fitness. My problem is, no matter how hard I am trying, I am not losing weight. I do cardio 6 (45 min) times weekly, strength with a trainer 2 (45min)times and I am eating in the same calorie range, but I am not losing weight. I had a thyroid test, metabolic test and fitness test to see what amount of oxygen I had during workouts. All are normal. Now I am left to wonder if this is some residual effect of my tummy tuck and lypo. Am I imagining things or is this a known phenomenon?? Please help me. I am willing to work as hard as I have to to succeed, I just don't want to keep running in to brick walls. It is very bad for my self esteem and my emotional health. I can handle problems that have solutions, but I cannot handle those with no way of solving. I am looking forward to your response Simone |
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Imaw89 Distinguished Member 
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Very late response but maybe your still confused? 1200-1500 calories isn't enough calories for your body doing that much exericse. Increase your calorie intake to maybe 1800-2000 calories. With all that exercise you probably starved all your muscles! Depending on your current weight you could even do 2300-2500 calories a day and still loose weight if you do that much exercising! |
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journi167 New Member
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Thanks for the response. 1800-2000 calories huh? I am petrified of that much food. I think I would gain weight. I had a metabolic test that said I should stay between 1284-1546 calories daily to lose weight. But it never accounted for exercise. I wish I had more to go on than just an opinion. Is there a reason for your opinion? A formula that I can rest my fear upon? I spoke with a nutritionist who has me doing South Beach in many regards. I do not eat sugar, breads, pastas. I am eating lean protein, lots of veggies, yougurt and nuts. My treat is a sugar free fudgsicle. I have been attempting this plan for about 2 weeks now. Still I havent lost weight, and I find it difficult to work out with the same strength. I have been sticking with 1600 calories and that is working a little better with my daily activity level. 1800...I am supposed to eat every 3 hours, so that would be 300 claories 6 times a day. Its hard for me to eat that many times. What do you think of 450 calories 4 times per day. Eating at 8, 12, 4, 8. ???? Willing....  |
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Imaw89 Distinguished Member
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If you want another persons opinion, ask Nir, Pete, or most of the active members here and they'll tell you that 1300-1500 calories is a tad low for all the exercises you do. A big factor is that, we don't know your gender or your current weight so we can't give you our most accurate information. Also, instead of eating "more foods" to increase calories, eat a little bit of peanut butter or throw a few extra nuts in your foods. Maybe eat a couple apples or banana's threw the day if you think peanut butter isn't a good option. (Peanut butter is very dense in calories, fat and protein but the fat is probably the better part of it because it's healthy fats, I <3 peanut butter  )Also if nobody responds try another part of the forums where it's more viewed such as General Dscussions. |
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journi167 New Member
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Female/220lbs/5'6"/40 Thanks for your help!!! |
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Nir Senior Administrator 
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journi167 wrote: I had a metabolic test that said I should stay between 1284-1546 calories daily to lose weight. But it never accounted for exercise. Hi. Sorry you've not had good results over the last month. Can I ask what your metabolic test result actually was? (not the 'what to eat to lose weight' but the actual RMR/BMR result that was measured). Let's review: there are (as always) two strategies, pulling at opposite directions, and without trying we'll never know which one will work better. ONE (let's call it the BFFM approach) is to repair (increase) your metabolism through gradual refeeding, and once a higher maintenance level is established, being careful to only create a moderate calorie deficit therafter. The OTHER strategy (let's call it the 'Eat To Live' approach) is to keep calories low (say around 1200), ensuring that food choices are excellent to provide all the micronutrients you require for health and satiety - basically focus shifts from grains to vegetables and quantities of animal products are reduced. When I read your other item, back in July, I had assumed that your recent no-kitchen episode where you gained back some weight would have sent you calories up substantially and therefore fixed your metabolism in case it was depressed. Of course, this could have then been undone when you had gone to the other extreme by resuming exercise and taking calories to create large deficits. So maybe you've already tried the first strategy but maybe you haven't given it a fair go. Whatever you choose though, you ought to commit to it and do it for a fair few weeks so you can then say with confidence that it did or did not work. Which appeals more to your instinct? |
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journi167 New Member
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Hi, and thank you so much for your willingness to even discuss this with me. I really appreciate the way you guys take care of each other and new comers. I have been to a lot of sites where I didn't feel welcomed, more like I was intruding on an established family of some kind. Thank you!! Now to answer your questions. Bare with me. I am goin to give you more information than you may need, but it will hopefully provide answers so you can help me move in the right direction. 1. You know about the 130lbs loss and subsequent 30lbs gain after the kitchen ordeal. I did have too many calories and move too little during that time. You are absolutely right. I didnt even notice an increase in weight right away either. I think it was gradually increasing with my convalescence and then the amount and kind of food spiked it up. 2. The MetaCheck Test. Total energy output 2223 calories (RMR + lifestyle + exercise). It goes on to say that my Maintenance zone is 1584-2058 and my Weight loss zone is 1268 to 1584 and my Medically supervised zone is 0-1268. My metabolism was Norma (-10%). It was at the very lowest end of normal, which means it would be slow under the right circumstances. I am reading this from a printed sheet. I hope it offers all that is needed. 3. Tanita Body Composition Analyzer TBF-300A. From this machine my BMI wa 36.3. Fat% 49.3, BMR 1759. It also had some categories I have no clue about (impedance, ffm, tbw) 4. Which direction appeals more to my instinct? Well, the one I am most comfortable with is the one that will cause me to lose weight. I am not interested in rapid weight loss in that I will lose 4-6lbs a week. I know that is not healthy and quite likely not probable unless I am willing to starve. I enjoy exercise. I burn a minimum(on my most unproductive day) 350-500 calories. However, my average burn, according to my Polar F6 heart rate monitor is 600 calories per work out. On the days that I do cardio and weight training, I burn 900-1000 calories. I work out 6 days weekly, Sunday being my day off. I do weights twice weekly with a trainer and it is quite grueling not laxidasical. My cardio is a mixture of things from running, elliptical to group aerobics classes and stair masters. I want to be able to have the energy to maintain this routine (as I really do like feeling strong and capable) while allowing the right mix to move the scale down 2lbs per week until I reach my goal of 167lbs. I just need help figuring out what that is. As far as food goes, lean protein and veggies without added sugar and grains is best for me. Of course I add legumes for fiber and yogurt (only on occassion) for calcium and nuts for additional nutrients (walnuts). I try to avoid salt as I have HBP. Did I answer your question? LOL 5. Commit. Milton, I am willing to give it my best effort. I think understanding what I am doing is the key. I appreciate so much the level of information you are providing to help me to gain that understanding. You seem to know what you are talking about. Can you help me in this regard? I don't want a diet plan, as I psychologically fail before I even start. I want direction....if I know I am going in the right direction i will get there come #%@&! or high water! Will you help me?  forward... Simone |
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Nir Senior Administrator
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In case you wanted to know, ffm = fat free mass (total weight - fat weight); tbw = total body water (a part of your ffm is water). >The MetaCheck Test. Total energy output 2223 calories (RMR + lifestyle + exercise). It is a shame that it only gives you the figure that includes RMR + lifestyle + exercise, because unless it also tells me what assumptions have been programmed for 'lifestyle' and 'exercise', I have no way of knowing what it measured for RMR. Looking at it another way. The RMR calculator on this website gives your unadjusted RMR at 1685. Your RMR was measured as '10% less than normal' so we'll call it 1517. Trying to read between the lines, I notice 2223/1584 is about 1.4 so perhaps they measured your RMR at 1584? And 1268 is about 80% of that. So they're basically saying "don't go below 80% of unadjusted RMR without medical supervision" - this is common advice. > I burn 350-500 [..] 600 [..] 900-1000 calories. You need to take all these figures with a pinch of salt. The same way that your RMR is 10% less than it would have been predicted from formulas, so will the number of calories burnt through activity. It will be something but it will be less than your gadgets say. After all, if you were burning those amounts, your body would have been letting go of more weight. The figure the Metabolic test gave you was that, including exercise, you were burning an average of 2223 per day. This might be an underestimate of your exercise, but it might not be. The more exercise we do the more we adapt to it and spend fewer calories doing it. Just something to keep in mind. It sounds like you are commiting to doing 'strategy 2' for a while, keeping calories at the suggested low end. Remember that this is an experiment. The result will either be "yes it works" or "no, it doesn't". The result will only be meaningful if you can actually stick to the plan of keeping calories at the low end for at least a few weeks (say 4, back-to-back). If you stick with it and results are disappointment than at least we will know it didn't work and do something else (either reduce carb grams, or do a gradual refeed, or zig-zag calories etc.) Nir |
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journi167 New Member
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Nir, Thanks again! I have a couple of questions though. 1. The Metacheck. You said you needed to know what numbers they added. Maybe this will help. It states "exercise +165 calories" and the words "estmated from measurement. Then "life style and activity +474 calories with the words "estimated from measurement". There is a statement that says for exercise "this is an estimate of the number of calories you would burn in 30 mins at a moderate level". For Lifestyle it states "this is the number of calories you burn performing your daily activities...working, playng, eating, etc. Activityaccounts for a signicant portion of the calories you burn each day. Does this help?? 2. Today I did 65 mins on the elliptical. The monitor I wear showed my avg heart rate 87%. I did the manual check and got 159 which is really close. Even at 10% less. I am burning a lot of calories. Today I was completely soaked with sweat and the perceived exertion was well over 8 on a 1-10 scale. I kept the rpms above 170 for the entire work out. My monitor recorded 722 calories burned. Even at 10% less, I burned a lot of calories and do this or more daily. 3. The comments made in number 2 make it clear that I can NOT do a low calorie diet. I am sorry if my comments made you think it was my choice. It is not. My choice is to let go of grains and carbs other than veggies and beans. I can do this and increase my calories to 1584 without feeling like I am going to gain weight. My question for you though is what do YOU think my dailly intake should be? And are you a proponent of "low carb" or South Beach? I really don't like "diets" at all. But I can live a life without bread and rice and pastas without issue. I know that I can have them occassionally when i have reached a certain point on my journey, but it won't bother me for a month or so at all. Do you mean to say low carb or reducing certain types of carbs? Please expound. Looking forward to your responses... Simone |
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Nir Senior Administrator
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I do like your idea of letting go of certain 'unhelpful' classes of carb-containing foods. That is certainly a good way of looking at it. It means you can continue to eat 'unlimited' amounts of vegetables and some fruit etc. Side note: one of my personal pet peeves is the habit (which many people have) of using the words 'carbs' to mean rice/pasta/bread/potato and 'protein' to mean fish/chicken/beef. Yes of course it is true that rice is mostly carbs and (non-oily) fish is mostly protein, but the words 'carbohyrate' and 'protein' actually have a different meaning. They are names of macronutrients. Almost all foods are made up from more than one nutrient. The breakdown of calories for Broccoli, for example, is roughly 50% of calories from protein, 30% from fat, 20% from carbohydrate - and so on. The extra info helps. Doing some math, it is becoming clearer: your RMR was measured at 1584 calories. The activity factors used by their software were roughly something like this: 1.2 bed rest 1.3 sedentary Interestingly, your measured RMR of 1584 is only 6% lower than the 1685 calculated on this website (which uses the Muffin equation, which for women is For women: (10 x w) + (6.25 x h) - (5 x a) - 161 where w = weight in kg, h = height in cm, a = age in years). Regarding workouts: it sounds like you've got intensity monitoring covered from both angles (HR and RPE) so you're keeping it intense, which is great. I just want you to consider that any formula-based estimate of calories burnt could potentially be way off. If you keep in your head that anything could be a 30% overestimate, this would help you stay grounded. It isn't necessarily so, but it is a good approach to have. Even if I took 30% off 722 it is still a respectable 505 calories burnt. I recommend thinking of your calories-burnt on a non-exercise day as 1.2 x 1584 = 1900. That should be your maintenance level. Therefore, in your non-exercise no-kitchen days you were probably exceeding that level (which is pretty easy if you don't have access to a kitchen). Normally I would tell normal-weight people to not reduce calories below their unadjusted RMR (1584 in your case) and those who have BMI 30 or greater (who are usually sedentary or lightly active) that they can go as low as 75% of their unadjusted RMR (1188 in your case). However I take your point that this won't fuel you sufficently for your workouts, so whilst 1200-1584 is probably a good range for your rest days, it is probably sensible to at 1584+ on your workout days. Here is one possible guideline: 1900 + (exercise calories burnt) - (1000 calories deficit). So if you burnt 722 calories with exercise that woul be 1900+722-1000 = 1622. As for what I think about 'South Beach' - I think it is too high in animal products to be healthy. Personally I am a fan of Eat To Live, which is more plant-based (not necessarily vegetrian, but lots of vegetables - for fat loss grains and starches are restricted to about 250 calories per day altogether). Having said that, 'Eat To Live' can be done in many flavours. The default flavour works out 60-80% of calories from carbohydrates (vegetables, fruits, beans), but nuts, seeds and avocados can be used to 'tweak' it to be higher-fat, moderate carb (for diabetics - or for children and athletes) |
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daniele_a New Member
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Hi guys, My name is Daniele and I'm from Canada. I have my tummy-tuck scheduled for January '09 and I'm travelling all the way to Poland to have it done. I'm happy with the medical offer I got, I like how the clinic is equipped and how it looks like in general, the location is convenient etc. But I'm currently getting a bit nervous about the whole trip .. or maybe it's excitement ? In any case, I thought I would get some support from people who chose to have their surgery abroad. I would really appreciate it. I was also wondering if any of you by any chance heard of Medtrip.eu from Gdansk ? I actually managed to get to some of their patients that completed dental treatment and they were very satisfied, but I'm still looking for someone who had any kind of surgery with Medtrip. If you heard anything about Medtrip, please please let me know, I would be extremely grateful ! Thank you, Daniele |
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The Converter Restricted Member
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Last edited on 10 December 2008 11:30 pm by |
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