I am getting frustrated with my weight loss

[Kellen21]

I'm 21, 6'2 and 285 pounds. I already lost 30 pounds. I work out 4-5 days a week. I lift (med-heavy weight), do cardio (hard for 30-45 mins) and DIET. My progress has been crappy for the past 2 weeks. I get fatigued much quicker than I used to be. I can't get my muscles to get sore the day after lifting weights. I'm also gaining weight (my total weight loss was 35 pounds) and can't determine whether it's water weight or muscle. I'm not progressing fast enough and it's driving me f*cking crazy. From all the hard work I've been doing, this is like spitting in my face. I have zero tolerance and patience for this. This stress is killing me.

Should I increase my workouts to 5-6 days a week and workout twice for day for some days?

[benjamintyfresh]

Sounds like you're overtraining. Check out this link: link

Most people who first start working out think that going to the gym as often as possible is the best routine. This is simply not the case. In fact, exercising is only one small part of fitness, which also includes what foods you eat, how much water you drink, and, perhaps most importantly, HOW MUCH REST YOU GET! It sounds to me that your body is not getting enough rest because you go to the gym too much. When you overtrain, you become weaker, more fatigued, and feel lousy emotionally. More importantly, when you overtrain, you tend to burn muscle instead of fat.

To make this really simplified, there are essentially two types of exercise regimens: losing fat and building muscle. If you want to burn fat, you should work out around 5 days a week, focusing on cardio and low-weight, high rep weightlifting (both of these create lower stress on the body, so you can do these exercises more often). As far as weight-loss diet, you should eat less calories than your burn (in your case, you should eat less than 2800 calories, while eating around 280 grams of protein and cutting out carbohydrates).

If you want to build muscle, you should skip the cardio and focus on high weight, low rep weightlifting. You should only be working out about 3-4 days per week, for only about 30 minutes at a time. High weight, low rep lifting creates more stress on the body, so you need more time to rest. Finally, as far as your mass gaining diet goes, you should be eating MORE calories than you burn, and you should be eating a ton of carbohydrates and protein.

The problem I see is you are trying to mix workout styles. For example, you are doing heavy cardio AND lifting heavy weights, all while not resting. If I were you, I would suggest focusing on fat-burn workouts for about six weeks, then switching to mass-gain workouts. This will help prevent plateauing.

[Matrim]

I think you should drop lifting for a month or two because lifting builds muscle and muscle increases weight. That's good weight though but I think you need to get rid of at least 10-20% body weight in order to get faster results and be able to have more energy. I think you should focus on on cardio and diet until then. Make sure to eat well and healthy a few hours before your workouts.

Check the internet. There are so many guys that have blogs and threads in forums explaining what they did to get rid of those extra kilos. Totally worth it. See if they it worked well to lift weights in the start too.

But anyways if you feel too tired to work out well with lifting you should make sure to eat healthy before that's the only way to have enough energy to work out well. If you don't have sores and pain from training the day after you haven't done anything.

[rachiee]

The more weight you lose, the harder the rest of it comes off. I strongly suggest you change up your routine. Your muscles are use to it so you aren't working them out as much. You should change it up everyday. Don't increase it just yet, see how this changes it. Increase your cardio time as well. I suggest an hour but if you're using different machines, then change up the machines every 20minutes. If you're just running then change up the incline even if you just jog, jog at a higher incline for 5 minutes then keep doing that. Once you feel comfortable with the incline either change the amount of time or the incline to a higher one. Also look into green tea/vitamins to increase your fatigue. Your body/muscles are just used to this workout.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like you've hit a plateau! Try mixing up your workouts. Like go. biking or take a boot camp workout class at a gym. My friend hit a wall after losing 45 pounds. She said she changed her routine and bumped up her calorie intake since she had been gaining muscle and she's been good since then! Try some protein powder as well, that could give you some extra strength!

[kheserthorpe]

Soreness is not an indicator to watch. As you get used to working out, you'll tend to get less.

Fatigue plus plateau makes me wonder about overtraining. You could perhaps use a couple weeks of light cardio and maintenance eating before you plunge in again. Take your temperature in the mornings, see if you're running low.

The stress + overtraining can result in your body refusing to put on muscle and storing fat. Basically it won't recover because its keeping itself primed to fight - because of the stress.

[Ezmotts]

You're overtraining and stressing out way too much. Weight loss takes a long time and requires a lot of patience and endurance to achieve your goals.

[dd2011dd]

yea what she said, go vegan and you will get great results!

Dont hope for more than 15 pounds a month or you'll get sagging skin, for loosing weight to fast.

[Anonymous]

fix your schedule. you can't lifet wieghts everyday adn soreness is pain leaving the body. you gain wieght because your buliding muscle.

[Anonymous]

Go vegan.