Question
i am 21 years of age, i weigh 74kg, and my bmi is around 27.6, most of the weight i carry is around my waist.
I was off a healthy diet for 2 years and barely any exercise. at the beginning of this year i started training and easing into a healthy diet. once a week i treat myself.
i have stayed at 74-75kg since i started training. i exercise mon to sat for at least an hour. 3 days intense cardio and 2 days combination weights. i drink plenty water.
i am still not losing any weight or fat%. please please please help me. my main aim is to lose fat especially around my waist. (i have never had a flat stomach even in school although i was very active with swimming and hockey). please please help me.
Maria
Answer
Hi Maria, can you provide more details about your diet please, maybe provide details of your average day, try to remember everything. Also, when you treat yourself, how much do you have?
We have already written a brief guide called Start Losing Weight and recommend that you first read this page.
Being very active and playing sports is excellent, so keep it up. But do bear in mind that you also need to look carefully at what you are eating and how active you are generally throughout the day. A sedentary person who does sports twice a week may be burning fewer calories than a naturally active person who plays no sport.
Ultimately healthy diet and regular exercise is everything.
i have breakfast every morning usually 30-40g all bran flakes with fat free milk, for snacks either a fruit or carrot and cucumber sticks, lunch either a tuna or chicken sandwich or pasta salad, for dinner, a salad, or portion of veg taking up half the plate, sometimes a fist size brown rice and a fist size portion of meat.
im very careful with my portioning as i follow the guidelines of the holford diet, however on days that i do strength training i add an extra portion of rice or pasta. when i treat myself its usually a small (15-20cm)pizza, sushi, a burger, or chicken chow mein.
i never have sugar in my tea or coffee, and have only one glass of juice a day. rest is water.
thanx for getting back to me so quickly.
OK, the items that are most likely causing the accumulation of fat are:
bran flakes
sandwich
pasta
rice
pizza
burger (i.e. the bun)
chow mein (i.e. the noodles)
So my first advice is to dramatically cut back on all of these for a week and see how that goes. Instead of rice have a green leafy salad with tomatoes. Salads instead of sandwiches too. Rather than have bran flakes every day have a couple of egg on 1 wholemeal toast instead.
On days you are weight training do not have extra carbs – you are already having a lot. Instead get extra protein; eggs, lean meats, poultry, fish. Egg salads, chicken salads – these are great replacements for your lunchtime sandwich.
1 juice a day – stop that too, instead eat 2 oranges (or similar fruit). I will read up on the holford diet and get back to you on that too (I am not familiar with this diet at the moment).
thank you very much. i will cut those out and see how it goes and i will get back to you.
thanks again.
Hi Maria, just took a look at the Holford diet, and it seems that many of the foods you are eating, which are also the ones I listed above, are not allowed. In fact, it seems to really be a low GI diet (although Patrick Holford refers to it as a low GL diet). So bread, pasta, pizza, burgers in buns, all not allowed.
the bread i use is wholewheat bread and brown pasta and brown rice, are these not low GI? i understand the pizza and the burger bun, but these are only once a week, can once a week of these foods have such an impact on the diet?
Well, low GI is better than high, but still, there could well be more energy than you need. And once per week, it could be too much if you are not losing weight the other 6 days.
If your current diet is just maintaining your weight then the bad day will mean you could be accumulating more fat, or if you are losing a little weight in the 6 days, 1 bad day could mean it comes back. If you are failing to lose weight then you need to take a careful look at your whole diet. The exercise sounds good, so the diet must be the weakness.
I’ don’t eat any type of sea food what is the alternative most of your diet receipts are show sea food
Hi Paula, you can eat chicken, turkey, game meats, steak, lamb – they are all good. Also look at vegetarian and vegan protein sources.